Boston Landmarks Orchestra Announces Free Summer Concert Series

Boston Landmarks Orchestra (LO) under the direction of Music Director Christopher Wilkins, and Executive Director Jo Frances Meyer, announces its 2019 season of free concerts at the DCR's Hatch Memorial Shell on the Esplanade. The free, public concerts will be held every Wednesday evening at 7pm from July 17 to August 21, 2019.

The performances this summer celebrate the 90th anniversary of free concerts on the Esplanade as founded by legendary conductor Arthur Fiedler. From collaborations with the Museum of Science's Charles Hayden Planetarium and the New England Aquarium, to performances with Boston youth and local musicians, this summer's programming embraces a range of music and dance by local musicians, ensembles, and performing artists.

According to Wilkins, "A spirit of joy and openness lies at the heart of all Boston Landmarks Orchestra programs. Families, children, newcomers, and first-time concertgoers all have a welcome place at our concerts. The 2019 season celebrates great orchestral literature, innovation and creativity in our city, and the diverse talents of our many collaborators."

Jo Frances Meyer adds, "This summer Music Director Christopher Wilkins will take us to the moon, and back to Earth with music and dance that celebrate rich global traditions. Our concerts also will take you back in time to the era when Maestro Arthur Fiedler was wielding his conductor's baton, as we weave many of his favorites into our weekly programs and celebrate the 90th anniversary of the great legacy of free concerts that he left for us. We can't wait to welcome everyone to the Esplanade!"

In addition to the free concerts at the Hatch Shell, a full schedule of neighborhood and community concerts will be announced on the Landmarks Orchestra website.

July 17, 2019 at 7pm
Symphonic Space Odyssey: 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing
Boston Landmarks Orchestra | Christopher Wilkins, conductor
In partnership with the Museum of Science's Charles Hayden Planetarium

Prelude performance: Young Artists from Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) perform wind and brass chamber music.

John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Leroy Anderson Summer Skies
Richard Strauss Thus Spake Zarathustra
Joaquín Rodrigo In Search of the Beyond
John Williams Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Philip Glass Icarus at the Edge of Time (excerpt)

A celebration in music and live video of the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing with the Museum of Science and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra. For one night only, this family-friendly evening honors the historic event by pairing custom visuals produced by the Charles Hayden Planetarium with symphonic music inspired by the moon and outer space.

John Adams' sonic ball-of-fire launches a program that features two intensely vibrant film scores alongside Leroy Anderson's summer reverie composed for Arthur Fiedler. Thus Spake Zarathustra-which traces the spiritual evolution of mankind-opens with one of the most recognizable moments in all of music. It was the soundtrack for the opening minutes of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Rain Date: Thursday, July 18, 2019. If it rains on July 18 as well, the concert will be held at First Church in Cambridge 11 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138.

July 24, 2019 at 7pm
Longwood Symphony Orchestra
Ronald Feldman, Music Director

Longwood Symphony Orchestra is Boston's orchestra of doctors and health-care professionals that helps raise money and awareness for healthcare nonprofits. Longwood Symphony has established the Healing Art of Music program, an award-winning business model that collaborates with some of Boston's most reputable non-profit organizations to help raise funds for the community's medically underserved. Under Music Director Ronald Feldman, the Longwood Symphony presents a program of orchestral works to be announced.

If it rains, this concert will be cancelled.

July 31, 2019 at 7pm
Deep River
Boston Landmarks Orchestra | Christopher Wilkins, conductor
Coro Allegro, David Hodgkins, Artistic Director
One City Choir
Members of New England Spiritual Ensemble
Boston String Academy

William Grant Still Festive Overture
Morton Gould Spirituals for Strings (excerpts)
Traditional, arr. Bonds Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho
Traditional, arr. Bonds He's Got the Whole World in His Hand
Fred Onovrewosuoke We Need to Talk
Jerome Kern Show Boat in Concert

African American spirituals-revered today as essential anthems of the American experience-sing of oppression while glorifying freedom. Boston Landmarks Orchestra performs a selection of songs and spirituals by African American composers. We Need to Talk by Fred Onovwerosuoke shines light on race relations through the prism of music and poetry. The songs will be followed by a concert suite of excerpts and narration from Jerome Kern's 1927 musical Show Boat. The musical introduced racial themes in forward-looking ways on the Broadway stage. Today it remains a beloved classic of American musical theater, while provoking both admiration and controversy.

The program features the One City Choir, a large symphonic choir comprising committed and passionate singers from all of Boston's 23 neighborhoods and surrounding communities. The choir takes its name from the words of Boston civic leader Hubie Jones, who has advocated that "Boston can be one city through arts and culture."

The concert is the culmination of a series of discussions and outreach events focusing on the history of race relations on the Broadway stage, and the role that African American music has played in shaping American culture. A panel discussion will be announced shortly, and will feature Emmett G. Price III, Dean and Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, Landmarks Orchestra board member and former Boston Public Schools Executive Director for the Arts Myran Parker-Brass, as well as Milton Wright, retired District Court Judge, Landmarks Orchestra Trustee and Music Director of Black Nativity.

Rain Date: Thursday, August 1, 2019. If it rains on August 1 as well, the concert will be held at First Church in Cambridge 11 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138.

August 7, 2019 at 7pm
Mercury Orchestra
Channing Yu, Music Director

Charles Villiers Stanford Phaudrig Crohoore, Op. 62 (An Irish Ballad)
Amy Beach Symphony in E minor, Op. 32 "Gaelic"

National winner of the 2010 American Prize for Orchestral Performance in the community orchestra division, Mercury Orchestra performs great works in the symphonic repertoire. Under Music Director Channing Yu, the Mercury Orchestra performs two rarely-heard orchestral works: Charles Villiers Stanford, Phaudrig Crohoore (An Irish Ballad) with chorus, and Amy Beach's "Gaelic" Symphony in E minor. Beach's work was the first symphony composed and published by a female American composer, and it premiered in Boston in October 1896. Both works make a connection with Boston's storied Irish heritage.

If it rains, this concert will be cancelled.

August 14, 2019 at 7pm
Annual Green Concert
Boston Landmarks Orchestra | Christopher Wilkins, conductor
In partnership with the New England Aquarium

Modest Mussorgsky Night on Bald Mountain
Ralph Vaughan Williams Sinfonia antartica (Symphony No. 7)
Samuel Barber Adagio for Strings
Antonín Dvo?ák Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70

Boston Landmarks Orchestra and the New England Aquarium present a moving and thought-provoking orchestral program paired with videos of the environmental impacts of climate change. Stunningly evocative music accompanies dramatic landscapes captured in film and photography. David Arnold's photographic essay on climate change astounds with its beauty and shocks with its implications. The music of Vaughan Williams's Sinfonia antartica-first conceived as a film score-accompanies a new film shot entirely in Antarctica. Reverence for nature and a sense of foreboding reverberate in Dvorák's masterpiece, his seventh symphony.

Rain Date: Thursday, August 15, 2019. If it rains on August 15 as well, the concert will be held at First Church in Cambridge 11 Garden St, Cambridge, MA 02138.

August 21, 2019 at 7pm
Landmarks Dance Night
Boston Landmarks Orchestra | Christopher Wilkins, conductor
Ann McMahon Quintero, mezzo-soprano
Boston Ballet II
Camp Harbor View
Jean Appolon Expressions
Yosi Karahashi, flamenco dancer
Castle of our Skins, Ashleigh Gordon, Executive & Artistic Director
Conservatory Lab Charter School

Johannes Brahms Hungarian Dances No. 5 in G minor & No. 6 in D major
Florence Price Juba Dance & Finale from Symphony No. 1
Manuel De Falla El amor brujo (complete ballet)
Jake Gunnar Walsh & Devin Ferreira New Work for Camp Harbor View
Anthony Green Choucoune
Traditional, orch. Grau Papa Loko
Jacques Offenbach Orpheus in the Underworld Overture
Amilcare Ponchielli 'Dance of the Hours' from La Gioconda

Landmarks Dance Night brings music to move by from diverse cultures to the Hatch Shell. Love, magicians, and ghosts haunt the flamenco ballet, El amor brujo, inspired by tales of the Romani people. The rhythms of Haiti and Vodou culture, and the drumming of the West African diaspora inspire Bostonians of disparate backgrounds to dance, from amateurs to established professionals. The brilliant young professionals of Boston Ballet II close the 2019 season performing to The Dance of the Hours, a perennial Arthur Fiedler favorite.

Students from Conservatory Lab Charter School perform with Boston Landmarks Orchestra and soloists from Castle of our Skins. Students from Camp Harbor View will cap off a summer of unlocking creativity and potential with a performance of a new work they will co-compose musicians Jake Gunnar Walsh and Devin Ferreira and choreographer Chanel Thompson. Special lighting and commissioned projections will illuminate the surfaces of the Hatch Shell behind and around the orchestra.

Rain Date: Thursday, August 22, 2019. If it rains on August 22 as well, the concert will be held at an indoor venue to be announced.

American Sign Language (ASL)

An ASL interpreter will be present at the performances on July 17, July 31, and August 14.

About Boston Landmarks Orchestra

Boston Landmarks Orchestra was founded in 2001 by conductor and community advocate Charles Ansbacher. The orchestra is comprised of many of the area's finest professional musicians. In its earliest years, the orchestra performed in such historically important settings as Fenway Park, the USS CONSTITUTION pier, Jamaica Pond, Franklin Park, Copley Square, Boston Common, and other landmark locations. Since 2007, its principal home has been at the DCR's Hatch Memorial Shell. For more history visit landmarksorchestra.org.

Boston Landmarks Orchestra's 2019 sponsors include the Free for All Concert Fund, The Boston Foundation, Arbella Insurance Foundation, Encore Boston Harbor, 99.5 WCRB, WCVB-TV Channel 5 and The Boston Globe.

These programs are supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Boston Cultural Council, a local agency which is funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and administered by the Mayor's Office of Arts + Culture for the City of Boston.

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