Programme: July 2010 Concert - Archived

Trip to America

Lower Hutt. St James Church, Woburn Road
Saturday 3rd July at 7:30pm

Conductor: Brent Stewart

Soloist: Jazz singer Bonnie Riley

Programme

Aaron Copland - Variations on a Shaker melody

Gershwin - Selection of George Gershwin Melodies (incl. "I've got Rhythm")

William Grant Still - Scherzo from African-American Symphony

Charles Ives - The Unanswered Question

Hoagy Carmichael & Mitchel Parish - Stardust

Shostakovich - Waltz No. 2

Billy Mayerl - Parade of the Sandwich-Board Men

Ferdie Grofé - Mississippi, a tone journey.

John Kander - Chicago.

Bonnie Riley will be singing:

Cry Me a River
Get Happy
The Very Thought of You

Prices

Adults : $15.00
Seniors : $12.00
School students : $8.00
Door sales.

Comrade Shostakovich was American?
All the composers have American connections, but Shostakovich didn't want one.

Copland, Gershwin, Still, Ives, Carmichael and Grofé were US born and based composers.
Mayerl was born and worked in England, but was "attracted to American popular music".

Shostakovich lived in Communist Russia, but made two trips to the US. They were political, and fraught with danger. He survived in part by agreeing to go to New York, and say the right things while there. (It is nicely encapsulated by Mike Steers short play which interweaves a supposed 1949 radio interview in New York complete with ads and news, with Shotstakovich reminiscing years later.)

Triviana: Shostakovich wrote a Jazz Suite No. 2, which was lost. Once his 'Waltz No 2', became a Kubrick film soundtrack, it became mis-identified with it. It's jazzy; it's number 2; it's his Jazz Suite Number 2, innit?

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