New London|Local Event
Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra : Paris to Pathos, A Journey Through Sound
Gershwin | An American in Paris
Guest Conductor Simon Holt
Barber | Knoxville: Summer of 1915
Tchaikovsky | Symphony No. 6 (Pathetique)
Conducted by Toshiyuki Shimada, ECSO Music Director & Conductor
In November, the ECSO invites you on a transatlantic journey through two of the twentieth century’s most deeply felt orchestral works; one an irrepressible celebration of the City of Light, the other a tender elegy for a vanished American summer.
Guest conductor Simon Holt of Salt Marsh Opera leads Gershwin’s exuberant An American in Paris, a musical postcard bursting with jazz rhythms, Parisian street noise, and the giddy wonder of a young composer discovering the world.
Soprano Sarah Callinan then delivers one of Samuel Barber’s most intimate masterworks: Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Set to a prose poem by James Agee, this luminous piece evokes an American childhood through a child’s sleepy, wondering eyes. Callinan’s voice brings an extraordinary warmth and clarity to this profoundly moving work.
From the boulevards of Paris to a Tennessee front porch at dusk, this is a concert that reminds us why we love music and its power to take us somewhere else entirely.