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The internationally-acclaimed Copland House Ensemble and members of the famed West Point Band join together for Better Angels, a wide-ranging free concert inspired by Abraham Lincoln’s soaring imagery concluding his first inaugural address, evoking “the mystic chords of memory, which ... will yet swell the chorus of the Union … by the better angels of our nature." Aaron Copland’s iconic ballet suite Appalachian Spring headlines the program, which also features music celebrating community, resilience, resolve, and devotion by Pulitzer Prize-winner Jacob Druckman, rising-stars Viet Cuong and Jessica Meyer, and Queen of Gospel, Jazz, and Blues, Nina Simone. The concert will be performed twice, on Sunday afternoon, May 4 at 3:00pm at Copland House’s vast new satellite location at Bluestone Farm in Brewster, NY, and on Tuesday evening, May 6 at 6:30pm at Copland House’s FREE FOR ALL! series at Elebash Hall at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Tickets are free, but reservations are required. (See below.)
Fabled choreographer Martha Graham called Appalachian Spring “a legend for American living,” in which she, like Lincoln, sought “the inner frame that holds together a people;” for Copland, the beloved work “had to do with the pioneer American spirit, with youth and spring, with optimism and hope.” The program also features selections from the widely-esteemed Jacob Druckman’s Other Voices for brass quintet, a dramatic mix of instrumental brilliance and sensuous tonal coloring; Jessica Meyer’s If Only I, a sumptuous reflection for woodwinds on the loss of her father, their relationship, and the “unsaid” in life; Viet Cuong’s Electric Aroma, a hyper-kinetic, whimsical riff on a curious phrase from a Picasso poem (“an electric aroma is a disagreeable noise);” and an arrangement of the incomparable Nina Simone’s classic, For All We Know, musing on the uncertainties of life and love. The concert begins with a brief meditation on a journey to paradise, Unde Quocumque (“Wherever”) by the 12th-century German Benedictine mystic Hildegard von Bingen.
The West Point Band is the U.S. Army's oldest active-duty band, founded in 1817 and tracing its lineage back to fifers and drummers in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Music continues to be an essential aspect of daily life at the West Point Academy, and inspires the next generation of the Army’s leaders. The West Point Band serves as the Army’s musical ambassadors to the nation.
The Copland House Ensemble offers “a spellbinding journey” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) across 150 years of America’s vibrant musical landscape, linking centuries and cultures within exhilarating human narratives, and championing classic and forgotten voices from the past and today’s established and risings composers. It has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR (including Tiny Desk Concerts), and engaged by Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Tanglewood, Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, Universities of Virginia and Chicago, and the Caramoor, Bard, Bowdoin, and Ecstatic Festivals.
The May 4th concert at Bluestone Farm – 100 Federal Hill Road, Brewster, NY – includes a meet-the-artist post-performance reception. May 6th concert at Elebash Hall – at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th Street), New York City – is immediately followed by OFFBEAT / ONSTAGE, a conversation and audience Q&A with the performers.
TICKETS ARE FREE ...
Reserve in advance for May 4 at Bluestone Farm, Brewster NY.
Reserve in advance or at the door for May 6 at CUNY Graduate Center, NYC.
For more information, call Copland House at (914) 788-4659.
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