“You sense that Steven Stucky wouldn’t mind being remembered in this way,” writes Keith Powers on Wednesday (7/20) at Boston radio station WBUR. “The late American composer, who died in February from brain cancer, was scheduled to be the guest artistic director at this year’s Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood…. This weekend’s festival, which opens Thursday night … pays tribute not only to him but to those contemporaries whose musical lives he touched.” Featured composers include Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin, Jonathan Harvey, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg, Joseph Phibbs, Anders Hillborg, and Stucky. “The opening concert serves as a memorial to Stucky, and includes Lutosławski’s ‘Chain 1.’ … Stucky’s 1981 book, ‘Lutosławski and His Music,’ a Deems Taylor Award winner … brought much greater understanding to the Polish composer’s work…. FCM, founded in 1964 and the site of innumerable premieres and performances of experimental music, continues the tradition of revisiting recent contemporary compositions along with new works…. The most ambitious program of the festival comes on the final evening, when Stefan Asbury conducts the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, the Lorelei Ensemble, and countertenor soloist Bejun Mehta in George Benjamin’s ‘Dream of the Song’ … paired … with Messiaen’s ‘Turangalîla-symphonie.’ ”
Posted July 21, 2016
