UMD Symphony Orchestra with Marc-André Hamelin

David Neely, music director
Jason Max Ferdinand, music director, UMD Concert Choir

Celebrate 25 years of The Clarice with the UMD Symphony Orchestra’s 2025–26 Season debut, showcasing iconic American composers and American-inspired works!

This performance opens with Leonard Bernstein’s rousing Overture to Candide, a piece equally erratic and whimsical as the novella that inspired it. UMSO is then joined by the UMD Concert Choir, led by Director of Choral Activities Jason Max Ferdinand, for a moving rendition of Robert Nathaniel Dett’s The Chariot Jubilee, a piece widely acknowledged to be the first-ever symphonic work based solely on African American spirituals.

In partnership with Clarice Presents, UMSO will feature internationally renowned pianist Marc-André Hamelin for George Gershwin’s Concerto in F. Gershwin’s signature style and inspirations come together in a spectacularly catchy piece that demonstrates the full virtuosity of the piano in a true American style: jazz.

The performance concludes with Antonin Dvořák's immortal ninth symphony, “From the New World.” Composed during his time at the National Conservatory in New York, Dvořák was deeply inspired by the folk music of Indigenous and African American communities. The result is a work full of rich stories and motifs that create a vision of the American spirit rarely acknowledged in his time.

You may also like the following events from The Clarice:

• This Saturday, 26th July, 08:00 pm, Summer Chorus Concert in College Park
• This September, 10th September, 12:00 pm, NextNOW Fest 2025 in College Park
• This September, 24th September, 07:30 pm, Jazz Jam at Busboys and Poets: Elijah Jamal Balbed, host in Hyattsville

Also check out other Music events in College Park, Entertainment events in College Park, Concerts in College Park.