Tanglewood Festival Chorus

Originally formed under the joint sponsorship of Boston University and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the all-volunteer Tanglewood Festival Chorus (TFC) was established in 1970 by its founding conductor, the late John Oliver, who stepped down from his leadership position with the TFC at the end of the 2015 Tanglewood season. His successor, James Burton, was appointed to the newly created position of BSO Choral Director in 2017 and concluded his tenure with the TFC in August 2025. In the 2025-26 season, the TFC performs with the BSO and Andris Nelsons in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Symphony Hall, Samuel Barber’s opera Vanessa, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and in music from John Adams’s opera Nixon in China; under Thomas Wilkins in David Lang’s poor hymnal and BSO Composer Chair Carlos Simon’s BSO-co-commissioned Good News Mass; under Herbert Blomstedt in Brahms’s Nänie and Schicksalslied, and with Dima Slobodeniouk in John Adams’s Harmonium and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The chorus will also join Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops for the holiday and spring Pops seasons. 

First established for performances at the BSO’s summer home, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus plays a major role in the BSO’s subscription season as well as in BSO concerts at Carnegie Hall. Considered one of the world’s leading symphonic choruses, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus is made up of volunteer singers who share their time and talents, performing year-round with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops. The TFC also records frequently with the BSO and the Boston Pops. Its most recent BSO recordings were Dmitri Shostakovich’s symphonies 2, 3, and 13 conducted by BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons, released in October 2023, and the composer’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, included in orchestra’s box set of Shostakovich’s orchestral music released in spring 2025. The chorus has also recorded with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under conductors Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, Leonard Bernstein, and Sir Colin Davis and with the Boston Pops under Keith Lockhart and John Williams. The TFC can be heard on several film soundtracks, including Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. The chorus has sung with the Boston Pops for Boston Red Sox and Celtics games and the National Anthem prior to an American League Championship Series game at Fenway Park in October 2021. The TFC has sung the world and American premieres of many BSO-commissioned works for chorus and orchestra, including John Harbison’s Requiem and Koussevitzky Said:, William Bolcom’s Eighth Symphony, Eriks Ešenvalds’ Lakes Awake at Dawn, and Elena Langer’s The Dong with a Luminous Nose. 

In the 2024-25 season, the chorus appeared in BSO performances including Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, Mozart’s Requiem, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, and the world premiere of Aleksandra Vrebalov’s Love Canticles, a BSO commission. In summer 2025 at Tanglewood, the chorus performed Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil in its annual Prelude Concert in Seiji Ozawa Hall and with the BSO in Puccini’s Tosca, Poulenc’s Gloria, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the BSO, and the world premiere of Words and Prayers of My Fathers, a BSO-commissioned a cappella work by Carlos Simon.