The Boston Symphony Orchestra has named composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen as the Merwin Geffen, M.D. and Norman Solomon, M.D. Festival of Contemporary Music Director for 2026. In this capacity, Salonen will curate five programs at Tanglewood this summer, where the Festival of Contemporary Music (FCM) runs July 23–27.
The opening-night program, Those We Have Lost Too Soon (July 23), presents a series of works by recently-deceased composers and musical meditations on life and death. The program opens with Salonen’s own Arabesques for Olly, composed in memory of Oliver Knussen (d. 2018), and also includes two works by Kaija Saariaho (d. 2023): Lonh and Terra Memoria, written in memoriam “for those departed.”
On July 24, Salonen presents Meta Music: Music About Other Music, a program that places contemporary composers in dialogue with works that span musical history from the Medieval era to today. Salonen’s Saltat sobrius—a fantasy on Pérotin’s ca. 1199 organum quadruplum Sederunt Principes—opens the program; also appearing are Nico Muhly’s Two Motets, an orchestration of William Byrd’s “Bow thine ear, O Lord” & “Miserere mei, Deus”; and Salonen’s Fog, a fantasy on the Prelude from Bach’s Partita for Solo Violin No. 3 composed for Frank Gehry’s 90th birthday.
The July 25 and 26 programs showcase the next generations of composers with Millennial and Gen Z artists represented across the concerts. The FCM then closes on July 27 with Nordic Boomers, a program including Hans Abrahamsen's Let me tell you and Salonen's own Cello Concerto, featuring Senja Rummukainen.
Salonen will also lead two concerts and a talk as part of the BSO's wider Tanglewood programming outside of the festival.
Find out more about the program and events here.
