Performing selections from the Great American Songbook the big
bands perform charts by legends by the likes of Gershwin,
Porter and Ellington. The evening concert is sure to be filled
with lush harmonies, soaring solos, and irresistible rhythms in
the comfortable and warm Ann E. Pitzer Center.
A celebration of the concerto form, this program unusually
presents three very different concertos on one program! Through
these specific works, composers make broader human connections
beyond the concert space.
Gershwin famously folded jazz—exploding in popularity at the
time—into the orchestra with the piano at center. Brewbaker
took inspiration from 12th-century poet Sufi, asking: Is the
violinist playing the violin or the violin playing the violinist?
Eliza Brown vividly connected, in one ten-minute soaring work,
her mother’s favorite music with Virginia Woolf’s
Orlando, with the essence of both her own (and her
mother’s) musical spirit.
Program
Eliza Brown: A Toy Boat on the Serpentine
UCDSO Competition Winner To be announced.
Daniel Brewbaker: Playing and Being Played
with Rachel Lee Priday, violin
George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
with Erina Saito, piano
Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus
Alex Heetland, director
“Considering Matthew Shepard,” first performed in 2016, is a
full-concert length modern-day oratorio, which honors and
celebrates the life of Matthew Shepard.
The choral work is fused together with different styles. The
texts are from poets, including Rumi and Hildegard von Bingen,
along with words from Shepard’s own journal. The Chicago
Tribune wrote: “Moving among styles ranging from Lutheran
hymnody to blues to Broadway, this modern-day Passion will move
many listeners to tears even as it reaches beyond tragedy to
peace, understanding and forgiveness.”
