The Ode to Joy will be blasting out over the Tanglewood campus Sunday afternoon as the Boston Symphony rolls out the Tanglewood Festival Chorus on its final weekend. Ludovic Morlot conducts the Boston Symphony and Tanglewood Festival Chorus in the festival finale favorite: Beethoven’s great Choral Symphony, No.9.
Preparing the TFC for this iconic event (and Bruckner’s best-loved motet) is none other than composer conductor James Burton, the Boston SO’s inaugural Choral Director, following his same post at the Hallé and a lifetime of choral experience ever since he was a chorister at Westminster Abbey as a boy. He presents the choir in three concerts back-to-back including “Koussevitsky and the Choral Connection” on Friday and talks to Charlotte Wilson about that, and about Sunday’s Beethoven 9, and that you will come away changed.
Friday 23, 6pm: “Koussevitzky and the Choral Connection” the TFC conducted by James Burton
Saturday 24, 8pm: the TFC sing Brahms and Ravel, Daphnis & Chloé Suite No.2, with James Ehnes playing Ravel and the Chausson Poème; Karina Canellakis conducts
Sunday 25, 2:30pm: Ludovic Morlot conducts Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 with the TFC and Boston Symphony, various soloists; James Burton conducts Bruckner’s Ecce sacerdos magnus
For full Tanglewood listings, go to bso.org
