Sat 7/6 @ 7PM
For its first concert of its summer season at Blossom Music Center, taking place on Independence Day weekend, the Cleveland Orchestra, appropriately, rolls out music by America composers.
The centerpiece is George Gershwin’s jazz-meets-classical Rhapsody in Blue, which has gotten a lot of play this year as it celebrates its centennial. The orchestra will be joined by a special guest to perform a distinctive version of this classic: banjo player Bela Fleck, whose own music crosses a lot of genre boundaries. And he is responsible for the arrangement he’ll be playing.
The program also includes Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from the 1944 Broadway musical On the Town; Samuel Barber’s The School for Scandal; Symphony No. 1, “Afro-American” by William Grant Still, the early-mid 20th-century composer whose work has seen a revival in recent years as orchestras have started to program more pieces by composers in previously marginalized groups, such as women and Black composers.
The Orchestra will be conducted by Brett Mitchell. Get tickets here.
Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44223