Elliott Carter’s Concerto for Orchestra, not often heard and thus much anticipated at the Festival for Contemporary Music, was greeted with whoops and hollers. Elsewhere, a newcomer to Mr. Carter’s music was also won over.

The tenaciousness of Elliott Carter’s music seems to settle, or at least respond to, a continuing debate about whether new music of any kind has a future. Certain works, encountered again and again, become old friends: you begin to know “how they go.”

Heard from a certain perspective, some recent works of Elliott Carter can seem like a stealthy return to his neo-Classical roots.

The best of the nonperformance offerings so far at the Festival of Contemporary Music is “Carter’s Century: An Exhibit Celebrating the Life and Music of Elliott Carter,” split between two buildings on the Tanglewood campus.

Putting Elliott Carter’s life in a historical context has become a kind of intermission parlor game at the Festival of Contemporary Music, as listeners try to imagine, for example, having been born before the two world wars. Some of the wonderment has been about technology: when Mr. Carter was born, sound recording was in its infancy.

Between the two Carter concerts in the Festival of Contemporary Music on Sunday, Shi-Yeon Sung conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in compelling performances of works by Schumannn and Mendelssohn.

James Levine’s withdrawal from his conducting engagements at the Festival of Contemporary Music has opened up opportunities for others, including several conducting fellows at the Tanglewood Music Center: the kind of opportunity young conductors live for.

For the first time, the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood is devoting its entire season to a single composer: Elliott Carter, soon to be 100.

In anticipation of my return to sweltering New York City on Sunday, I went to sweltering New York City on Thursday night. I found it a most invigorating place – probably quite a bit more than I will the real thing. It helps when hot-weather discomfort and hostility – [...]

I was very sad when the armed intruder put a gag in Eileen Atkins’s mouth on Wednesday night. Ms. Atkins, an actress of incomparably incisive style, had seemed to be the only hope that “The Female of the Species,” Joanna Murray-Smith’s sitcom about feminism under siege, might be worth listening [...]

Matt Rawle, left, and Adam Levy in the musical “Zorro,” at the Garrick Theater. (Photo: Joel Ryan/Associated Press)
Is flaming the new flying? Time was you couldn’t go to a big West End musical without coming across some flashy flying object: a jaunty motor car, a witch, a self-satisfied nanny. But [...]

James Alexandrou, left, and Kevin Watt in “In My Name.” (Photo: Wayne Parker)
It was hard to figure out exactly what was going on at Trafalgar Studios 2 on Monday night. It was clear that there were four men in a cluttered, garbage-strewn room. And that each of them was to some degree in [...]

Trystan Gravelle, left, as Edgar, and David Calder as the title character in “King Lear” at the Globe Theater. (Photo: Alastair Muir)
Six hours of Shakespeare al fresco on a cool, damp day sounds like a recipe for arthritis – of the mind if not of the body. But I experienced a positively [...]

London Theater Journal: Michael Frayn, master of the historical biography play and the backstage comedy, tried to meld them together in “Afterlife,” but the result turns out to be much less than the sum of the two.

London Theater Journal: Ben Brantley takes in a lackluster musical updating of the “Camille” story in “Marguerite” at the Theater Royal Haymarket and survives a rain-drenched “Frontline” at the Globe.