Geert Mak, Ramon van Engelenhoven en Taylor Burgess

At the end of the 1920s, the American stock market crashed, plunging the United States into a deep financial crisis. Misery was widespread, industrial production stagnated, unemployment rose to twenty-five per cent, and democracy was under pressure. Franklin D. Roosevelt took office as President of the United States in 1932 and launched the social and economic rescue plan that became known as “The Deal”. No one can tell this story better than historian and America expert Geert Mak. His words are accompanied by piano music and songs by American composers George Gershwin, Aaron Copland and Igor Stravinsky. Ramon van Engelenhoven will be at the grand piano, the American Operasinger Taylor Burgess will sing.

Roosevelt strengthened ties with Europe. Interest in ‘the Old World’ grew and, during his presidency, manifested itself in symphonic poems such as Gershwin’s An American in Paris. The Symphony in Three Movements is considered Stravinsky’s first major composition after his emigration to the United States, influenced by the looming threat of World War II. Aaron Copland, a born-and-bred American, is regarded as the most important representative of the American Moderns—the cultural movement that reflected the social rise of the middle class. The American Margaret Bonds was a composer, pianist, and teacher. In 1933, she became the first Black soloist to perform with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She is well known for her collaborations with poet and writer Langston Hughes. Hughes’ poems were also set to music by the American Ricky Ian Gordon.

Programme

Gershwin – 3 Preludes (1926)
Stravinsky from Symphony in Three Movements: Con Moto (arr. Van Engelenhoven)
Copland – Piano Variations
Copland – Zion’s Walls (from ‘Old American Songs II’)
Bonds / Hughes – Hold Fast to Dreams
Bonds – Dream Variation (from ‘Three Dream Portraits’)
Gordon / Hughes – Prayer (from ‘Genius Child: A Cycle of 10 Songs’)