MUSIC
Irving Fine Memorial Concert at Tanglewood
In 2025, the Fine Family established the Irving Fine Memorial Concert at Tanglewood. The inaugural concert took place on Saturday, July 26, 2025. This year's Fine Memorial Concert, featuring Andris Nelsons leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra, takes place Sunday, July 26, 2026, at 2:30 pm. Learn more. Brandeis University hosts a pre-concert gathering at the Tanglewood Tent Club at 12:00 pm. Register here.
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Himari, violin
Esa-Pekka SALONEN Gambit
Remembering Rosalie Calabrese
The Irving Fine Society mourns the loss of beloved friend, colleague, and board member Rosalie Calabrese. She worked closely with Verna Fine over many years to advance the legacy of Irving's life and music, and she went on to inspire and empower hundreds (if not thousands) of artists, poets, and leaders throughout the U.S. and around the world. She was a treasure and her spirit will live on with all of us. Donations in Rosalie's honor are accepted at Poets House http://poetshouse.org/.
FINE & SHAPERO Symphonies in NY Times
Anthony Tommasini named the Fine and Shapero symphonies to his "7 of the Best Works from a Neglected Era of American Music" list on March 1, 2019. Of the Fine Symphony, he says "Of late, there has been a welcome renewal of interest in the Boston-born Irving Fine (no relation to Vivian). A splendid 2015 recording by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project drew fresh attention to his works." Read the full article here.
26
JUL
PONTUS LIDBERG'S WOODLAND
In 2016 the Library of Congress and Martha Graham Dance Company commissioned a Woodland from Swedish choreographer Pontus Lidberg. Woodland re-imagines the music of Irving Fine's Notturno for strings and harp. The work premiered in the Coolidge Auditorium in April 2016 and has toured the United States, Cuba, and Europe. The work has been a highlight of multiple Graham Company seasons in New York City and will be presented in Cypress, Romania, and Germany during the 2018/19 season.
Media:
Woodland Preview Video by Ezra Hurwitz
Archival Video of the Woodland's World Premiere (Begins at 1:02:58)
NY TIMES PRAISES BMOP & FINE RECORDING
2/14/16 "IRVING FINE: Complete Orchestral Works A typical BMOP/sound release, this one rescues a composer from wholly undeserved obscurity with transparent, energetic performances — and Mr. Rose is rightly proud of it. Of six pieces, including the delightfully upbeat 'Blue Towers' (1959), most important is Fine’s neo-Classical Symphony (1962), lucidly done." -David Allen Full Text
REMEMBERING IRVING FINE
Composer Joel Mandelbaum, who studied with Fine at Brandeis, recently recovered his 1962 diary entry about the passing of his teacher. This touching tribute is a wonderful summation of how Fine's music and legacy and lived on since 1962. Full Text
FINE RECORDINGS ON Q2 MUSIC
The world premieres of David Henning Plylar's two piano transcription of Fine's Toccata Concertante and Jefferson Friedman's The Heart Wakes Into (commissioned by the Irving and Verna Fine Fund in the Library of Congress) can now be heard at via WQXR's contemporary music station, Q2 Music.
BMOP RELEASES FINE'S
ORCHESTRAL WORKS
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project, The Irving Fine Society and Brandeis University are pleased to announce that the digital and CD versions of "Irving Fine: Complete Orchestral Works" are now available! Here's the press announcement and New York Times Review. Order CD | iTunes | Amazon
#IRVINGFINE100 IN NY TIMES
The Irving Fine Centennial was recently featured in a full-page article by Will Robin in The New York Times. This fantastic write-up affirms Fine's place as an important figure in America's neo-classical period. Click here to read the full article.
Left: Irving Fine conducting at Tanglewood in 1962, about two weeks before his death.
Irving Fine Collection, Library of Congress
