Finding American Sound

120 Jefferson Street,Waterloo IA 50701

17 July, 2022

Description

Could there be anything more confounding, yet perfect in the narrative of American music history than a non-American immigrant composer coming to American to tell Americans where to look for their own voice? Dvorak did this not only through his teaching and writing, but also through example. Two chamber works from Dvorak's 1893 time in Spillville Iowa are such examples. Dvorak never shared where he took the tunes that soar through the works her wrote during this time, but the allusions to the workers who plowed the soils of the rural countryside, particularly black Americans, are audible. The Arianna String Quartet returns to the Cedar Valley and are joined by violist Julia Bullard to perform two chamber works from Dvorak's time in Spillville: the famous Op .96 Quartet and the lesser known Op. 97 String Quintet. Also included on this program is the Spiritual Fantasy No. 12 of Fredrick Tillis (1930-2020). The program is designed to draw the ear to the Spirituals as an art form, their influence on Dvorak, and, subsequently, their influence of future generations of American composers.