Boston Pop's Fourth Of July Concert Will Be At Tanglewood!

Excellent news, folks! The Boston Symphony Orchestra announced today that this year’s Boston Pops July Spectacular concert will take place at our very own music venue in Lenox, Tanglewood!

According to a media statement from the BSO press office, the concert will take place on July 4 at 8 p.m. at Tanglewood in Lenox. The show is typically held at the Hatch Shell along Boston's Esplanade.

Please keep in mind though, the fireworks finale will still take place in Boston, but from the Boston Common instead of from the Charles River. There will be no fireworks at the Tanglewood concert, nor concert stream or sound on the Common.

Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart said in the statement:

Though health concerns related to the pandemic have abated over the last few weeks, after careful consideration we determined there wasn’t enough time to organize the many forces needed to safely return to the Esplanade and present what is considered one of the largest concert events in the world. We decided that it just wasn’t advisable to squeeze what is normally a ten month planning period into a five-week window.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, last year's live concert was replaced by a pre-broadcast event and the fireworks were canceled completely to avoid drawing huge crowds of people.

This July 4th performance at Tanglewood will mark the first in-person performance at the Lenox facility since it closed in 2020 because of the pandemic. Lockhart went on to say:

All of us at the Boston Pops are putting our hearts and souls into planning our Fourth-of-July live concert stream for the many wonderful fans of the Boston Pops and the July 4 holiday. We are thrilled that this special event will launch Tanglewood’s reopening and that we will have a chance to show Boston Pops fans across the country the great beauty and appeal of one of America’s most beloved summer music festivals.

Audience capacity will be limited to 9,000 people. Free tickets will be also available to the general public and will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis with a four ticket per household limit. Those tickets will only be available on tanglewood.com/july4 starting at 10 a.m. on June 21.