Tanglewood Festival Chorus performing in Boston, New York and Tanglewood. In 1970, John Oliver proposed to the management of the Boston Symphony Orchestra that he would create a permanent chorus for the orchestra, which had relied on various area choruses for much of its history. In Oliver's words, "To my utter amazement now--I wasn't amazed then, because I was just a brash young man--they said, 'Go! Form a chorus.'" The TFC's first concert was a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at Symphony Hall in April 1970 when Leonard Bernstein substituted for William Steinberg who had fallen ill. Bernstein had been engaged to conduct
Brockton Symphony Orchestra Beth Denisch's "Golden Fanfare" (1998), and Thomas Oboe Lee's "Sounds of The Islands" (2005). Chairman of the Executive Board is Torben Hansen, and the orchestra's Concert Manager is Branden Quental. The BrSO's musical leadership comprises Musical Director James Orent, a frequent guest conductor and violinist for the Boston Pops and Boston Symphony Orchestra; Assistant Conductor Emilian Badea, who holds a DMA from Boston University and has been a bassoonist with the orchestra since 1989; and concertmistress Kristina Nilsson, co-founder of Boston's Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra. Clarinetist and conductor Jonathan Cohler served as the orchestra's Musical Director from 1996 to 2006.