Quarter Notes

There is one group of BSAV volunteers who serve as special ambassadors for Tanglewood as they meet and greet a group of visitors every Wednesday, Saturday morning, and Sunday afternoon at the Main Gate, for a free, half-mile mile, 60-90-minute walking tour of the property. They also conduct special tours throughout the summer, arranged through the BSAV office. Those groups may include Road Scholars, global organizations, college groups, Berkshire County organizations such as independent living communities, as well as special children’s groups.

Eash season, Tour Guides conduct approximately 70 tours. Volunteers who sign up to lead tours make a significant commitment to spend many hours learning about the Tanglewood property, the halls, and the programs by pouring over the 61-page Guide’s Guide, which is updated annually and is available on the BSAV Portal. It describes, in detail, the history and layout of the approximately 525-acre Tanglewood campus. The campus includes 210 acres of the original Tappan estate, the 120-acre Highwood estate, and the 170-acre Seranak estate, along with numerous open fields and other BSO-owned parcels. Tour Guides must also have a working knowledge of the music halls, including the 5,103-seat, fan-shaped Koussevitzky Music Shed, the primary concert hall for the Tanglewood Music Festival, along with Ozawa Hall and the Linde Center for Music and Learning.

Tours move from the Main Gate to the Shed and surrounding areas, including the Tappan House and formal gardens. The tour then goes on to the Leonard Bernstein Campus, which includes Ozawa Hall and the new Linde Center on the southwestern edge of the Tanglewood campus, accessible by pedestrian pathways.

Len Sigal, current project lead for Tours explains, “Each tour guide takes a slightly different route and talks about various aspects of Tanglewood from the extensive requirements of maintaining this property, to an overview of the architecture of the buildings, to the specifics of music programs planned for the season. All tours start with questions and comments from the visitors, to determine what they are interested in learning about Tanglewood.”

Howie Arkans, the Tanglewood Tours project lead for several years said, “My tours usually spent half of the time at the main campus around the Shed and the Tappan House, and the other half split between the Bernstein campus, covering the design, construction, and programs at Ozawa Hall, then moving on to the Linde Center. We need to know not only the history of Tanglewood, and the schedule of musical events for the season, but specifics about the buildings.” Howie found that there is wide diversity among the people who take these tours, “from Berkshire country residents who may be here for the first time, and others who are regular attendees but never took a tour of the grounds, to those individuals who are vacationing in the Berkshires from countries throughout the world. I always ask where people are from before the walking tour begins,” he said.

Tanglewood tours were started by a local Berkshire resident, Carrie Peace. A volunteer at Tanglewood for 23 years, Carrie used to sit at the Main Gate and people would come up to her and ask a lot of questions about the property. She proposed the idea of offering them tours, and along with her husband Arthur, they compiled the first Guides Guide. Carrie Peace is also the person for whom the Spirit of Volunteering award at Tanglewood is named.

The Tanglewood grounds are open throughout the year for the public to visit, but tours are only available during the summer. Any volunteer who would like to go on a tour can do so on the days of the Coffee Talks at 10am: Friday, June 30; Saturday, July 8; Friday, July 28; and Saturday, August 5. You can also take a tour on Wednesday and Saturday mornings or Sunday afternoons before the concert.