Bard Music Festival
Program Seven • From Bolshoi to Broadway: Rachmaninoff in America
August 12, 2022
Bard Music Festival
August 12, 2022
Once in America, Rachmaninoff soon established himself as a leading virtuoso, devoting so much time to touring and recording that his compositional output dramatically declined. However, as Program Seven reveals, he took great interest in the nation’s music, not least its lighter side.
He drew inspiration from both Ellington and Gershwin, attending the famous world premiere of Rhapsody in Blue, as orchestrated by Ferde Grofé, and enjoyed the work of such fellow émigrés as songwriter Vernon Duke, who arranged the Vocalise, and violin legend Jascha Heifetz, with whom Rachmaninoff gave a hugely successful benefit concert at the Metropolitan Opera.
Program Seven concludes with the composer’s own little-known two-piano arrangement of his Symphonic Dances, which synthesizes nostalgia for his Russian roots with contemporary American rhythms, sonorities and styles.
7:30 pm Preconcert Talk
8 pm Performance: Charlie Albright, Allegra Chapman, Danny Driver, and Piers Lane, piano; Luosha Fang, violin; Narek Arutyunian, clarinet; Kristen Lee Sergeant, vocals; and the Bard Festival Ensemble
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943)
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, arr. for two pianos (1940)
George Gershwin (1898–1937)
Rhapsody in Blue (1924)
Ferde Grofé (1892–1972)
Russian Rose (Fox Trot) (1922)
Works by Duke Ellington (1899–1974); Jascha Heifetz (1901–87); Vernon Duke (1903–69); Marc Blitzstein (1905–64); and others
The 2022 SummerScape season is made possible in part by the generous support of Jeanne Donovan Fisher, the Martin and Toni Sosnoff Foundation, the Advisory Boards of the Fisher Center at Bard and Bard Music Festival, and Fisher Center and Bard Music Festival members. The 2022 Bard Music Festival has received funding from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
Grab a bite and a drink while you’re at the Fisher Center! We offer theater concessions at Sosnoff theater, LUMA theater, and Olin Hall. Across the way, is the al fresco Spiegeltent Garden—or grab a nosh while seeing a Spiegeltent Performance. There is ample space for outdoor picnics across Bard’s campus. Nearby villages and towns in the Hudson Valley boast a large selection of restaurants, as well as a variety of hotels, motels, inns, and bed & breakfasts
Eat & StayBard College’s main campus is located in Annandale-on-Hudson (a hamlet of Red Hook), New York, on the east bank of the Hudson River, about 90 miles north of New York City and 220 miles southwest of Boston. The Taconic State Parkway and the New York State Thruway provide the most direct routes to our campus. Click the Google map below, or get directions by entering the following address into your GPS: 60 Manor Avenue, Red Hook, NY 12571.
From the East
If you are traveling from east of the Hudson River in New York State, take the Taconic State Parkway to the Red Hook / Route 199 exit, drive west on Route 199 through the village of Red Hook to Route 9G, turn right onto Route 9G, drive north 1.9 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
From the West
If you are traveling from west of the Hudson River, take the New York State Thruway (I-87) to exit 19 (Kingston), take Route 209 (changes to Route 199 at the Hudson River) over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge to Route 9G, turn left onto Route 9G, drive north 3.5 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
Sosnoff Theater
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