Sat 2/25 @ 7:30PM
In the past several years, the Akron Symphony has been making full use of the flexibility it has as a smaller-city orchestra, organizing themed, often-multi-media concerts that weave obscure forgotten music and adventurous new music that often draws from outside the boundaries of traditional classical music with standard repertoire composers.
Its upcoming concert, “Global Circus,” is no different, drawing on film, art, movement and music, Mozart, Georges Bizet and composers you probably never heard of, to explore global cultures. It features six short pieces, including Mozart’s Turkish March and excerpts from Bizet’s L’Arlésienne, inspired by the Provence region of southern France. It also includes Variacions concertantes by 20th-centry Argentine composer Alberto Ginastra, who incorporated the folk music of his native land into the piece.
The other three pieces were written by contemporary composers, two from the middle east and one from Afghanistan. Milad Yousufi, just 28, writes about arriving in the U.S. in his piece Freedom, with projected artwork by Yousufi. Iranian-born American composer Sahba Aminikia, who is 41, contributes Circus Play, from a film score inspired by Syrian children he worked with learning circus acts in a refugee camp; the program includes film of the refugees at the circus school. The program is rounded out by Syrian-born TV/film composer Kareem Rustom’s Dabke.
The concert takes place at E.J. Thomas Hall. Go here for tickets.