Performance Iowa

Iowa Public Radio Classical's Performance Iowa will present a live broadcast of the Des Moines Symphony's 18th Annual Yankee Doodle Pops concert on Tuesday, July 3, 2012 at 8:30 p.m.  Titled A John Williams American Spectacular, the concert will feature Maestro Giunta and the DMSO performing patriotic favorites, opening with the National Anthem, sung by the winner of the DMSO's 2012 "Oh Say Can You Sing?" competition. As is tradition, the concert closes with a grand finale of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, complete with blazing howitzer cannons and a synchronized firework display.

Iowa Public Radio Classical's Performance Iowa series presents a live broadcast of Orchestra Iowa's 2012 Brucemorchestra! program. Broadcast from the front lawn of the historic Brucemore Estate in Cedar Rapids, this year's Brucemorchestra! program features the American music of Gershwin, Grofé and Copland. Gershwin's impressionistic rhapsody An American in Paris portrays the story of a young American, absorbing the sounds of French culture as he strolls down the streets of Paris. The work is followed by Gershwin's well-known Rhapsody in Blue, which premiered in 1924 and is largely credited with establishing the influence of American jazz on serious concert music worldwide. The Grand Canyon Suite was composed in 1931 by Ferde Grofé, whose early fame was due in large part of his orchestrations of Gershwin's work. The Suite presents five programmatic movements, which depict the raw beauty of the Grand Canyon, from an early morning sunrise to a torrential desert storm full of flashing lighting and roaring thunder.  The program closes with Copland's The Promise of Living, from the orchestral suite of excerpts from his original 1954 opera, The Tender Land. 

Featuring:

Timothy Hankewich, music director

GERSHWIN         An American In Paris
GERSHWIN         Rhapsody in Blue
GROFÉ               The Grand Canyon Suite
COPLAND           The Promise of Living