FRIDAY, JULY 27 – NELSON FREIRE JOINS MARCELO LEHNINGER AND BSO FOR MOZART AND VILLA-LOBOS
On Friday, July 27, at 8:30 p.m., BSO Assistant Conductor Marcelo Lehninger joins the orchestra along with his fellow Brazilian Nelson Freire, who performs as soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466 and Momoprecoce for piano and orchestra by Heitor Villa-Lobos, whose music featured regularly during the early years of the festival. The concert will also include Mussorgsky’s evocative Pictures at an Exhibition in Ravel’s iconic orchestration, which was a specialty of Koussevitzky and which has a long Tanglewood history.

SATURDAY, JULY 28 – MAESTRO CHARLES DUTOIT LEADS BERLIOZ’S SPECTACULAR LE DAMNATION DE FAUST
Eminent Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit leads Le Damnation de Faust the following evening, July 28 at 8:30 p.m. The work had its memorable Tanglewood premiere in 1954 with Charles Munch and was last performed at the festival in 2007. Not quite an opera and not quite an oratorio, Le Damnation de Faust (which even the composer himself wasn’t sure should or could be staged) is a kind of hybrid work that Berlioz called a légende dramatique, based on Goethe’s stupendous verse-drama Faust. The July 28 performance features mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, tenor Paul Groves, baritone Sir Willard White, bass-baritone Christopher Feigum, the PALS Children’s Chorus, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

SUNDAY, JULY 29 – EMANUEL AX AND CHARLES DUTOIT JOIN BSO FOR BEETHOVEN AND TCHAIKOVSKY
Mr. Dutoit returns to lead the BSO Sunday, July 29, at 2:30 p.m., in a program of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with soloist Emanuel Ax, who has performed at Tanglewood more than 30 times and every season since 1985. Beethoven’s Third Concerto, composed mostly in 1800 and premiered in 1803, not only stands as a bridge between the composer’s two previous Mozart-esque concertos and the more forward-looking Fourth and Fifth, but is also an inspired work in its own right. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, in its thematic cohesion and development as well as its journey from adversity to triumph across four movements, pays hyper-Romantic homage to Beethoven’s own Fifth Symphony.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF TANGLEWOOD
Tanglewood, one of the world’s most beloved music festivals and the famed summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra located in the beautiful Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, celebrates its 75th anniversary season, June 22-September 2, with a spectacular lineup of musical guests and programs that spotlight Tanglewood’s rich tradition of presenting summertime concerts at their best since 1937. Tickets, priced from $9 to $117 for regular season concerts, are available at tanglewood.orgor at 888-266-1200; tanglewood offers free lawn tickets to young people age 17 and under and a 50% discount on lawn tickets to college and graduate students.

PERFORMANCES IN OZAWA HALL ON AUGUST 3
THURSDAY, AUGUST 2 – BARITONE GERALD FINLEY MAKES TANGLEWOOD DEBUT
Thursday, August 2, brings the long-awaited Tanglewood debut of distinguished baritone Gerald Finley, known for his performances of operatic roles ranging from Mozart’s Don Giovanni to John Adams’s J. Robert Oppenheimer in Doctor Atomic. In an 8 p.m. Ozawa hall recital with pianistJulius Drake, Mr. Finley performs a program of early Romantic and 20th-century music, featuring songs by Austro-German masters of lieder Carl Loewe and Schubert, and off-the-beaten-path selections by Ravel and Benjamin Britten.
PERFORMANCES BY THE TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER, THE BSO’S SUMMER MUSIC ACADEMY
MONDAY, JULY 30 – DUTOIT LEADS TMCO, TMCO VOCAL FELLOWS, AND TFC IN STRAVINSKY’S LES NOCES
In one last 2012 Tanglewood appearance, Mr. Dutoit takes the podium in Ozawa Hall on Monday, July 30, at 8 p.m. to lead the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, TMC Vocal Fellows, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in Stravinsky’s Les Noces, a unique “dance cantata” that combines ballet with vocal music, using a unique, sparse orchestration of percussion and four pianos, and text assembled by the composer from traditional Russian wedding songs. The program also features TMC Conducting Fellows and will also include Messiaen’s Oiseaux Exotiques, Varése’s Intégrales, and Magnus Lindberg’s Gran Duo.