GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937)
An American in Paris (1928)
Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic this delightful ballet started life while Gershwin was enjoying the heady atmosphere of 1920s Paris; he finished it in New York. He had come a long way from his Russian immigrant roots. His parents changed young George’s life when they bought him an upright piano and lessons. At age 16 he sought his fortune in Tin Pan Alley, and burst onto the scene in 1920 with the song “Swanee,” recorded by Al Jolson. He taught himself orchestration and collaborated with his older brother Ira on many of America’s greatest songs. He went on to create several beloved American classics of the concert hall: Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F, and An American in Paris. Gershwin wrote at length about his delightful “rhapsodic ballet,” which was choreographed and danced memorably by Gene Kelly in the 1951 movie An American in Paris. He said, “My purpose here is to portray the impression of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city and listens to various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere.” When the piece kicks into a bluesy style, the composer continues, “our American friend…has succumbed to a spasm of homesickness.” But ultimately, the American visitor “once again is an alert spectator of Parisian life.” Listen for the characteristic French car horns as you imagine ambling along Parisian boulevards.

Composer/conductor Morton Gould touched on nearly every aspect of American musical life into his long and diverse career, composing and arranging music for theater, film, television, radio, and the concert hall, and always incorporating a wide range of popular and folk elements into his eclectic style. His Symphony No. 4, West Point, was composed in 1952 for West Point’s Sesquicentennial and stands as one of the major achievements in Gould’s prolific output. Scored for band, the work is in two contrasting movements, “Epitaphs” and “Marches,” the former reflective and elegiac, the second boisterous and celebratory. The work will be performed by the United States Military Academy Band, conducted by Lt. Col. Timothy J. Holtan on this program.

John Philip Sousa composed songs, suites, dances, and several notable operettas, including El Capitan (1895), but he is best known for his band marches, which earned him the nickname “The March King.” Within the strictures of the traditional quickstep march, Sousa was able to create a striking diversity of character and effect, and his 135 marches are remarkable for their variety as well as for their melodic invention. With their rousing energy and patriotic titles, Sousa’s marches are quintessential Americana; in 1987, The Stars and Stripes Forever was named the official National March of the United States. The New York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928 to form today’s New York Philharmonic) first performed marches by Sousa in June 1901 in Philadelphia, conducted by Walter Damrosch. The most recent performance of a Sousa march was in October 2009, on tour in Japan, led by Music Director Alan Gilbert.

Bramwell Tovey is in his 12th season as music director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO), and appears annually the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and with the New York Philharmonic on the Summertime Classics series. He has worked with the London Philharmonic, London Symphony, and Frankfurt Radio orchestras, and, in North America, the orchestras of Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Seattle, and Montreal. His ongoing performances with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra have included the world premiere of his Trumpet Concerto and a tour of China and South Korea with violinist Hillary Hahn. Mr. Tovey’s first full-length opera, The Inventor, was premiered in Calgary in the winter of 2011; that same year he made his The Cleveland Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra debuts and returned to The Philadelphia Orchestra. Highlights of his 2010–11 season in Vancouver included Verdi’s Requiem, the Canadian premiere of John Adams’s Dr. Atomic Symphony, and a Bach and Beyond series.

Bramwell Tovey is also an accomplished jazz pianist, with two recordings to his name, and his television appearances have included two documentaries with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and a 1996 CBC TV broadcast of Victor Davies’s Revelation, a full-length oratorio based on the Book of Revelation, with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. His recording with the VSO and violinist James Ehnes of the Walton, Korngold, and Barber concertos received both Grammy and Juno Awards in 2007.

Mr. Tovey, who has been awarded numerous honorary degrees, received a fellowship from the Royal Academy of Music in London, and honorary doctorates of law from the University of Winnipeg, University of Manitoba, and Kwantlen University College, as well as a fellowship from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He was the first artist to win Juno Awards for both conducting and composing. His other honors include the Best Canadian Classical Composition 2003 Juno Award for his Requiem for a Charred Skull, performed and recorded by the Amadeus Choir and the Hannaford Band in Toronto, and, in 1999 the M. Joan Chalmers National Award for Artistic Direction, a prestigious Canadian prize for outstanding contributions in professional performing arts organizations.

Find additional upcoming performances with Bramwell Tovey