“While the program doesn’t contain the national anthem or ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever,’ the music for Fox Valley Orchestra’s upcoming ‘Americana’ concerts are, well, very American,” writes Jen Banowetz in Monday’s (9/19) Aurora Beacon-News (Aurora, Ill.). “Under the baton of Guest Conductor Daniel Sommerville, the orchestra will perform … Saturday at the Batavia Fine Arts Centre as well as … Sunday at the Crimi Auditorium at Aurora University. ‘As we think about our country during this election year, we are reminded of the privileges our democratic republic form of government affords to all of us,’ Sommerville said. ‘In the midst of some difficult times our country is now going through, we can be proud of our musical heritage.’ … The program includes Copland’s An Outdoor Overture, which Sommerville says “has the tone of hope and optimism,” and William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1 (“Afro-American”), “ ‘an absolutely delightful piece, full of both black and folk music idioms, yet original in every respect,’ Sommerville said…. The final ‘Americana’ piece is Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, ‘From the New World,’ ” which Sommerville notes was “greatly influenced by the music he heard while working here in the United States, mostly the African-American Spiritual.”
Posted September 21, 2016
