About the Program

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 anchors a program exploring the many voices of American poetry. Alongside one of the great symphonies of the Romantic repertoire, Music Director Aram Demirjian brings together works by Julia Perry and Leonard Bernstein that use words and music to explore American experiences across generations.

The evening opens with Ye, Who Seek the Truth by Julia Perry, a prolific American composer whose career took her from the Juilliard School and Tanglewood to studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Perry wrote both the words and music for the anthem, originally composed for tenor, choir, and organ and heard here in an arrangement for strings and harp. In 1965, Perry became the first African American woman to have a work performed by the New York Philharmonic.

Leonard Bernstein’s Songfest brings six vocal soloists together with the orchestra in a sweeping portrait of American poetry. Conceived for the nation’s Bicentennial and premiered in 1977 with Bernstein conducting, the work draws on 13 poets spanning three centuries, including Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Bradstreet, e.e. cummings, June Jordan, and Frank O’Hara. Their words explore love, identity, race, sexuality, artistic expression, loss, and mortality, creating a wide-ranging portrait of American voices and experiences.

Demirjian has described Songfest as an artistic inspiration for the KSO’s inaugural Poet-in-Residence program, making its performance a natural part of a season in which poetry and orchestral music repeatedly share the stage.

The program concludes with Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Although Tchaikovsky insisted the symphony did not tell a specific story, his sketches suggest he was contemplating a confrontation with Fate as he composed it. A recurring musical idea travels through all four movements, changing along the way before emerging as a triumphant march in the finale. At its 1888 premiere in St. Petersburg, conducted by Tchaikovsky himself, the symphony received a rousing ovation.

Featuring soprano Raquel González, mezzo-soprano Cierra Byrd, alto Renée Tatum, tenor John Overholt, baritone Stephen Salters, and bass David Crawford, the concert pairs an uncommon opportunity to experience Bernstein’s Songfest with one of Tchaikovsky’s most enduring symphonies.