“Ives: An American Maverick should not be a tough sell. The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director JoAnn Falletta will be playing music that is lively and lovely—with a spark of raucous humor here and there,” writes Mary Kunz Goldman in Saturday’s (4/11) Buffalo News (New York). “ ‘His music has a forbidding reputation, which he doesn’t deserve,’ said Joseph Horowitz, the author and scholar who created this weekend’s multimedia event with help from the National Endowment for the Humanities.” Among the works on the concert are “the colorful Symphony No. 2 … unique in Ives’ output, Horowitz said, because every melody in it is borrowed. Before the concert, [baritone William] Sharp is joining Horowitz and Falletta in an exploration of the themes Ives used. They include Stephen Foster songs, fiddle tunes like ‘Turkey in the Straw,’ New England hymns, abolitionist anthems, band numbers, ‘America the Beautiful,’ and bits of Beethoven and Brahms…. The BPO’s Ives Festival has spawned spin-off events…. ‘We were interested in making it as big a community collaboration as possible,’ [BPO executive director Dan] Hart said. ‘It has evolved into a nice three- or four-day kind of festival.’ ”
Posted April 13, 2015
