Anchorage Symphony Orchestra Presents AMERICAN VOICES Next Month

Anchorage Symphony Orchestra presents American Voices next month, featuring Timothy Smith, piano. The performance is on Saturday, January 22, 2022 at 7:30pm.

Programme:

CARLOS SIMON The Block
COPLAND El Salon Mexico
PRICE Dances in the Canebrakes
GERSHWIN Rhapsody in Blue
BARBER Symphony No. 1

Carlos Simon's The Block was inspired by paintings that highlighted buildings of one neighborhood block in Harlem. Simon's piece reflects the themes of African American culture in urban cities as well as the rural American south.

Copland was inspired to write his El Salon Mexico by the Mexican folk music he was surrounded by while on his visits to Mexico in the 1930s.

Composed just before her passing, Price's Dances in the Canebrakes are based on African American folk songs and dances of the 1920s and '30s.

Gershwin didn't know he was writing Rhapsody in Blue until he saw a newspaper announcement saying that he was writing a jazz concerto for a concert taking place in less than a month! Despite the intense pressure and tight deadline, Gershwin scored a triumphant success with Rhapsody, and he was only 25!

Barber's single movement Symphony No. 1 was such a success that the Vienna Philharmonic performed it at the opening concert of the 1937 Salzburg Festival. It was the first performance of a symphonic work by an American composer at the prominent festival.

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