Date: Saturday, May 17, 2025
Time: 8:00 pm
Place: Church of St. Mary the Virgin (145 W. 46th St.)
Admission: FREE†
Here's the full program:
• Aaron Copland: Quiet City
• Katie Jenkins: "Hiraeth" (World Premiere / NYRO Commission)
• Carl Nielsen: Symphony No. 6 "Sinfonia Semplice"
John Frisch, English horn
Daniel Caplivski, trumpet
David Leibowitz, conductor
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ABOUT THE PROGRAM
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For our big season finale, we are thrilled to present the World Premiere of a NYRO commission: "Hiraeth" by Welsh composer Katie Jenkins!
"Hiraeth" explores the emotional and cultural intersection of the two places Ms. Jenkins calls home: Wales and New York. It celebrates the contrast and connection between urban and rural landscapes. The piece blends energetic, disorienting rhythmic grooves that capture the chaos and thrill of NYC with expansive, hymn-like choral melodies inspired by Welsh brass bands and community choruses.
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Also on the program is the enigmatic, eccentric, and haunting Symphony No. 6 by Danish composer Carl Nielsen.
Subtitled "Sinfonia semplice," it is a complex and enigmatic work. As his final symphony, it reflects both maturity and a restless spirit of innovation. Unlike his earlier symphonies, the Sixth is fragmented and elusive in tone, marked by abrupt contrasts in mood, orchestration, and structure.
Nielsen's Symphony No. 6 stands as a bold, idiosyncratic farewell to the symphonic form, full of intellectual provocation and emotional ambiguity, and remains one of his most intriguing and debated compositions.
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Opening the program is Aaron Copland's Quiet City. Scored for trumpet, English horn, and strings, it owes its origin to the incidental music that Copland had written for a play of the same name in New York by Irwin Shaw.
The mood is built around the evocation of the personal and private thoughts by the many individuals of a metropolis. Copland was called upon to provide music “evocative of the nostalgia and inner distress of a society profoundly aware of its own insecurity.”
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† A $15 donation is suggested, but never required.
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