American Symphony Orchestra Debuts at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall With TAPPING INTO THE TWENTIES

Music Director Leon Botstein will lead the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) in its debut performance at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, the third of four orchestral concerts in New York City during the ensemble’s 63rd season, on Sunday, March 23 at 3 pm. The afternoon program offers works from the 1920s by John Alden Carpenter, Erwin Schulhoff, and William Grant Still, that demonstrate the influence of jazz on the music of that time period; and a symphonic poem by Edgard Varèse exploring the mysterious and powerful nature of the constellations above. Award-winning pianist and recording artist Orion Weiss, hailed as a “brilliant pianist” by The New York Times, also makes his David Geffen Hall debut at this concert as the featured soloist in Schulhoff’s seldom-heard Concerto for Piano and Small Orchestra. 

The ASO’s next concert will be a rare performance of Richard Strauss’ first opera, Guntram, with the Bard Festival Chorale on June 6 at Carnegie Hall.

The ASO’s first concert at David Geffen Hall focuses on composers who came of age in the 1920s. Chief among these in the U.S. was Edgar Varèse, whose symphonic poem Arcana was inspired by the topics of alchemy and astrology, and particularly by the writings of 16th-century physician and astrologer Paracelsus. Varèse dedicated Arcana to Leopold Stokowski, who founded the American Symphony Orchestra and conducted the work’s premiere in 1927. Varèse’s pupil, William Grant Still, found inspiration in the blues and spirituals of Black Americans. In his best-known work, the Afro-American Symphony, Still represents the experiences of the African diaspora, from the sorrows of the past to hope in the future.