NYRO Presents: American Rarities: Music by William Grant Still and Norman Dello Joio - Dec. 4

NEW YORK - Nov. 6, 2021 - PRLog -- For our second concert of the 2021-2022 season, the New York Repertory Orchestra's Music Director/Conductor David Leibowitz has assembled a program of American musical treasures that are rarely (and inexplicably) heard in concert halls today, including William Grant Still's groundbreaking "Symphony No. 2" and Norman Dello Joio's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Meditations on Ecclesiastes."

Date: Saturday, December 4, 2021
Time: 8:00pm
Place: Church of St. Mary the Virgin
145 West 46th Street (between 6th & 7th Avenues)
Admission: FREE
A donation of $15 is suggested by never required.

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PROGRAM:
Peri Mauer: Woman on a Journey (Kin Janabarhi Vra)
For Marguerite Iskenderian, in Memoriam
(World Premiere/NYRO Commision)

Norman Dello Joio: "Meditations on Ecclesiasties"
for String Orchestra
Winner of the 1957 Pulitzer Prize in Music

William Grant Still: Symphony No. 2 ("Song of a New Race")
Led by Stephan Fillare, NYRO Assistant Conductor

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African-American composer William Grant Still is a major voice in American music and his incredibly large output of operas, ballets, symphonies, choral works, chamber music, and songs is finally getting the full attention it deserves! His expansive and lyrical Symphony No. 2 ("Song of a New Race") is one of his great masterpieces. With references to spirituals, blues, and jazz, this symphony seeks to represent, as the composer described it in 1937, "a fusion" of White, Black, and Native American musical traditions.

The winner of the 1957 Pulitzer Prize in Music was the haunting "Meditations on Ecclesiasties" for string orchestra by New York native, Norman Dello Joio. Intended as a musical interpretation of the Bible's book of Ecclesiasties, this moving, introspective, and deeply expressive work gives musical voice to "...a time for every purpose, under Heaven."

Finally, we take this occasion to remember one of our own, NYRO founding member, cellist Marguerite Iskenderian, who was tragically taken from us in a senseless hit-and-run in Brooklyn this past spring.

NYRO has commissioned New York composer Peri Mauer to honor her memory and the work receiving it's first performance will be "Woman on a Journey (Kin Janabarhi Vra): for Marguerite Iskenderian." With inflections of Armenian music, this work is our tribute to Marguerite, who we will always remember and cherish.

It will be a very special night for NYRO!

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