Overview

Brett Mitchell, conductor
Damon Gupton, narrator

COPLAND Lincoln Portrait
JOSEPH SCHWANTNER New Morning for the World (Daybreak of Freedom)
DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, “From the New World”

View the American experiment through the prism of three prominent composers as they reflect their observations of who we were during the Civil War, who we were during the civil rights movement, and who we’ve always strived to be in a trio of thematically tied works. Noted Actor Damon Gupton, known for his roles in Criminal Minds, Deadline, and La La Land, brings the words of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln Portrait and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in New Morning for the World (Daybreak of Freedom) to life as Copland and Schwantner incorporate narrative passages and a broad lyrical scoring that sounds unmistakably American. In his renowned Symphony No. 9, popularly known as the “New World Symphony,” Dvořák incorporates influences of Native American musical rhythms, African-American spirituals, and the wide-open spaces he encountered on a trip through America’s heartland in the early 1890s in a work of beauty and relevance.