Boston’s 4th of July in Tanglewood

This 4th of July looked a bit different than it normally does. The annual Boston Pops show on the Esplanade was moved to Tanglewood in the beautiful Berkshire hills in western Massachusetts. Due to the pandemic, it unfortunately wasn’t feasible to hold the event along the Charles River, turning this year into a unique performance. All of the music took place at Tanglewood, while there were fireworks and a remote crew setup on the Boston Common with events occurred there to keep a with the city of Boston.

This year I was serving as the editor for the show. It is a live broadcast with many roll-in packages. My job was to make sure all of the packages and graphics were ready to go.

Once the show starts, things are typically out of my hands. However this year, due to timing issues we needed to do a shortened version of the Stars & Stripes Forever. This change created some confusion of when the flag drop should be. So I hopped over to the music librarians and grabbed a score, listened to it a few times on my phone so I could confirm the timing during the ritardando, and waited backstage for the cue. It is a little tricky because you need to call it just a tad early so it falls on time. The moment came, and I think we nailed it. 

One of the most exciting off-screen moments this year was getting the chance to fire off one of the Howitzer cannons used in the 1812 Overture. Surprisingly, they were quieter from the firing position than from the crowd perspective.

All in all, it was an awesome show and I’m looking forward to July 4, 2022! You can watch the replay on Bloomberg.com for a few weeks.