The Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra opens its season this Sunday at 3 p.m. in Chenery Auditorium with a program music director Andrew Koehler calls "Commemoration." The concert marks America's 250th anniversary, and Koehler says it is celebratory in part, but the moment calls for reflection.
"And as I thought about what a concert celebrating something like that momentous milestone would look like, I couldn't help but reflect on the current state of the union," he says.
The first half looks at darker chapters of American history. It opens with the rarely heard Japanese Suite by British composer Gustav Holst, built on folk tunes that the Japanese dancer Michio Ito whistled to Holst in London. Ito later spent some 20 years in the United States, yet he was held in an internment camp during World War II.
Next comes Ethiopia's Shadow in America by Florence Price, a Black composer who had to fight for opportunities for her music to be heard. The work was among manuscripts rediscovered about 15 years ago at Price's former summer home outside Chicago. Its three movements trace enslaved Africans' journey to the New World, ending in finale that fuses African and American influences. Price never heard it performed, says Koehler.
The second half features Felix Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony, written for the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession. Koehler notes that Mendelssohn, born into a prominent Jewish family and later baptized Protestant, stood at the center of Europe's religious strife. He connects the symphony to America's separation of church and state.
"I think that is really one of the great achievements of the American Revolution, of the American experiment. And I hope it's one that we continue to prize and uphold in years to come," he says.
Tickets are available at kjso.org. The orchestra's annual fruit sale is also underway, with pickup the first weekend of December.
The interview was summarized by Claude AI and edited by the author.
