MusicUNTOLD Orchestra & Chorale 2009 performance of Roy Harris "Bicentennial Symphony"

[Zanaida Robles]

John Malveaux of www.MusicUNTOLD.com writes:

Note: the performance was out door at MLK Jr. Park in Long Beach, Ca. with a large banner above the stage. From time to time the wind came up and the unidentified noise is the banner flapping in the wind.

http://musicuntold.com/index.php/bicentennial-symphony-video-set/

 

The first movement is a setting of the Preamble of the Constitution.  The second movement is an exposition of the bitter disagreement about slavery between the North and the South.  The third movement is a statement in music about the ferocity of the Civil War, brother against brother.  The fourth movement is a musical setting of Abraham Lincoln’s “Freedom Proclamation”.  The fifth movement is a musical setting of new attitudes of free black people.  The coda is a setting of portions of the Preamble of the Constitution proclaiming freedom “for all of us”.