Built around George Gershwin's Rhapsody in blue, this programme will introduce us to the Fearful Symmetries that John Adams wrote in 1988, drawing inspiration from cartoons and music for silent films, in a parodic spirit assumed to be taken literally. The Fanfare for the Common Man was commissioned to Aaron Copland on the United States' entry into the war to be played at the start of every concert during that period. Dedicated to Marin Alsop, the Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman is composer Joan Tower's feminine response to Copland's work, from which she borrows the instrumentation. Samuel Barber composed his Symphony No. 1 in 1936, dedicating it to the companion of his life, the composer Gian Carlo Menotti. Inspired by Sibelius' Symphony No. 7, also in a single movement, it is based on three themes which retain their own character throughout the score in an immediately accessible neo-romantic language.