LENOX/STOCKBRIDGE — Remembrance and resilience against the backdrop of Nazi tyranny are in the spotlight in a pair of outstanding summer programs at the Tanglewood Learning Institute, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s cross-disciplinary program that explores the arts and humanities. Both take place amid the sprawling, lavish grounds of Tanglewood, in Lenox, the summer home of the BSO.
The first one, “I Am Alive Because of Music” with Mark Ludwig, is coming up on Saturday, July 18, at 2 p.m., at Studio E, Linde Center for Music and Learning.
Fulbright Holocaust music scholar Ludwig will present a compelling multi-media program of music.
“I am alive because of music,” a phrase echoed by many composers and artists living under Nazi tyranny, captures how faith and music became deeply intertwined sources of resistance, comfort, and survival,” Ludwig told the Journal. Figures such as Olivier Messiaen, Arnold Schoenberg, and the composers imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp drew on these forces to create works of remarkable resilience. Ludwig, founder and executive director of the Boston-based Terezin Music Foundation, will explore several of these inspiring compositions, presented alongside live performances of piano and vocal music with Elizabeth Blanke-Biggs, soprano and pianist Michael Recchiuti.
The second program, “February, 1933” will be on Saturday, Aug. 1, at 2 p.m., also at Studio E, Linde Center.
“February, 1933” will premiere on Saturday, Aug. 1, at 2 p.m., at the Linde Center, Tanglewood Learning Institute (Courtey photo)This world premiere is a dramatic reading with music based on an abridged version of Uwe Wittstock’s award-winning book of the same name. Among the critically acclaimed performers are David Strathairn, Ato Blankson-Wood and Josh Hamilton, along with music of the period.
Directed by Tony-nominated Knud Adams and produced by Bernard Schwartz, the book explores the lives of writers – Jews and non-Jews – targeted by Hitler in the foreboding months after he was appointed chancellor of Germany.
This performance, followed by a conversation with the creative team, focuses on Thomas Mann, the Nobel Prize winning author of “Joseph in Egypt,” and his family.
For more information, please visit www.tanglewood.org
