(This article is part of a three-part series about behind-the-scenes at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.)
LENOX – Looking at the main stage at Tanglewood, you could easily miss the small, triangular-shaped window on the left side.
Behind that window, there’s practically a different world than the one most people know at the picture-perfect, pastoral grounds at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
You can’t hear anyone in the room behind the window but they can hear what’s happening on stage.
They can see you but you can’t see them through the one-way glass.
And the view through the small window is nothing like the one audience members get from the seats in The Shed (as the Koussevitzky Music Shed is often called) or on the lawn where thousands of people often watch and listen to BSO concerts.
Instead, anyone seated in that room looks out over the shoulders of the BSO’s string section right at the conductor.
This summer, that view is reserved primarily for one person – Brian McCreath.
Most Friday nights, Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons, you will find McCreath in this room that’s not much bigger than a closet. That’s because that room is a radio booth where he hosts most live BSO radio broadcasts from Tanglewood.
Listening to McCreath on the radio, he makes everything sound so natural and spontaneous.
So did his predecessor, Ron Della Chiesa, who hosted most live BSO radio broadcasts at Tanglewood from 1991 until last year.
But as with many things that sound simple, a lot of work goes into making those live BSO radio broadcasts from Tanglewood go smoothly.
“A lot of preparation goes into a live radio broadcast,” McCreath said. “A live broadcast of an orchestra concert is such a great opportunity to do something outside of what we usually do on the radio, which is play great music and give short introductions. But when it comes to concert broadcasts, there’s just such a bigger opportunity to convey not just the music but the event itself and what’s important about the event.”
“I want to convey to a listener not just what’s important about the music or what the experience is they can be prepared for but also why it’s important it’s happening in this very time we’re doing it,” McCreath added. “Why is the Boston Symphony Orchestra playing this particular piece of music at this particular time and place?”
And while McCreath might be the only voice you hear on the radio, he isn’t alone. When he’s hosting those live BSO radio broadcasts from Tanglewood, he often has at least two people working with him in a slightly larger control room next door backstage – director Alan McLellan (who sometimes hosts BSO Tanglewood radio broadcasts) and Grammy-award winning audio producer Antonio Oliart Ros.
All three have extensive musical experience that dates back long before they began working in radio. They each have music degrees of some kind. McCreath was a professional trumpet player for several orchestras in Wisconsin and Mexico. McLellan sang in choirs in Canada, where he grew up, and in Boston. Oliart Ros has a music degree in flute performance and a Master’s Degree in Sound Recording from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.
McCreath has been hosting or producing live BSO radio broadcasts since 2004, when he was hired by WGBH radio (now called GBH) in Boston. Since 2009, those live BSO radio broadcasts have been distributed by CRB, which is owned by GBH.
Four New England radio stations carry these live BSO broadcasts from Tanglewood during the summer season. This includes NEPM 88.5 FM in Springfield, which often broadcasts the BSO’s Tanglewood concerts live on Sundays at 2:30 pm and pre-recorded most Saturdays at 1 pm during the summer. These BSO Tanglewood concerts can also be heard on-demand online on CRB’s website for 30 days after the concert.
The rest of the year, live broadcasts of the BSO at Symphony Hall in Boston can be heard most Saturdays at 8 pm on CRB Classical Radio and online on CRB Classical Radio’s website. The same BSO concerts also air on NEPM 88.5 in Springfield on a one-week delay most Sundays at 1 pm from September until June on the NEPM’s radio station and online on NEPM’s website.
The 2023-2024 BSO and Boston Pops season at Symphony Hall in Boston starts on Sept. 22.
These weekly live radio broadcasts featuring one of the world’s greatest orchestras play a vital role in keeping classical music alive and thriving, according to Anthony Rudel, General Manager of GBH Music.
“Our broadcasts from Tanglewood and Symphony Hall underscore the importance of bringing the incredible music of the Boston Symphony Orchestra to as many people as possible,” Rudel said. “Building on an eight-decade partnership with the orchestra, Brian McCreath and the whole team have evolved new ways to keep these broadcasts fresh and engaging.”
Two hours before their first Sunday afternoon BSO Tanglewood radio broadcast this summer, McCreath, McLellan and Oliart Ros were busy in the control room getting ready for that afternoon’s performance.
That work starts with writing the script for that afternoon’s broadcast. McCreath does most of the writing. The script is then printed out, edited and read out loud to hear how the text sounds and how long it takes McCreath to read each word.
That afternoon’s BSO concert featured three works – the world premiere of Iman Habibi’s “Zhian,” Jessie Montgomery’s “Freedom Songs,” a brief intermission, then Brahms’ “Violin Concerto” featuring Hilary Hahn.
Ironically, the first thing you hear on the live radio broadcast isn’t live. It’s a pre-recorded “audio project,” McCreath explained as they put together the introduction for that afternoon’s concert.
“That is the opening of our broadcast,” McCreath said. “It’s what we call a billboard. It’s just the opening that kind of… creates a little bit of anticipation and excitement and tells the story to get an audience ready.”
The billboard starts with the sound of a bell ringing, which will be a familiar sound to anyone who’s attended a concert at Tanglewood. An usher rings the bell shortly before every performance starts. The bell you hear on the radio was recorded in 2015. But everything else you hear in the billboard was recorded that afternoon.
While the billboard was being created, BSO Audio Engineer Nick Squire tested every microphone on stage to make sure they were working, McCreath explained.
While all this was happening, BSO sound engineers tested the sound on the lawn at Tanglewood to make sure the sound audience members hear out there sounded good.
“So there’s sort of two setups going on at the same time but the mics feed all of it,” McCreath said.
“Checking, R, F, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,” Squire said to someone testing the microphones on stage. Meanwhile, Oliart Ros checked the computer and electronic fader in front of him to make sure the sound recorded by the microphones will sound good on the radio.
McCreath then recorded his part for the introductory billboard. He also rehearsed the entire script, line by line.
“We’ll go through everything because I just wrote it and there will be typos,” McCreath said. “Then at this point, I do a spreadsheet to give myself the right timing between things.”
The timing, McCreath explained, is roughly how long each musical piece will take and when each piece should start and end.
“So when I’m writing a script, I’m always paying attention to how many words is this? How much time does it take to say that,” McCreath said.
McCreath also plans out the timing for the 25-minute-long intermission, the “postgame” and the “dead roll.”
The postgame is the remainder of the radio program after the live concert. McCreath presents the postgame live.
The dead roll is the very last part of the program. McCreath pre-records the dead roll, which must end exactly one minute and 30 seconds before the end of the program. On this particular Sunday, that means the dead roll must end at 4:58 pm and 30 seconds.
But first, McCreath needed to record his part of the introductory billboard. He reviewed the script one last time with McLellan. Then McCreath went into the radio booth and recorded his introduction.
Anytime McCreath is recording or speaking live on the radio, a red light on the microphone tells him his mic “is hot,” which means it’s on, McCreath said.
McCreath, McLellan and Oliart Ros then listened to the introductory billboard in the control room with all the other sounds (the bell, the music, etc.) to make sure it sounded just right.
Then they listened to the billboard a second time, then a third time, then a fourth time – each time making minor adjustments to the sound levels – making McCreath’s voice a little louder or perhaps the music a little softer.
“The whole reason we get here a couple of hours before is because half the time there’s some technical problem we didn’t anticipate that we have to solve,” McCreath said as they fine-tuned the billboard.
Then McCreath recorded the dead roll. It was 1:45 pm by this point, 45 minutes before the live broadcast started. By 2 pm, the dead roll was done.
Then McCreath rehearsed the rest of the script he planned to read live on the radio. Occasionally, McCreath crossed out a word or added a new one with a pen to the printed script, which he read out loud in the radio booth.
McCreath continued rehearsing right up until 2:21 pm, just 9 minutes before the live broadcast started.
At 2:28 pm, the real bell could be heard ringing outside the radio booth at the back of The Shed at Tanglewood. Through the window in the radio booth, you could hear the musicians warming up on stage as well.
Brian then propped a cellphone up against the microphone in the radio booth. The phone displayed the exact time to the exact second. McCreath also had a television on the desk in the radio booth that showed a live video feed of the stage. The program for that afternoon’s concert was also tacked to the wall just to the right of the television.
The rest of the radio booth looked like a closet in many people’s houses – a vacuum cleaner leaning against the wall, stacks of old papers and wires on shelves, a blue blazer, white dress shirt and blue tie on a hanger near the door to the control room.
At exactly 2:30 pm, McLellan and Oliart Ros started playing the introductory billboard.
At 2:31 pm, the red light went on for McCreath’s microphone and he started speaking live on the radio.
McCreath gave a brief introduction to Habibi’s “Zhian” along with information about the Iranian-Canadian composer.
At 2:40 pm, the orchestra started playing Habibi’s piece. Through the small window in the radio booth, you could see BSO conductor Andris Nelsons hard at work just over the music stands and over the backs of the heads of the string section.
During Habibi’s piece, McCreath continued editing and highlighting his text with a pen and magic marker. He made notes in the margins. In the distance through the small window, people with umbrellas walked across the lawn.
After Habibi’s piece finished, McCreath made a few comments about the work, like a baseball play-by-play announcer explaining to the audience what they just heard. That might be normal for sports but on-the-fly, insightful classical music reviews are quite unusual.
Next, McCreath introduced Montgomery’s “Freedom Songs” to the radio audience. During the piece, he kept editing and highlighting his script and writing in the margins.
After “Freedom Songs” ended, McCreath gave another on-the-spot, review of the piece as the crowd in The Shed and on the lawn applauded.
A few minutes later, intermission started. That’s when McCreath learned that Tanglewood staff members were evacuating the lawn due to heavy rain and moving audience members into The Shed.
Just in case the evacuation process took longer, McCreath had more text ready to read and another backup musical piece ready to play during intermission.
Such extra text and music weren’t necessary. The intermission finished right on schedule 25 minutes later.
McCreath then gave a brief introduction to Brahms’ “Violin Concerto” and Hilary Hahn, the soloist who was about to perform.
By 3:46 pm, Hahn, Nelsons and the BSO were on stage, ready to play Brahms’ masterpiece.
During the piece, McCreath listened quietly in the radio booth or sometimes in the control room.
At 4:25 pm, McCreath started getting ready for the end of the piece in the radio booth. He reviewed his script one more time. He took a drink of water. He made a few more notes.
At 4:28 pm, the roar of applause filled The Shed as Hahn took a bow. McCreath described the scene for the radio audience. Then Hahn played an encore and the concert was over at 4:35 pm.
But McCreath’s work wasn’t finished. He still had 23 minutes and 30 seconds of airtime to fill before the BSO radio broadcast was over.
Fortunately, most of that work was already done. McCreath gave a brief introduction to a Hahn recording cued up by McLellan. And when that piece finished, the music seamlessly gave way to the dead roll until 4:58 pm and 30 seconds.
But their work wasn’t quite finished. Before they left the radio booth and control room backstage at Tanglewood, McCreath, McLellan and Oliart Ros made sure that CRB had the audio files for the concert they had just presented. That’s because WCRB plays the concerts on a slight delay the same day.
And the next weekend, the three of them did the same thing again and made everything sound effortless.
(Radio broadcasts of the BSO at Tanglewood and the BSO at Symphony Hall in Boston can be heard live and on-demand on Classical CRB’s website.)
(Other Stories In Series)
Backstage at Tanglewood: Stage Manager John Demick keeps everything running smooth
Backstage at Tanglewood: Team of piano technicians keeps instruments in tune
