“What is an American? The child of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, a boy who grew up above his parents’ shop in Brooklyn,” writes Lawrence Toppman in Friday’s (11/11) Charlotte Observer (N.C.). “The openly gay son of Pennsylvania patricians, a Pulitzer-winner who never had to consider another career besides music. The Czech man in his 50s who came to America speaking broken English, settled in New York to run a conservatory and had perhaps the happiest moments of his stay in the small town of Spillville, Iowa. The offspring of a New England jazzman, a kid who grew up in New York and Los Angeles and learned his trade arranging and conducting for the U.S. Air Force Band. So it’s fitting that Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Antonin Dvorák and John Williams provide the musical backbone for ‘Patriotic Pops.’ Fitting, too, that conductor Albert-George Schram, whose Dutch accent reveals his origin, should be on the podium for the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra concerts this weekend. The concert’s a combination of joyous or somber emotions, heartfelt tributes to veterans and bombast…. And heroes there were in the audience: veterans who stood during a medley of five service anthems, drawing appreciative applause from the crowd.”
Posted November 14, 2016
In photo: For the Charlotte Symphony’s “Patriotic Pops” concert this weekend, Westwater Arts provided photo montages including images from World War I.
