A Pan-American Musical Feast

Cuban-born composer and conductor Tania León became a founding member and the first musical director of the Dance Theater of Harlem in 1969, establishing its music department, music school, and orchestra. She was commissioned to write this short, celebratory Fanfarria for the Library of Congress Aaron Copland Centennial Celebration in 2000, employing four trumpets, two trombones, one bass trombone, and one percussionist.

Venezuelan cellist and composer Paul Desenne fuses Latin American and European elements in his music, such as his Sinfonía Burocratica ed’Amazzonica, a tropical chamber symphony in five movements. The title refers to the clash between the extremes of modern South American mythology: the untamed wilderness and corrupt “civilization.” “Bananera,” the fourth movement, is propelled by cumbia, the predominant dance genre of Colombia’s Caribbean coast and often heard in Venezuela. The composer writes, “The poignant, recurrent theme in the clarinets is set in a laid-back and sometimes frail dance structure, delivering sudden changes in mood and intensity, some of which are unexpectedly pompous and awkward, others ironically shabby.”

Commissioned by The New Juilliard Ensemble & Joel Sachs

Legendary American music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge commissioned Aaron Copland to compose a ballet for dancer/choreographer Martha Graham. “After Martha gave me this bare outline, I knew certain crucial things—that it had to do with the pioneer American spirit, with youth and spring, with optimism and hope,” Copland wrote. He had no idea what the title would be, and it’s unlikely that any of them suspected the resulting collaboration would become such a beloved icon of American culture. The original complete ballet was written for only 13 instruments. Copland extracted a suite and scored it for full orchestra, which earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1945. Here we play the suite (shorter than the ballet by 10 minutes) in the edition for 13 musicians.