Tanglewood Music Center - Koussevitsky Music Shed - Lenox, MA

The Koussevitzky Music Shed was inaugurated in 1938 with major acoustic refurbishment made in 1959. Originally unnamed, the shed was re-dedicated to TMC's founder in 1988. Most BSO and some TMC orchestra concerts are held there.

The Tanglewood Music Center is an annual summer music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts in which emerging professional musicians participate in performances, master classes and workshops designed to provide an intense training and networking experience. The Center operates as a part of the Tanglewood Music Festival, an outdoor concert series and the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The Tanglewood Music Center was founded in 1940 as the Berkshire Music Center by the Boston Symphony Orchestra's then 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, at which time he was succeeded by new BSO director Charles Munch, 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, three years before the start of his directorship of the BSO, Seiji Ozawa took over its activities at Tanglewood. He was also actively involved in the Center, which was directed by Gunther Schuller during this time, with Leonard Bernstein as general advisor. In 1975 also the great italian conductor Franco Ferrara took over its activities at Tanglewood. Pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher took over the direction of the Center in 1985, but resigned abruptly several years later in 1997 after an apparent dispute with Ozawa. Fleisher was replaced by Ellen Highstein, the current TMC director. Ozawa was succeeded as BSO director in 2001 by James Levine, who conducts some TMC concerts and operas and works with the student conductors in addition to leading Tanglewood BSO programs.