Weekends with Yankee

NARRATOR: This week on Weekends with Yankee, Amy is in Massachusetts, getting a behind-the-scenes look at the world-renowned music venue Tanglewood.

She meets with conductor Keith Lockhart, who is celebrating 30 years performing with the Boston Pops.

- We get to show people the power of music heard live, the power of live performance in general.

NARRATOR: In Connecticut, Richard is at Lime Rock Park to experience their annual historic festival, which sees over 100 vintage race and sports cars take to the local roads for a 17-mile tour (horn honks) that culminates in a lively street fair.

- The smiles on people's faces here is what makes this weekend so, so special.

NARRATOR: And back at Tanglewood, Amy learns all of the best tips and tricks for putting together the perfect picnic.

So come along with us for a once-in-a-lifetime journey through New England as you've never experienced it before.

A true insider's guide from the editors of Yankee magazine.

Join explorer and adventurer Richard Wiese and Yankee senior food editor Amy Traverso for behind-the-scenes access to the unique attractions that define this region.

It's the ultimate travel guide from the people who know it best.

Weekends with Yankee.

TRAVERSO: Welcome to Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Pops and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

For generations, this gorgeous spot in the Berkshires has attracted music lovers and culture seekers, and I'm about to have the ultimate Tanglewood day.

I'll start with yoga on the lawn, accompanied by live orchestral music.

I'll get a behind-the-scenes look at how all of this magic happens.

I'll speak with Keith Lockhart, the conductor of the Pops.

And I'll finish with a perfect picnic on the lawn.

- Tanglewood is a magical place where we have the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops.

But it's much more than that-- it's an amazing place where you can come and experience incredible music on the stage and the beautiful experience of being here in this place with nature.

We have lectures, we have bird tours, we have, you know, a lot of different things that really offer something for everyone here.

TRAVERSO: Right, I took a gorgeous yoga class right here on this lawn and, you know, it's just so remarkable, this spot, being up high enough to have this view of the Berkshire Mountains.

You just really get a sense of being in the heart of a cultural hub here.

- It really is-- this all started with this house right here, this beautiful home.

It's a gift to the BSO from the Tappan-Sturgis family.

TRAVERSO: Wow.

- So they built this home as their summer residence, and then when the Great Depression started, they were going through some tough financial times, and they wanted to sell the home and they couldn't find a buyer.

TRAVERSO: Wow.

- So they decided that they would donate it to the Boston Symphony.

We welcome over 350,000 guests to Tanglewood each summer.

TRAVERSO: That's incredible.

- There's something so special about Tanglewood that I think a lot of people feel, and they return year after year, and it really just becomes a part of people.

TRAVERSO: How large is this campus and how many performance spaces are there?

- It's roughly about 500 acres.

And there are three main venues that we have performances at, the Koussevitzky Shed, Seiji Ozawa Hall, and the Linde Center for Music and Learning.

It's just, it's wonderful to walk around and just hear music all the time.

TRAVERSO: Wow.

How does the natural setting, do you think, and this particular geography enhance the experience of hearing music?

- I think it just lends itself to the synchronicity of the arts.

Arts and nature.

When you're sitting here, being able to have that sense of peacefulness and just the calm and feeling the breeze blow and seeing the trees and putting your bare feet in the grass with the music, there's nothing like that.

TRAVERSO: It's actually remarkable that there are two orchestras here.

You've got the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which is mostly classical, right?

- Yes.

TRAVERSO: And then the Pops.

Can you tell me about the Pops?

- Sure.

The Pops was started by Arthur Fiedler many years ago.

We've had John Williams as the Pops conductor.

So the Pops has been growing just alongside with the BSO.

And we really love to bring both of those orchestras here during the summer and let people experience all kinds of different things.

Tonight is our Film Night concert, which is inspired by John Williams' film score music.

And the crowds are just thrilled to be here to experience that.

It's Keith Lockhart's 30th season that we're celebrating.

So, you know, it's a very special part of the whole BSO family, for sure.

TRAVERSO: You are fluent in so many forms of music.

You do conduct classical.

You do conduct the American Songbook and John Williams.

How do you maintain that fluency in so many different genres?

- Well, I like to think that my relationship with time is more focused on the moment and looking forward, because you know, what we do as performing artists, we look forward to the next live experience, where we get to show people the power of music heard live, the power of live performance in general.

You know, I've, you know, flown across the country and gone straight from doing a Mahler symphony to doing a swing band tour, and I think that keeps it fresh.

TRAVERSO: I noticed there are a lot of kids out there tonight, and I think your orchestra does so much to bring that next generation in.

How do you see that?

- Well, I think that since the Pops was formed in 1885, the job of the Pops has been to continually widen the spectrum of potential audience for orchestral music, for classical music, for whatever inadequate term you want to give it.

One of those, of course, is the chance to bring in younger audiences, hoping that they will develop an early affinity for this sort of music and continue to be with us.

And there is probably no concert better for our younger audiences, one that isn't specifically designed for them, than a Film Night concert, because film is, these days, a very universal medium among all of us.

TRAVERSO: I've heard you talk about how for many children, these scores are their first exposure to orchestral music.

- For many adults, too, these days, with the decimation of public school music programs and that sort of thing.

We have always relied on people who had some musical experience to be the core of the foundation of what we do.

Especially for my great predecessor, John Williams.

Thank God for John Williams, because if it wasn't for him, millions and upon millions of people would never have heard what a great orchestra sounds like in the hands of a skilled composer.

TRAVERSO: What's your first memory of Tanglewood?

- As an audience member.

Summers, my junior and senior year in high school, we used to get a carload of music nerds together.

And we'd go up here and hear concerts, sit on the lawn, because those were the only seats we could afford.

TRAVERSO: If someone had come through the veil of time and said, "You will one day be the conductor," (laughs) could you have believed it?

- No.

(laughs) (Traverso laughs) - But I'd be happy to meet them now.

TRAVERSO: Yes!

(laughs) (cheers and applause) NARRATOR: After chatting with the Maestro, Amy heads out to meet a few members of the next generation of classical musicians.

- The Tanglewood Fellowship Program is an eight-week program with the Boston Symphony.

And it's really unique because it's practically the only festival in the world that is so closely tied with a major American orchestra.

The fellows stay here for eight weeks and work with some of the best conductors in the world and some of the best chamber musicians in the world.

So we're both playing in orchestra and in chamber music.

So it's a super musically-enriching experience for everybody.

Seeing how much the audience loves this space and this program, like, you feel a sort of really unique energy.

It's just everybody's so appreciative of what's going on here.

TRAVERSO: What have been some of the most memorable or challenging or significant moments for you in this program so far?

- We did "Rite of Spring" with Thomas Ads in our second week here.

This was by far the best orchestra I've ever played that piece with, and it was, it was just so amazing to feel the energy on stage.

Transitioning from a student to professional is a big leap to make, and I think most of us at the TMC are right on the cusp of that point.

And we're taking auditions, we're trying to make our way in the world, and it's really inspiring to be in a group where we're all in that phase of life, and we're all working so hard to make it work, and we want it so bad.

So, yeah, definitely something in the air.

If you're prepared and you come ready to learn and ready to get what you can from your colleagues and your faculty and the environment around you, you're bound for success.

- And here is unique, because all the BSO musicians treat us like colleagues and ask for the same level of musicianship that they would from others in the BSO.

So it really challenges you, and it makes you feel ready to step into that world.

- We work very hard to let people know that Tanglewood is for everyone.

A lot of the times, the people on the lawn, it's, you know, music that is in the background, and they're more focused on the family and friends that they're here with.

Or you can buy a seat really close to the stage and be very intently paying attention to that.

People just do all kinds of things here, and it really, you know, it's something that I think makes it special for everyone in their own way, how they experience Tanglewood.

TRAVERSO: Well, we have had an incredible day here at Tanglewood, and the music's about to start.

So I want to thank you, Erin, for this beautiful table, this beautiful picnic, and I hope all of your days at Tanglewood are as wonderful as this one.

Cheers.

WIESE: We're at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut.

Not only is this one of the oldest racing tracks in America, it is considered by many the most beautiful.

The reason why, we are nestled here in the Berkshire Mountains.

And if you look around, typically you would see grandstands at a racetrack; here, you see park-like settings.

The other thing you'll see here is a lot of passion and multi-generational families having a lot of fun.

NARRATOR: The historic festival at Lime Rock Park is an annual celebration, with a 17-mile tour through the area with vintage race cars and sports cars alike, as well as non-stop on-track competition.

WIESE: I'm amazed.

This is stunning.

This is not a racetrack that I expected.

- That's a big compliment.

There's so many people that have been by here or have heard of us that have never come in and their first reaction is, "My God, it's like a park here."

We are a park, and when we're not racing, people come here simply to eat lunch and relax and bring their families, their pets, et cetera.

WIESE: And I guess the reason you call it a park versus a raceway, you look around and you don't see what you would expect to see, is grandstands, right?

- Right.

Grandstands and bleachers.

We are very much a blanket, cooler, bring your family, sit down, shade, and enjoy.

It's been like that since the '50s.

The oldest continuously running road courses in North America.

WIESE: And what kind of racing do they have here?

- They started out in the '50s with sports cars, which was very glamorous back then.

Cars that typically you could buy.

Like Jaguars and Alfa Romeos and all that.

But we got into something called the Libre class, which was unlimited; you can bring a race car, a fast street car, so, there are very few things that haven't been raced here.

We've had stock cars here.

We've had road racing.

So we try to be the benefactors of all road racing.

WIESE: You've actually had some famous people who race here, as well.

- Paul Newman, Walter Cronkite back in the '60s was very much into sports cars.

A lot of the notable people like Paul liked it up here because they weren't movie stars, they were race car drivers.

Our old moniker was "Tradition, beauty, speed," which, although not a statement, I think it's very tough to find three words that do a better job of describing us.

WIESE: What are we going to see today out on the track?

- You'll see two types of cars; race cars and road cars.

They have to be sports cars or race cars from 1975 or earlier.

And we're going to drive them behind two pace cars through all the towns.

Now, remember, some of these cars, no plates, no registration.

You know, people with white scarves belching smoke, again, it's kind of like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and anything can happen.

WIESE: What is the magic of Lime Rock?

- It's the people, and you'll see it today in the towns where in many cases you'll see two or three generations of family members watching these cars go by.

You never know what kind of an image or memory a child's gonna make, but we tend to make a lot of them here.

NARRATOR: Race car driver Stephanie Economu has been a member of the Lime Rock Drivers' Club for almost two decades.

She is passionate about bringing women into the world of motorsports.

WIESE: Nice to finally meet you.

- So nice to meet you.

WIESE: What a beautiful car.

- Thank you very much.

She's a 1968 Porsche 912 and she's been beautifully rebuilt.

I feel very honored to be her caretaker.

WIESE: You know, it struck me that there aren't that many women out there racing.

What attracted you to this sport?

- There aren't-- I think I've always innately just, I was born a car person, and it's not because I had any family influence or anything like that.

I just loved cars.

WIESE: So what is the magic of driving?

- The magic of driving is, you know, you have to be in the moment wholly.

You can't be thinking about anything else.

You are in that moment.

It's exhilarating, it's challenging.

I just have never found anything like it.

There was just something about, you know, cars and the competition that just spoke to me.

I don't think there's any distinction, really, in my mind.

You know, you don't have to be stronger to do this sport.

It's not like weightlifting or anything like that.

Women are just as competitive.

Women can succeed at this level, at any level.

You know, one of the things that I was trying to do early on was just, there've gotta be more women like me.

WIESE: Racing also helped you overcome other challenges in your life.

Health challenges.

- Yeah, it did.

I had a massive brain hemorrhage, and I was very fortunate to survive it.

When I was in a hospital room, I shared it with another person, and I was really out of it.

But people would come in to visit the other person.

And I overheard somebody say one time, "She's always smiling."

And it's, like, yeah, because I was driving the track at Watkins Glen.

That's how I was keeping the pain at bay.

And I was just in the car, on the track, driving yet another mythical track.

And it just helped, helped me tremendously.

And I made a really fantastic recovery.

WIESE: So you were into cars as a little kid?

- Yeah, I was.

I had the best Matchbox collection of anybody.

You know, guys, I didn't know another girl who had Matchbox cars.

Um, so that was always my great thing, to go out and get a new Matchbox car.

WIESE: You know, so we're driving, obviously, at a fairly moderate pace.

- Yes.

WIESE: What is it to go around this at speed with cars right next to you?

- It's exhilarating.

WIESE: So have you had any close calls?

- Oh, God, yes.

(laughs) I bought my race car 14 times over.

As you can well imagine, you've got to have such reaction time, because anything could happen at any moment.

Just as you said earlier, everybody's driving at the limit.

You're close by, somebody's overtaking you.

Anything could happen-- a tire could fail, engine could fail.

Somebody could make a poor decision, and, um, and it has consequences.

It has immediate consequences.

You know, I'm just so happy you came to this really special place.

WIESE: I think it is special.

NARRATOR: President and C.E.O.

Dicky Riegel first started visiting Lime Rock Park as a child over 40 years ago.

- If you look around here, it is the most beautiful facility, racing facility, I think, in the world.

We have community events.

We are a proud host of Trade Secrets, which is New England's largest horticultural event.

Happens every May, where we have thousands of garden enthusiasts, garden designs.

And it's an event that was built by Bunny Williams and Martha Stewart.

Here you have a gathering of 300 cars, 300 drivers who are here because of their passion for what they do, and they have lovingly restored all of these cars, and the smiles on people's faces here is what makes this weekend so, so special.

WIESE: Okay, I'm very excited to be in this parade.

Have you been here before?

- I've done it several times.

It's one of my favorite things.

WIESE: Everybody gets to sort of show off their car and, you know, talk shop and stuff they love.

- And the historic festival is one of the highlights, and we get to do the tour.

So it's, like, 120 cars and it's, I think, it's about 17 miles.

Then we go to Falls Village and it's just a huge festival.

There's music, there's food, drink, and just so much fun.

What's really cool is we're going to come by an old age home and circle around with all the people sitting there.

It's a lot of fun.

(horn honking) - Listen to that rumble!

(horn honks) Very famous car there.

(horn honks) WIESE: What an amazing day.

This is the end of the parade, but it certainly isn't the end of the evening.

We have families out here enjoying good music, beautiful cars, and their slice of New England.

TRAVERSO: Tell me about how to choose the right spot for a perfect Tanglewood picnic.

- Okay.

You want a place in the shade.

TRAVERSO: Right.

- And you want a place you can see the shed, and ideally a screen.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

- People go wild.

Picnicking on the lawn at Tanglewood is, like, that is, like, peak Tanglewood vibes.

All right, so I went ahead and reserved us a little spot on the lawn.

TRAVERSO: Oh, well, you know, all the good spots-- I feel like you were a fellow here, this is my master class in picnicking.

- It is.

This is a picnic master class of Tanglewood.

TRAVERSO: Wow!

- This is the place to really show up with your picnic game.

TRAVERSO: Okay, awesome.

So I see that we have a barrier layer.

- Sometimes the grass can be a little bit wet, either from rain or, you know, maybe it was a chilly morning and there's a little bit of condensation on the grass.

So I like to put down, like, a base layer.

TRAVERSO: Right.

- When you start to think about food, certainly stuff that's, you know, easily portable, not too messy.

TRAVERSO: Right.

- All the stuff you would think about.

TRAVERSO: Yes.

- We have so many, like, local farm stands and farmers' markets and local artisanal foods.

TRAVERSO: Right.

What if I didn't want to fuss at all with the food?

- We've got a couple different places here where you can get food.

One is Tanglewood Provisions, is at the main gate.

Um, lots of different food options there.

You can also order ahead of time.

We have this program called Picnics to Go.

And you order your picnic ahead of time, come to the main gate, pick it up there, bring it here.

TRAVERSO: Well, so now you're the design expert.

- Yeah.

TRAVERSO: What sort of aesthetic are we going for here?

- We are going for lawn luxe.

TRAVERSO: Nice.

- I think that's, that's where we're going, so... TRAVERSO: Okay.

- I brought a little sisal rug.

TRAVERSO: Nice, wow.

- So, you know, we're pretty extra-- however... TRAVERSO: Oh, my gosh.

- I don't know about you, I don't love sitting on sisal.

It looks great.

A little scratchy.

TRAVERSO: A little scratchy, okay.

- Next layer.

TRAVERSO: Oh, okay.

This is pretty.

- This was actually out of my grandmother's house.

TRAVERSO: Aw.

All right, good.

- Perfect.

This is our base layer.

TRAVERSO: Okay.

- Next we have our portable picnic table.

TRAVERSO: This folds up, and you could just put it in your wagon?

- So easy to fold up.

The legs come off.

All right, next up is our tablecloth.

TRAVERSO: Oh, okay.

Oh, it's so pretty.

- Yeah.

TRAVERSO: All right, I'm already feeling lawn luxe?

- Lawn luxe.

I think that's what we're gonna do.

I've got some candle holders.

I've got some florals.

TRAVERSO: It's occurring to me as we create this gorgeous tablescape that this is really a multi-sensory experience.

You know, visually, you've got this, obviously, music, incredible.

The, like, smells of nature.

And then we'll be eating, and it's just so lovely.

- It is absolutely that multisensory experience.

And I think, you know, art always, one sense always elevates the other, so, it's all additive-- so, speaking of senses.

TRAVERSO: Right.

- Got little sprigs of lavender here.

TRAVERSO: So nice.

- It does kind of get a little dark here at night.

P.S.

So all those, like, little rechargeable lamps you've been seeing places, this is a great place to, like, pull them out as the sun goes down.

And it also just adds a little bit more shine to the table.

Of course, I've got our wine bucket here.

So next, we have seating.

TRAVERSO: I was thinking, there can't be another layer to this.

- Oh, there's so many more layers.

General lounging.

TRAVERSO: Oh, my gosh.

I feel like royalty at this point.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

So, lanterns.

I have some flameless candles that can pop into this.

Just for a little bit of ambience as the sun goes down.

TRAVERSO: Oh, my gosh, that is so cute!

A Tanglewood pillow?

- It is a Tanglewood lawn ticket pillow.

Right here.

Pride of place.

TRAVERSO: Oh!

I really have had nothing to do with this except as a pair of hands, but I still feel very proud of myself.

(laughs) It's so beautiful.

- Yeah.

TRAVERSO: This is-- I've never seen a Tanglewood picnic this pretty, I think.

- Thank you.

TRAVERSO: It's just the most beautiful picnic I've ever seen.