Program Notes | Discover Rhapsody in Blue

George Gershwin
Born: September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New York
Died: July 11, 1937, in Beverly Hills, California
Composed: January 7–February 4, 1924
World Premiere: November 12, 1924, in New York City
Duration: 16 minutes
Instrumentation: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, three horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, two alto saxophones, tenor saxophone, banjo, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, gong, snare drum, triangle), solo piano, and strings

In January 1924, the New York Tribune announced a concert of American music, at which a committee of judges would decide what American music is. For the occasion, Irving Berlin, Victor Herbert, and George Gershwin would introduce new compositions. The paper reported:

“George Gershwin is at work on a jazz concerto, Irving Berlin is writing a syncopated tone poem, and Victor Herbert is working on an American Suite.”

It was news to Gershwin. He had planned a collaboration with jazz band leader Paul Whiteman, but they hadn’t discussed details.

Gershwin was 25, ambitious, and talented. Though unschooled, he had solid commercial instincts. Recognizing the professional potential of the American music event, he and Whiteman decided to make the new piece happen. The result was Rhapsody in Blue, which has become an iconic American work.

Whiteman suggested that Ferde Grofé orchestrate the Rhapsody, since Gershwin had no background in orchestration. Grofé’s accomplishment was masterly, and contributed greatly to Rhapsody in Blue's success.

The work has had an extraordinary impact on American music. Although some critics objected to Gershwin's lack of traditional formal discipline, the audience loved the piece. Even the harshest detractors acknowledged the freshness of the musical ideas, beginning with the fabulous clarinet glissando that soars upward at the start, setting the whole sultry tone of the work.

Gershwin later told his first biographer, Isaac Goldberg:

“I heard it as a musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness.”

That description helps to explain the capriciousness and vivid snapshots in the Rhapsody. Its two large sections are peppered with improvisatory solo piano cadenzas. Rhythmic ideas dominate the first half, with extensive, non-traditional development. The E-major section with the Rhapsody's most famous melody is the emotional heart of the work, but gives way to a showy and virtuosic close.

Aaron Copland
Born: November 14, 1900 in Brooklyn, New York
Died: December 2, 1990, in Tarrytown, New York
Composed: 1938
World Premiere: October 16, 1938, in Chicago.
Duration: 22 minutes
Instrumentation: piccolo, two flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (xylophone, snare drum, wood block, glockenspiel, cymbals, sleigh bells, guïro, whip, suspended cymbal, bass drum, tin whistle, triangle), harp, piano, and strings

The ballets of Aaron Copland hold a special place in the hearts of Americans. With his three early dance scores, Billy the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942), and Appalachian Spring (1944), Copland caught the spirit of pioneer America, expressing this nation's optimism, grit, and folk culture. Music from these three scores seems as American as apple pie, yet Copland's voice shines through, flavoring the wholesome melodies of his ballet music with 20th-century spice.

The first of those three popular ballets, Billy the Kid, was written on the heels of Copland's hit orchestral piece, El Salón México (1936), in which he first used folk material. Billy grew out of a suggestion by Lincoln Kirstein, then director of the American Ballet Caravan. Kirstein wrote the scenario, romanticizing the outlaw's life. The story focuses first on the pivotal incident of Billy's youth, when he sees his mother killed by a stray bullet. Incensed by fury and grief, he slays one of her assailants with a knife, and his fugitive life begins.

Copland's concert suite consists of seven movements, or about two-thirds of the complete ballet. We hear the opening, which evokes the solitude and loneliness of the open prairie. The folksy atmosphere of a frontier town is emphasized by Copland's adaptation of the tunes from "Git along little doggies" and "Oh bury me not on the lone prairie." He also alludes to the cowboy songs "Come Wrangle yer Bronco" and "Goodbye Old Paint." The rough-and-tumble scenes of violence spring vividly to life through Copland's use of muted trumpets and side drum; gentler and more humorous sides of Billy's character also come through in this down-to-earth, likeable score.

Praised for his versatility, technical clarity, and keen musical insight, Tito Muñoz is internationally recognised as one of the most gifted conductors of his generation. Following his ten-year tenure as the Virginia G. Piper Music Director of The Phoenix Symphony, which concluded in the 2023/24 season, he continues his association with the orchestra as Artistic Partner. In the 2025/26 season, he also takes up the role of Interim Principal Conductor at the Cleveland Institute of Music, becoming a guest member of its Orchestral Studies faculty.

Tito previously served as Music Director of the Opéra National de Lorraine in France, and earlier held Assistant Conductor positions with the Cleveland Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and the Aspen Music Festival.

He has appeared with many of North America’s leading orchestras, including those of Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minnesota, New York, and Utah, as well as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s – making his Carnegie Hall debut with the latter in a sold-out performance of Orff’s Carmina Burana in February 2024. Maintaining a strong international conducting presence, Tito has also worked with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, SWR Symphonieorchester, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National d’Île de France, Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony, Royal Philharmonic (London), Ulster Orchestra, Danish National Chamber Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Orchestra of the Music Makers Singapore, Auckland Philharmonia, Sydney Symphony, Adelaide Symphony, São Paulo State Symphony, Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier, and Opéra de Rennes.

The 2025/26 season includes debuts with the New Jersey Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Antwerp Symphony, Jena Philharmonie, Nürnberger Symphoniker, and Komische Oper Berlin, alongside return appearances with SWR Symphonieorchester and the New York Philharmonic.

A committed advocate for contemporary music, Tito has championed composers of our time through commissions, premieres, and recordings. He has conducted important premieres of works by Christopher Cerrone, Kenneth Fuchs, Dai Fujikura, Michael Hersch, Adam Schoenberg, Mauricio Sotelo, and Francisco Coll. His close collaboration with Hersch has included world premieres of On the Threshold of Winter (Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2014), the Violin Concerto with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (2015), I hope we get a chance to visit soon (Ojai and Aldeburgh Festivals), the script of storms (BBC Symphony Orchestra, London), and And We, each (2024). In March 2025, Tito led the American Composers Orchestra in premieres by Tomàs Peire Serrate, Clarice Assad, and Edmar Castañeda at Carnegie Hall, receiving glowing reviews, ‘Brilliantly led by conductor Tito Muñoz, the concert felt like the center of a social triangle of concerts, parties, and going to church’ (Boyd, 2025).

A passionate educator, Tito is a regular guest at many of North America’s leading educational institutions, summer festivals, and youth orchestras. He has led performances at the Eastman School of Music, Aspen Music Festival, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, Kent/Blossom Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, New England Conservatory, New World Symphony, Oberlin Conservatory, Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto), University of Texas at Austin, and National Repertory Orchestra, as well as a nine-city tour with the St. Olaf College Orchestra.

Born in Queens, New York, Tito began his musical training as a violinist in the city’s public schools. He later studied at the LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts, Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, and the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College Division. He continued violin studies with Daniel Phillips at Queens College (CUNY) before turning to conducting at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, working with David Zinman and Murry Sidlin. He won the Aspen Music Festival’s 2005 Robert J. Harth Conductor Prize and 2006 Aspen Conducting Prize, serving as the festival’s Assistant Conductor in 2007 and later returning as a guest conductor.

Tito made his professional conducting debut in 2006 with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, invited by Leonard Slatkin as a participant of the National Conducting Institute. That same year, he made his Cleveland Orchestra debut at the Blossom Music Festival. He was awarded the 2009 Mendelssohn Scholarship sponsored by Kurt Masur and the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Foundation in Leipzig, and was a prizewinner in the 2010 Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition in Frankfurt.

Director, writer, and composer Bill Barclay is one of the world’s leading innovators in theatrical concerts. He is Artistic Director of Concert Theatre Works and was Director of Music at Shakespeare’s Globe from 2012–19.

Previous work for the Boston Symphony Orchestra includes Peer Gynt (2017), A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Andris Nelsons, The Soldier’s Tale at Tanglewood with Charles Dutoit, The Chevalier (Tanglewood), and The Magic Flute (with Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra).

Barclay has developed multimedia concerts for the world’s most prominent venues: The Hollywood Bowl, The Kennedy Center, The Barbican, Buckingham Palace, Shakespeare’s Globe, St Martin-inthe-Fields, Washington National Cathedral, and The Southbank Centre. Broadway and West End credits include Farinelli and the King, Twelfth Night, and Richard III, all starring Mark Rylance.

A “personable polymath” (London Times), Barclay’s original works have been described as “witty and incisive” (The New York Times), “quietly transfixing” (The New Yorker), and “quite simply exquisite” (The Guardian). His projects tour to the world’s leading ensembles, including The Chevalier (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, 8 others); Secret Byrd for The Gesualdo Six and Fretwork (20 cities on tour); Antony & Cleopatra (LA Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and others); and Peer Gynt (Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras).

As a composer, Barclay’s composed the historic Hamlet Globe-to-Globe which toured to 189 countries, and Call of the Wild that performed in 42 US states. He has composed 12 productions for Shakespeare’s Globe. His music has been performed three times for the British Royal Family, for President Obama, for the Olympic Torch, at the United Nations, and in refugee camps in Jordan and Calais.

A noted curator, he created the Candlelit Concerts series from the launch of London’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in 2014, partnering with The Royal Opera House and BBC Proms. He founded the label Globe Music, recognized by The Royal Philharmonic Society, for Shakespeare’s Globe where he produced music for 130 productions and 150 concerts over seven years. He currently programs Music Before 1800, “Gotham’s flagship music presenter” (The New Yorker).

A Boston native and past acting company member at Shakespeare & Company (11 years), the Actors Shakespeare Project (10 years, Artistic Associate), and The Mercury Theatre (UK). He trained in Bali, The National Theatre Institute and Vassar College. MFA in Playwriting, Boston University.

Lauded as “exquisite” by The Philadelphia Inquirer and “a pianist of sterling artistry” by Gramophone, GRAMMY Award winning pianist Michelle Cann is one of the most sought-after artists of her generation. Recent engagements include appearances with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and Orquestra Sinfônica Municipal de São Paulo. She is a recipient of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, and she served as the inaugural Christel DeHaan Artistic Partner of the American Piano Awards.

Highlights of Cann’s 2025-26 season include appearances with the Colorado Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, and Ireland’s National Symphony Orchestra. She also performs the world premiere of a new piano concerto by Valerie Coleman with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. Her recital appearances include Stanford Live, Music Toronto, Chamber Music Detroit, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Spivey Hall, and a recital tour in China.

Recognized as a leading interpreter of the piano music of Florence Price, Cann performed the New York City premiere of Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement with The Dream Unfinished Orchestra in July 2016 and the Philadelphia premiere with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin in February 2021. Her recording of the concerto with the New York Youth Symphony won a GRAMMY Award in 2023 for Best Orchestral Performance. She won a GRAMMY Award in 2025 for Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price, recorded with soprano Karen Slack, which features 19 unpublished songs composed by Price. Her acclaimed debut solo album Revival, featuring music by Price and Margaret Bonds, was released in May 2023 on the Curtis Studio label. She has also recorded two Price piano quintets with the Catalyst Quartet as a part of the quartet’s UNCOVERED series. A champion of emerging talent, Cann and cellist Tommy Mesa recorded Our Stories, an album of new works by five living composers of color, which was released in November 2023.

A celebrated chamber musician, Cann has collaborated with leading artists including the Catalyst, Dover, and Juilliard string quartets, Imani Winds, violinists Timothy and Nikki Chooi, soprano Karen Slack, and mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. She regularly performs duo piano repertoire with her sister, pianist Kimberly Cann, as the Cann Duo. She has appeared as co-host and collaborative pianist with NPR’s From The Top, collaborating with actor/conductor Damon Gupton, violinist Leila Josefowicz, and violinist and MacArthur Fellow Vijay Gupta. Cann’s numerous media appearances include Performance Today, PBS Great Performances’ Now Hear This, and Living the Classical Life.

Embracing a dual role as performer and pedagogue, Cann is frequently invited to teach master classes, give lecture-demonstrations, and lead teaching residencies. Recent residencies include the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival and the National Conference of the Music Teachers National Association. She has recorded lessons for tonebase, the popular piano lesson platform. She has also served on the juries of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the Kauffman Music Center International Youth Piano Competition, and the piano competition of the Music Academy of the West.

Cann holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Paul Schenly and Dr. Daniel Shapiro, and an Artist’s Diploma from Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Robert McDonald. She joined the Curtis piano faculty in 2020 as the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies. She is also on the piano faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.