Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra open their 2018 Tanglewood season—which celebrates the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth—Friday, July 6, at 8 p.m., with a gala performance of a program of music by Mozart and Tchaikovsky featuring global superstar pianist Lang Lang, in his first performances at Tanglewood since 2013, and his first appearances in North America since last fall. Opening the concert is Mozart’s overture to The Magic Flute, followed by the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K.491, featuring Lang Lang. Maestro Nelsons then leads the orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5—a work Bernstein conducted three times at Tanglewood, including for his 70th-birthday weekend in 1988—which displays of the composer’s trademarks: an endless procession of memorable melodies, masterful and vivid use of the orchestra’s full color palette, and a musical language full of drama and energy.

As the culmination of a year-long worldwide celebration of the centennial of Leonard Bernstein's birth, the 2018 Tanglewood season, entitled Bernstein Centennial Summer—Celebrating Lenny at Tanglewood!, will pay tribute to Bernstein's legacy as a consummate artistic figure of the 20th century and his incomparable contribution to the Tanglewood festival from 1940 to 1990. As one of the places most closely associated with Leonard Bernstein, Tanglewood, June 15-September 2, will honor this towering musical figure with concerts showcasing his singular contributions as a multifaceted composer for orchestra, Broadway, and film; a brilliant programmer and conductor of the world's great orchestras; and an innovative and provocative educator through his widely popular Young People's Concerts and lectures. Bernstein’s close relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra spanned a half-century, from the time he became a protégé of legendary BSO conductor and Tanglewood founder Serge Koussevitzky as a member of the first Tanglewood Music Center class in 1940, until the final concerts he ever conducted with the BSO and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra at Tanglewood in 1990. For a detailed history of Bernstein's relationship with the BSO and Tanglewood.