As part of West Virginia’s festivities marking 150 years of statehood this month, the West Virginia Symphony will perform free outdoor concerts on June 20 and 21. The concerts, on the Capitol lawn and at the West Virginia State Fairgrounds, will showcase music with roots in West Virginia and Appalachia, and also commemorate the Civil War. The program will include Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait, with narrator David Selby, an actor and West Virginia native; the 1812 Overture; Appalachian Autumn, written and premiered in 2010 by WVSO Artistic Director Grant Cooper; John Denver’s “Country Roads,” with the Appalachian Children’s Chorus; and “John Henry,” commemorating the John Henry statue in Summers County. Also part of the sesquicentennial celebrations are a chili cook-off; a five-mile run; The Civil War—A Broadway Musical, by Charleston Light Opera Guild; an unveiling of the 150th-anniversary stamp by the U.S. Postal Service; and 150 in 3-D: A Century and a Half of WV Pride, a video projected on the State Capitol, followed by fireworks.
Posted June 17, 2013
