Amelia Earhart, Lou Reed's guitars, and a new work about the Declaration of Independence—the artist's first-ever Tanglewood appearance spans an opera, a conversation with Peter Sellars, a drone piece, and a night of storytelling
August 12–16 | Lenox, MA
Laurie Anderson makes her first appearance at Tanglewood this August, across a five-event program diving deep into her enigmatic and magnetic modes of expression. She's a performance artist, composer, inventor, and storyteller, that refuses to stay in any one lane for five decades or over four days.
Anderson became a pioneering conceptual artist in 1970s New York, performing in alternative spaces and public settings before most people had a name for the kind of work she was making. Her sprawling opera project "United States" led almost by accident to a genuine pop hit—"O Superman," which reached No. 2 on the U.K. charts in 1981, an odd, hypnotic detour into the mainstream that nothing else in her catalog quite resembles.
In 2002 she became the first—and so far only—artist NASA has ever hosted in residence, producing "The End of the Moon," a solo meditation on time, space, and curiosity. She won a Grammy in 2018 for "Landfall," a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet, and in 2024 released "Amelia," a major work about aviator Amelia Earhart originally commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra and premiered at Carnegie Hall under Dennis Russell Davies.
The festivities open Wednesday, August 12, with her work heard in conversation alongside other contemporary composers, performed by Grammy-nominated pianist Adam Tendler.
Thursday, August 13 at Seiji Ozawa Hall brings the centerpiece of the week: Anderson performs "Amelia" with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies, and guest artists, alongside the world premiere of "What War Is This?," a new series of short stories built around the Declaration of Independence.
Saturday, August 15 at 2pm in Studio E at the Linde Center for Music and Learning, Anderson sits down with director Peter Sellars for a Tanglewood Learning Institute Spotlight Series conversation.
The week closes Sunday, August 16, with a full day built entirely around Anderson. In the afternoon she presents what she calls a "drone-based sonic experience," played on guitars from the collection of her late husband, Lou Reed—a piece that turns Reed's own late-career fascination with sustained tone and volume into something closer to sound installation than concert. That evening at Seiji Ozawa Hall, she closes with "The Republic of Love," an evening of music and storytelling reflecting on the country's past and present.
Tanglewood, 297 West St., Lenox, MA. Full schedule and tickets at bso.org/tanglewood.
