Tanglewood Adds Jackson Browne to the 2023 Popular Artist Lineup

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has announced that Jackson Browne will be performing as part of the 2023 Tanglewood Popular Artist Series. This will be the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s seventh appearance at Tanglewood since his first appearance in 1973.

A recipient of the John Steinbeck Award, Browne will be performing for Tanglewood audiences at the Koussevitzky Music Shed with his full band. Tickets to Browne’s August 31 show will go on public sale on Thursday, June 1 at 10 a.m.

Tickets for the previously announced Popular Artists concerts and other performances at Tanglewood are already on sale through tanglewood.org.

The 2023 Tanglewood Popular Artists lineup includes: Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! with Special Guest Dorinda Medley on Thursday, June 22; Steve Miller Band with Very Special Guest Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers on Friday, June 23; Elvis Costello & The Imposters with Very Special Guests Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets on Saturday, July 1; Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with Special Guest JD McPherson on Sunday, July 2; the return of James Taylor on Monday, July 3 and Tuesday, July 4; and Train with Special Guest Parmalee on Thursday, August 24.

Jackson Browne has written and performed some of the most literate and moving songs in popular music and has defined a genre of songwriting charged with honesty, emotion and personal politics. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007.

Except for a brief period in NYC in the late 1960s, Jackson has always lived in Southern California. His debut album came out on David Geffen’s Asylum Records in 1972. Since then, he has released fourteen studio albums, four collections of live performances, two “best of” compilations, two DVDs and several single recordings. Jackson’s newest studio album, “Downhill From Everywhere” was released in July 2021 and GRAMMY nominated for Best Americana Album.

Browne is known for his advocacy on behalf of the environment, human rights, and arts education. He’s a co-founder of the groups Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) and Nukefree.org and a member of the Ocean advocacy group, Ocean Elders.

In 2002, he was the fourth recipient of the John Steinbeck Award, given to artists whose works exemplify the environmental and social values that were essential to the great California-born author. He has received Duke University’s LEAF award for Lifetime Environmental Achievement in the Fine Arts, and both the Chapin-World Hunger Year and NARM Harry Chapin Humanitarian Awards. In 2004, Jackson was given an honorary Doctorate of Music by Occidental College in Los Angeles, for “a remarkable musical career that has successfully combined an intensely personal artistry with a broader vision of social justice.”
About the Popular Artist Series at Tanglewood

All concerts will take place in the Shed at Tanglewood (Lenox/Stockbridge, Mass.)

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

With Special Guest Dorinda Medley

June 22, 2023 at 8 p.m. 

NPR’s oddly informative news quiz program returns to Tanglewood! Now in its 25th season, the Peabody Award-winning series offers a fast-paced, irreverent look at the week’s news, hosted by Peter Sagal along with Official Judge and Scorekeeper Bill Kurtis.

Steve Miller Band with Very Special Guest Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers

June 23, 2023 at 7 p.m. 

Guitarist, multi-platinum-selling singer-songwriter, bandleader, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, and Songwriters Hall of Fame electee Steve Miller is beyond excited to finally get back on the road.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters with Very Special Guests Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets

July 1, 2023 at 7 p.m.

Elvis Costello and The Imposters with Charlie Sexton as special guest have joined the lineup for the Popular Artists Series at Tanglewood. This will be the 2003 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s first Shed appearance at Tanglewood.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with Special Guest JD McPherson

July 2, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. 

Please note: there is a 4-ticket limit per purchase for this event.

“These are songs that have gone into our hearts way back in time, but got lost in the twists and curves of the passing years,” says Robert Plant. “You hear them and you go ‘Man, listen to that song, we got to sing that song!’ It’s a vacation, really—the perfect place to go that you least expected to find.

James Taylor

July 3, 2023 at 8 p.m.

July 4, 2023 at 8 p.m.

James Taylor and his All-Star Band celebrate the start of the Tanglewood season with two intimate and memorable performances.

Proceeds from the July 4 concert will be donated by Kim and James Taylor to Tanglewood.

Fireworks to follow the July 4 concert.

Please note: Tickets to this event went on sale in January and are currently sold out.

Train with Very Special Guest Parmalee

August 24, 2023 at 7 p.m.

Since their formation in 1994, multi-GRAMMY Award-winning, diamond-selling band Train has had 14 songs on Billboard’s Hot 100, 12 albums on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and has sold more than 10 million albums and 30 million tracks worldwide.

Jackson Browne

August 31, 2023 at 7 p.m.

A member of both the Rock and Roll and the Songwriters Halls of Fame, Jackson Browne is a perennial Tanglewood favorite returning for his seventh show to kick off Labor Day Weekend.

How to Purchase Tickets

Tickets are now on public sale and may be purchased through tanglewood.org, by calling 888-266-1200, or by visiting the Symphony Hall Box Office in Boston. The Tanglewood Box Offices will open for the summer season beginning Saturday, June 10, 2023, at 12 p.m. and hours of operation can be found here.

Lawn discounts for 2023 Popular Artist Series for guests ages 2–17 (some restrictions apply).

Overall capacity for Popular Artist Series events is 18,000; the lawn accommodates 13,000 and the Shed 5,000.

For information about accessible seats and other accommodations, call 617-638-9431 or email access@bso.org, or visit tanglewood.org/accessibility.

About the 2023 Tanglewood Season

Tanglewood, one of the country’s premier summer music festivals and summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937, is located in the Berkshire Hills of Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Tanglewood is also the home of the Tanglewood Music Center, the acclaimed summer music academy founded by Serge Koussevitzky in 1940. The Tanglewood Learning Institute, housed in the new Linde Center for Music and Learning (2019), is the Festival’s newest programming, offering dynamic and leading-edge performances and events connecting patrons with musicians, artists, students, academics, and cultural leaders through wide-ranging activities. Tanglewood also presents an annual Popular Artist Series in the Koussevitzky Music Shed (1938) and recital and chamber music concerts in Ozawa Hall (1997). Tanglewood is a driver of more than $103 million in economic impact in the Berkshires each year, based on a 2018 third-party study by Stephen Sheppard, Professor of Economics at Williams College. 

See the full Tanglewood 2023 schedule here.