The Binghamton Community Orchestra is celebrating the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States with a concert called America,Th Beautiful, featuring music that spans generations of American composers. The performance takes place Saturday, November 8, at 7 p.m. at East Middle School, just off Helen Street in Binghamton, with a pre-concert talk at 6:15 p.m.
Music Director Evan Meccarello says the concert’s theme highlights both the nation’s history and its future. “We’re so excited to be celebrating the upcoming 250th anniversary of our nation with a program that has three American composers of three different generations,” he explains. “These are Adolphus Hailstork, Jordan Jinosko, and the great 20th-century American composer Aaron Copland. Alongside them, we’ll be featuring two of our youth representing the future of American classical music.”
Those young musicians—Kijin Pyo and Camille Lindbloom—are winners of the Southern Tier Music Teachers Association Concerto Competition. Meccarello says, “It worked out wonderfully that they both auditioned using two different parts of the same concerto, so we’re delighted to feature much of the Bruch Violin Concerto along with these American composers.”
Hailstork’s music opens the concert. “He’s really been making the rounds in the national orchestra scene,” Meccarello says. “His music is beautifully orchestrated, with exquisite craftsmanship that centers around American themes. We’ll be performing his settings of three African American spirituals, which make a really rousing fanfare opening for our concert.”
From there, the program moves to Copland’s familiar sounds. “Most of us grew up hearing the famous Shaker melody "Simple Gifts", from Copland’s ballet Appalachian Spring,” Meccarello notes. “We’ll play his own arrangement for large orchestra, and also the Four Dance Episodes from "Rodeo", written for Agnes de Mille. It’s challenging ballet music that really captures the expansive feeling of American landscapes.”
The newest voice on the program, Jordan Jinosko, offers a different kind of American inspiration. “We’re playing her "Three Sketches of Unblemished Earth", which is about her experiences hiking along the Appalachian Trail,” says Meccarello. “It’s open and cinematic, with a violin solo that’s reminiscent of Vaughan Williams’s "The Lark Ascending". It’s an evocative and beautiful piece that I’m really delighted to bring to our community.”
Meccarello will lead a pre-concert chat at 6:15 p.m. “I’d love for anyone listening to join us a little early,” he says. “I’ll be delighted to talk in more detail about these composers and their music.”
The Binghamton Community Orchestra’s “America, Beautiful” concert begins at 7 p.m. on Saturday, November 8, at East Middle School in Binghamton. Tickets and information are available at binghamtoncommunityorchestra.org