American Roots & Branches | Music
Hudson River Quadricentennial Concert with Mark O’Connor, Don Byron, Daniel Bernard Roumain, David Gonzalez
Buy TicketsSaturday, April 12, 8:00 PMThree World Premieres!
HUDSON RIVER QUADRICENTENNIAL CONCERT
Mark O’Connor, Don Byron & Daniel Bernard Roumain
with Spoken Word by David Gonzalez
In anticipation of the Hudson River Quadricentennial in 2009, the Empire State Plaza Performing Arts Center Corporation has commissioned three of New York’s finest, and most diverse contemporary composer/musicians to create new music to honor the beauty of the Hudson River Valley and celebrate its rich cultural history. This multi media performance will include video projections and spoken word interludes.
Violinist Mark O’Connor, whose work is inspired by American folk music traditions will reflect on the natural beauty of the river, its discovery by Henry Hudson, and the early European settlement with a string quartet. Clarinetist Don Byron, whose work fuses American and Latin jazz with Eastern European classical music will focus on the Industrial Revolution and its effect on the River and the dramatic cultural changes of the 20th century with a work for strings, piano and clarinet. Violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, who utilizes both European classical and hip-hop music as a basis for his compositions will use the present state of affairs and project into the future to inform his musical vision of the River with a work for strings, percussion and electronic instruments, with an original film by Bill Morrison. David Gonzalez, a poet and storyteller, will compose and perform spoken word segments to be featured in between musical works.
Inspiration Sponsor: Stuyvesant Plaza
World Premiere Sponsor: Bullard, McLeod and Associates, Inc.
Media Sponsors: Time Warner Cable and EXIT 97.7 WEXT
Support provided by the New York State Music Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts.