Yo Yo Ma offers advice to batonless Tanglewood Orchestrasnorman lebrecht August 05, 2026Last night’s concert was curated by the international cellist. It contained a conductorless performance of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, played by the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. Other parts of the concert were performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Yo Yo Ma wrote in the program:‘To perform the Pastoral without a conductor is an astonishing feat accomplished only through collective dedication to an idea, through the attention and care of the musicians to one another. It is an example of what distributed leadership can sound like and a lesson in the practice of democratic responsibility.’