A quartet (with artistic director David Yang, viola, third from left) performing during a previous Newburyport Chamber Music Festival. Concerts this summer from August 10 through 15.
Some of you already spent your stimulus money on Tanglewood reservations. Even the smallest crack in the pandemic restrictions encourages optimism in music lovers.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s recent announcement that live performances will take place at Tanglewood this summer coincided with similar announcements from other presenters. Across New England, festivals are working to create safe environments, under various government guidelines, that will bring back live music. All the New England states are allowing limited gatherings, and tickets are certain to be hard to get.
The BSO offers no programming or artist details until April 8, but the orchestra has announced a stripped-down schedule—approximately half the usual concerts—running July 9 through Aug. 16. Andris Nelsons conducts eight programs, and all concerts will take place for reduced audiences in the open-air Shed. The Boston University Tanglewood Institute will still be remote this summer, and adult-education offerings from the Tanglewood Learning Institute are likely to be as well.
In Boston, the Landmarks Orchestra, which brightens the Esplanade with its picnic-friendly performances at the Hatch Shell, is unable to announce plans for live music yet, but is hopeful to renew its Wednesday evening concerts.
Landmarks Orchestra, shown here during a previous summer performance, hopes to return to the Hatch Shell for its popular Wednesday concerts this year. Michael Dwyer photography
The Aston Magna Music Festival, with performances at Brandeis, at Longy and around its home base in the Berkshires, but has not announced exact dates but is planning performances.
The Boston Early Music Festival—the biennial extravaganza, not the subscription series—announced earlier this year that it would have to be all-virtual. Sadly, that means another two-year wait for those delectably urbane 11:00 p.m. recitals. A virtual reprise of the 2017 centerpiece opera, André Campra’s “Le Carnaval de Venise,” will help.
North of Boston, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival will not announce specific plans until late April. But indoor concerts are definitely coming this summer to the Shalin Liu Performance Center.
Programs in July (9–11), August (6–8, 13–15) and September (9–10, 12, 17–19)—artistic director Barry Shiffman will give specifics in late April—will go on sale in May.
The Newburyport Chamber Music Festival has live-music plans. “Garden Variety” is artistic director David Yang’s mantra this summer, and outdoor performances will take place August 10–15, both in Newburyport and in surrounding towns. Programs include a world premiere by composer Eric Ewazen for string quartet and tuba.
Salem Classical—“champing at the bit to start up again,” says director Richard Guerin—has not yet made plans for live performances. Historic homes are the most appropriate venues for Guerin’s programming gems, and those will be slow to reopen. Manchester Summer Chamber Music, postponed again until 2022, faces the same problem with its home base, the Barn at Castle Hill.
Further north, artistic director Heng-Jin Park’s Halcyon Music Festival in southern New Hampshire cannot perform live this summer—venues have not opened soon enough to make plans. But Park has an ambitious series of live-streamed concerts planned in the middle of June.
The Marlboro Music Festival, directed by pianists Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss, has posted its summer dates (July 17–Aug. 15), but as usual its concert dates will follow later in the season. Marlboro has never revealed programming in advance anyway—performances follow the teaching schedule at the famed festival—so visitors are accustomed to wait-and-see events.
Yellow Barn in Putney, VT, will run July 4–Aug. 7, and include outdoor performances, but details are still being sorted out.
Monadnock Music runs July 17–Aug. 14, with sixteen outdoor concerts in various southern New Hampshire venues. Most events are free, and there’s lots of lunch hour performances. Looks like a good year to get familiar with artistic director Rafael Popper-Keizer’s programming ideas.
The Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival will try for a pared-down two-week season, with five concerts, but is still working out details with its multiple venues. The Meeting House Chamber Music Festival, typically Mondays throughout June and July, has not announced yet.
On the South Coast, the Buzzards Bay MusicFest plans for its Tabor Academy performances in Marion, July 14–18. And Music from Land’s End has live concerts planned for its home base in Wareham and in Marion, New Bedford and Sandwich as well, July 23–25 and Aug. 13–15.
In Rhode Island, the Newport Music Festival will announce specific plans in April, but has posted save-the-dates for July 4–20, planning 17 concerts. The festival has teased a few details: music by Jessie Montgomery, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges and Teresa Carreño; a world-premiere commission; an opera night.
Music on the Hill has an outdoor concert in Warwick May 30, a silent-film livestream in June, and is hoping for indoor programs in late August and September. The Kingston Chamber Music Festival is planning its usual concert schedule for July 24–Aug. 1 on the URI campus.
Across the country, venues are slowly re-opening. The New York Philharmonic performs in mid-April for live audiences, and Opera Philadelphia returns to the stage with “Tosca” in May.
The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra performs indoors this month, Minnesota in June, and symphonies in Utah, Orlando, Charleston, Ft. Worth, Dallas and Houston will be onstage soon.
Santa Fe Opera holds four productions this summer, and the Santa Fe Chamber Festival runs July 18–23. Aspen Music Festival has a stripped-down schedule planned for July 1–Aug. 22. The trendy Ojai Festival near Los Angeles will be moved back a few months to September.
Keith Powers covers music and the arts for Gannett New England, Leonore Overture and Opera News. Follow @PowersKeith; email to keithmichaelpowers@gmail.com.