USA 250 West Side Story + Lincoln Portrait

Description

Jayce Ogren's insightful examination of American music continues in this wide-ranging program exploring the musical character of the nation on the approach of its 250th birthday. The concert opens with a profound arrangement of our National Anthem by Italian-American composer Luigi Zaninelli. Sarah Kirkland Snider, a composer with "an unerring knack for breathtaking beauty" (The New Yorker), presents an anticipated new work called Marmoris co-commissioned by Monterey Symphony. Next up is Leonard Bernstein's effervescent Symphonic Dances from West Side Story followed by icon Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, narrated by surprise honorable guests from Monterey. The season concludes with African-American composer William Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony, a 1934 work that explores Black experience in America and has an enigmatic conclusion, representing an unresolved struggle.