Made in America
programme
Marin Alsop
conductor
Alexander Malofeev
piano
John Adams
Fearful Symmetries, for orchestra
George Gershwin
Rhapsody in blue, for piano and orchestra (orchestration Ferde Grofé 1926)
Aaron Copland
Fanfare for the Common Man
Joan Tower
Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman
Samuel Barber
Symphony No. 1 in One Movement Op. 9
the music
One of today’s greatest conductors who is making her debut at the OSR offers this 100% “Made in America” program. Built around George Gershwin's Rhapsody in blue, it 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.