Johnson County Community College
Press Release
College Information and Publications
913-469-8500
Julie Haas, Director, ext. 3120
Peggy Graham, Writer, ext. 3425
Tyler Cundith, Sports Information Director, ext. 3122
9/25/06
Story by Peggy Graham
‘Made in America’ Makes Stop in Kansas
youthsymphony.jpg: This content expired on 05/05/2008 at 02:54PM.
In a unique twist in the music world, a composition, not a performing arts group, is making a national tour. Joan Tower’s commissioned work, Made in America, will be performed by orchestras in every state in the union during the 2005-2007 seasons as part of a project that allows smaller-budget orchestras to play commissioned new works by major composers.
Locally, the Youth Symphony of Kansas City has been selected to perform
Made in America at 6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 19, in Yardley Hall of the Carlsen Center, Johnson County Community College. The concert is free and open to the public.
Woven throughout the 15-minute Made in America are fragments of the melody of America the Beautiful. Also on the program will be Copland’s moving and enduring A Lincoln Portrait, which uses excerpts from Lincoln’s speeches and phrases from famous American songs, such as Camptown Races. Together these works will be inspirational and educational visions of the past and present.
One of today’s most widely performed composers, Tower is the first composer chosen for Made in America, an ambitious and groundbreaking commissioning program that is a collaboration of the American Symphony Orchestra League and Meet the Composer with financial support from the Ford Motor Company fund. This level of support makes it possible for smaller U.S. orchestras to perform high-profile commissions.
Tower's bold and energetic music, with its striking imagery and novel structural forms, has won large, enthusiastic audiences. She is best known for her tone poem Sequoia, Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman and her widely-performed Petroushskates.
Along with the rights to perform Made in America, participating organizations are given a list of resources including program notes and educational material.
The Nov. 19 performance of Made in America is a co-presentation of the Youth Symphony of Kansas City, Ford Made in America and the Carlsen Center.
For more information, call the Youth Symphony of Kansas City, 913-722-6810.
