Tanglewood Music Center

The Tanglewood Music Center is an annual summer music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts, United States, in which emerging professional musicians participate in performances, master classes and workshops. The Center operates as a part of the Tanglewood Music Festival, an outdoor concert series and the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO).

The Tanglewood Music Center (TMC) was founded in 1940 as the Berkshire Music Center by the BSO's music director, Serge Koussevitzky, three years after the establishment of Tanglewood as the summer home of the BSO. He served as director of the Center until one year after his retirement with the BSO, when he was succeeded by new BSO director Charles Münch, who ran the TMC from 1951 until 1962. Munch was succeeded by BSO director Erich Leinsdorf, who was TMC director from 1963 to 1970.

In 1970, the rock scene and jazz scene were coming together, as bands like Chicago, Santana, Miles Davis and many more performed. Also in 1970, three years before he was appointed as Music Director of the BSO, Seiji Ozawa took over BSO activities at Tanglewood, with Gunther Schuller as TMC director and Leonard Bernstein as general advisor. In 1975, the Italian conductor Franco Ferrara began teaching conducting at TMC. Schuller remained as director until August 1984 when he resigned over differences with Ozawa. Pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher took over the direction of TMC in 1985, but resigned abruptly several years later in 1997 after a "lengthy, bitter dispute" with Ozawa. Fleisher was replaced by Ellen Highstein, the current TMC director as of 2017. Ozawa was succeeded as BSO director in 2001 by James Levine, who conducted some TMC concerts and operas and worked with the student conductors in addition to leading Tanglewood's BSO programs. Levine left the BSO in 2011 after health issues. On May 16, 2013, the BSO announced Andris Nelsons as its 15th—and current as of 2017—Music Director, and he has conducted the TMC Orchestra and worked with the conducting fellows there on several occasions.