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