Utrecht, The Netherlands – Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra – Bernstein, Childs, Dvořák

PERFORMERS
Steven Banks, saxophone
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
Xian Zhang, conductor

PROGRAMME
Bernstein: Overture Candide
Billy Childs: Diaspora (Dutch premiere)
Dvořák: Ninth symphony ‘From the New World’

VENUE NOTE
American music has gone its own way, thanks in part to Dvorák’s Ninth Symphony “From the New World. The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra charts Dvorák’s influence in a nutshell with works by Bernstein and Billy Childs. Chinese-born conductor Xian Zhang proves with the orchestra that American music belongs to all of us as well.

Dvorak’s mission

Antonin Dvorák left his beloved Czech homeland in 1892 to become director of the New York Conservatory of Music. There, as a composition professor, he pointed out to his American students the treasure they had hitherto left untapped: the musical traditions of the native and black populations. He set a good example himself with his Ninth Symphony.

Saxophone Concerto

Dvorák stirred things up, and many American composers followed his example. They turned to the folk music of native Americans and the spirituals and blues of African-Americans. A fine recent example is the saxophone concerto Diaspora by Billy Childs (1957). Inspired by African-American poets, he reflects on the history of black Americans in the United States.