The Tanglewood performing arts center in Massachusetts has canceled its entire slate of summer concerts because of the coronavirus, and will replace them with a series of online performances featuring many of the same artists who were scheduled to perform in person, officials announced Friday.
Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra located in Lenox in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, was founded in 1937 and has not canceled an entire’s summer's worth of events since 1945.
“All of us at the Boston Symphony Orchestra deeply wish we could have found a way to present performances at Tanglewood this summer,” BSO president Mark Volpe said in a video statement. “We explored every possible scenario to try to save all or part of our concert schedule, but with the health of the greater Tanglewood community as our highest priority, performances with audiences are just not possible.”
The live summer program includes performances by the BSO and the Boston Pops, a chamber music series and several popular artists.
The digital program will include some newly created content as well as some previously recorded works. Some will be available at no cost and some will require a fee.
The live performances typically draw about 340,000 people per year.
