Auckland Philharmonia is serving up a symphonic ‘Cosmopolitan with a Twist’ for American Thanksgiving at its upcoming concert, The New Zealand Herald Series: City Lights on 28 November.
Featuring music from West Side Story, alongside a concerto that combines jazz fusion with a raucous hoedown, and an American’s musical reflection of Paris, this will be a night to remember.
As jazz aficionados will know, Wynton Marsalis is not only a legendary trumpeter, but one of the most multifaceted musicians around. He has also written many orchestral works, such as his Violin Concerto, which will be performed for the first time in New Zealand at Auckland Phil’s City Lights concert. This thrilling concerto blends blues and jazz together with more contemporary orchestral approaches.
Acclaimed violinist Andrew Beer (the orchestra’s Concertmaster) is the soloist performing this challenging but hugely entertaining piece alongside the Auckland Phil. Both Beer and the orchestra will need to step outside the square to perform this concerto, as it includes moments of clapping, stomping and movement.
The conductor for this concert, Giordano Bellincampi, will also lead the orchestra in two pieces by American genre-hopping composers, Bernstein and Gershwin.
Nothing transports you to the streets of 1950s New York quite like West Side Story. The music for this Broadway hit, and later film adaptation, was written by Leonard Bernstein, whose Symphonic Dances from West Side Story combines nine movements from the musical including the hits ‘Somewhere’ and ‘Mambo’. If Bernstein’s name sounds familiar, the 2023 film Maestro, starring Bradley Cooper, was focused on his life.
Those who have lived abroad will relate to that combined feeling of excitement about living in a new city and missing home. Gershwin’s American in Paris uses the medium of music to poetically capture the American composer’s experience during a visit to Paris in the 1920s. Through this piece we can feel his elation as he soaks up the atmosphere of a Parisan café, his homesickness for New York and the inspiration he draws from a walk through the streets of Paris.
Swing to aucklandphil.nz/city-lights to book your tickets.
The New Zealand Herald Premier Series: City Lights
7.30pm, Thursday 28 November
Auckland Town Hall
Conductor: Giordano Bellincampi
Violin: Andrew Beer
Wynton Marsalis: Violin Concerto
Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Gershwin: An American in Paris
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