Trending
The celebration of America's 250th birthday continues this Sunday with the Fort Dodge Area Symphony presenting the first concert of its season, "An American Portrait."
It begins at 3 p.m. at the Fort Dodge Middle School, 800 N. 32nd St.
Tickets at the door cost $15.
Season memberships for all four concerts will be available for $50.
The concert features the rousing "American Salute," written in just eight hours in 1942 by Morton Gould at the request of a government radio producer in the beginnings of World War II. Based upon the familiar "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," it has been a standard of patriotic concerts ever since.
The musical "Chicago" is now the longest-running show on Broadway and has garnered six Tony Awards since its debut in 1975. Familiar songs like "All That Jazz" and "Razzle Dazzle" are just a couple that will be featured in a medley of music from this show of fame, justice and jazz centered in the 1920s.
Under the direction of Music Director Joshua Barlage, the orchestra strives to feature the music of living composers, recognizing that even Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven were new once. "Elegy for the Greatest Generation" was written by Linda Robbins Coleman and had its world premiere by the Des Moines Community Orchestra in 2010. Coleman writes that the work opens "with a sense of dawn, foggy and mystical … it is reminiscent of a distant, almost forgotten battlefield."
The American story continues with "A Danzon Done My Way" written in 2016 by Cuban-American composer Ivette Herryman-Rodriguez.
In 2000, the Blanden Memorial Art Museum and the Fort Dodge Area Symphony collaborated on a project with the American Composers Forum resulting in a world premiere in October of that year of "Rural Symphony" by the Fort Dodge Area Symphony. Written by Jonathan Chenette, who was then at Grinnell College, it is a three-movement work that showcases the rural landscape and lifestyle of middle-America.
Perhaps no Broadway show has so captivated contemporary audiences with a story of early American history than the hit musical, "Hamilton" by Linn Manuel-Miranda. Opening in 2015 and nominated for a record 16 Tony Awards and winner of 11, it also won a Pulitzer Prize and continues to perform to packed theaters across the country. The orchestra will feature a medley of works from that show.
A cornerstone of this celebration of America is the performance of Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait." With Fort Dodge native Jerry Schnurr offering the stirring words of Abraham Lincoln intertwined with Copland's music, this work brings everything together in a memorable day of music. Schnurr is a familiar voice with the orchestra, having last appeared in 2023 in Dicken's "A Christmas Carol."