Tanglewood’s major new four-building multi-use complex for performance and learning—opening in summer 2019—will be named the Linde Center for Music and Learning in recognition of leadership gifts made by Joyce and Edward H. Linde and their family. Construction of the new facilities will be completed early this year ahead of a June 2019 opening. The Linde Center will dramatically increase the learning and rehearsal space for the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO’s acclaimed summer music academy since 1940, and will also serve as a home to the Tanglewood Learning Institute’s programming—a new wide-ranging initiative of dynamic, engaging, and thought-provoking activities launching in summer 2019. These new buildings will be Tanglewood’s first year-round facilities available for event and performance use by the BSO and TLI, Berkshire community, and beyond.

“The early and visionary support of Ed and Joyce Linde and their family has given the BSO’s Trustees and management the ability to fully develop and implement plans that will have a life-changing effect on the ways we can deliver on our mission in the Berkshires,” said BSO Eunice and Julian Cohen President and CEO Mark Volpe. “Their gift encouraged us to work in partnership with new and existing donors and our communities to together create a new facility that will impact musicians, music lovers, music students, and visitors, and will further reinforce Tanglewood’s role as the preeminent destination for music and learning.”

Introducing a new dimension to the Tanglewood experience, TLI’s programs will explore the power of music to illuminate the human experience by linking Tanglewood performance to relevant themes from the worlds of visual arts, film, history, philosophy, and current events, and offering TLI participants experiences that dissolve the traditional barrier between performer and audience. It will bring together community members, musicians, academics, guest artists, and patrons for creative thinking and cultural engagement, using music as a unifying force.

Complete details about the first season of the Tanglewood Learning Institute and opening of the Linde Center for Music and Learning will be announced on February 7.

“Tanglewood has played a central role in our family’s summers, and we believe in the transformative powers of music to bring people together,” said Joyce Linde. “With this in mind, it has been exciting to work collectively with other donors, committee members, community leaders, staff, and management to think creatively about a beautiful space on the campus that can provide innovative programming and meaningful experiences for generations.”

In honor of Edward H. Linde, who was chair of the BSO board from 2005 until his passing in 2010, and his family’s vision-setting gift in 2009 to inspire the BSO to pursue ambitious initiatives that would have a significant impact on the organization, the communities it serves, and audiences, the central studio space in the Linde Center will be named Studio E. Joyce Linde, who became a BSO Trustee in 2010, has played an integral role in the BSO Board of Trustees’ ongoing planning work as chair of the committee to  develop the Tanglewood Learning Institute and guide the design and construction of the new building complex.

GORDON FAMILY AND VOLPE FAMILY HONORED THROUGH OTHER STUDIO NAMINGS

A rendering of the Linde Center for Music and Learning showing the locations of the three studios

In addition to the naming of the Linde Center for Music and Learning and Studio E, generous donors have named the two other studios that are part of the Linde Center.

The Gordon Family Studio recognizes generous contributions and longstanding commitment to the BSO by BSO Trustee and Great Benefactor Michael Gordon and his family, Tanglewood patrons for more than two decades. The Volpe Family Studio is named in honor of the BSO’s Eunice and Julian Cohen President and CEO Mark Volpe, his wife Martha, and their family in recognition of a gift from Lia and Bill Poorvu and Arthur Segel and Patti Saris.

Other leadership donors have bolstered the Tanglewood Forever campaign, and their generosity will be recognized through naming of spaces, programs, and positions to be announced at a later date.

TANGLEWOOD FOREVER CAMPAIGN

The BSO launched the Tanglewood Forever campaign in 2012. Initially designed to help retire deferred capital projects in advance of fulfilling strategic goals for Tanglewood, Tanglewood Forever remained in a quiet phase, with donors contributing $54.4 million, until it was announced publicly in August 2018. To date, more than 450 donors have contributed $61.4 million to these transformative projects. The Tanglewood Forever campaign is chaired by BSO Trustee Cynthia Curme and has a goal of $64 million.

The first tangible enhancement to be supported by Tanglewood Forever donors was the creation and unveiling of the Weber Gate, located at Tanglewood’s Oak Lot, which opened in 2013. Named in recognition of the generosity of Stephen and Dorothy Weber, two of the earliest supporters of Tanglewood Forever, the Weber Gate provided a glimpse of the forthcoming transformations to the campus that have continued through the Tanglewood Forever campaign’s private and public phases.

Tanglewood Forever donors have also helped drive restoration and enhancements to Tanglewood’s trademark grounds, which are just as integral to the overall experience as the music that defines the festival’s 80-year tradition of great performances. As part of the overall major investment in Tanglewood, the BSO will revitalize and strengthen Tanglewood’s bucolic Berkshire landscape with new plantings, pedestrian circulation improvements, and the restoration of views of the Stockbridge Bowl. Many of these projects have been ongoing over the last several years, the most visible of which is the recently completed restoration of Tanglewood’s iconic Whispering Bench and its surrounding landscape, which had fallen into disrepair over its more than 100-year lifespan. Additional projects will be announced at a later date.

To safeguard the future of the many physical improvements and programmatic innovations made possible by Tanglewood Forever donors, the campaign includes a donor-supported endowment fund that will allow the BSO to continue its investment in creating new cultural and intellectual pursuits through music and education for Tanglewood’s community of Fellows, alumni, faculty, artistic partners, and patrons forever.