On April 6th, the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra (NFSO), under the leadership of Music Director and Conductor Todd Craven, will perform its final classic of the season at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center in Niceville.
The concert, entitled “A Dream of America,” features all works by American composers. Beginning with Samuel Barber’s first work for full orchestra written in 1931, the Overture to The School for Scandal, the first half also spotlights George Gershwin’s jazzy and vivacious Piano Concerto in F featuring internationally-acclaimed pianist Brian Ganz. Brian Ganz is widely regarded as one of the leading pianists of his generation. A laureate of the Marguerite Long Jacques Thibaud and the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Piano Competitions, Mr. Ganz has appeared as soloist with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony, the London Sinfonia and the Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra, and has performed with such conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Mstislav Rostropovich, Piotr Gajewski and Yoel Levi.
The second half of the program presents young actors from the Northwest Florida State
College (NWFSC) theater department portraying early 20th century immigrants reaching the United States for the first time. The music of Los Angeles based composer Peter Boyer provides the emotional backdrop to these powerful stories drawn from the Ellis Island archives; the perilous journeys across the Atlantic to reach Ellis Island and the relief and emotion of seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time.
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