American Evening

Nottingham Philharmonic Orchestra

Jazz and dance form the inspiration for this concert of upbeat music, with the emphasis on fun! American composers of the jazz age form the backbone of the programme. George Gershwin starts us off, with the driving Latin rhythms of his Cuban Overture. A generation later, Leonard Bernstein also bridged the classical/popular divide. We hear Three Dance Episodes from his 1944 musical “On the Town” and the blisteringly fast overture to his 1956 operetta Candide. “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” by Richard Rodgers dates from the 1930s. A ballet that comes from the Rodgers and Hart musical On Your Toes, it has recently been played by the John Wilson Orchestra, among others! Samuel Barber is well-known for his Adagio for Strings, but he wrote much more music, most of it very attractive. One such is his first symphony, barely 20 minutes long, tuneful and delightfully varied. Our final work is by English composer Richard Rodney Bennett. A prolific and versatile musician, he wrote in many styles but jazz was always a great love: he both wrote it and performed it. His trumpet concerto mixes styles cheerfully: part modern, part jazz, its slow movement is a dreamy and wistful elegy for Miles Davis, the great jazz trumpeter and composer. Our soloist in the concerto is Huw Morgan. A past winner of the brass section of the BBC Young Musician of the Year, Huw now mixes orchestral playing and a solo career. He is principal trumpet with the Basel Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland, and appears regularly at the major British music festivals. American jazz and dance form the inspiration for this concert of upbeat music, with the emphasis on fun!