Program notes by J. Michael Allsen

This program, celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence, is framed by music from two of Aaron Copland’s great American ballets, Appalachian Spring and Billy the Kid. We then welcome cellist Zuill Bailey to play a new work, co-commissioned by the Spokane Symphony, Visions of Humanity. This work is a celebration of the American spirit of diversity; it was collectively written by five American composers of very different backgrounds. Mr. Bailey then plays the lyrical Rococo Variations by Tchaikovsky. We also feature the gentle Mother and Child by William Grant Still, often remembered as the “Dean of Afro-American Composers.”

One of the defining American works of the 20th century, Appalachian Spring is the last of Copland’s great trilogy of “American” ballets, following Billy the Kid (1938) and Rodeo (1942).

Aaron Copland
Born: November 14, 1900, Brooklyn, New York.
Died: December 2, 1990, Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Variations on a Shaker Melody

• Composed: The ballet score Appalachian Spring was written in 1943-44. Copland published the Shaker Variations as a separate concert work in 1967.
• Premiere: October 30, 1944, Washington, DC.
• Duration: 4:00

Background
Appalachian Spring was created in response to a 1942 request for a new ballet by the Martha Graham dance company. Graham, who knew Copland’s earlier ballet scores Billy the Kid and Rodeo, asked him to provide a score for this new ballet, which was also to be on an American theme. The result is one of the landmark works of American twentieth-century music, and reflects a new, spare, but more accessible style Copland adopted in the late 1930s. (The title Appalachian Spring was applied by Graham, who took it from a poem by Hart Crane.) The original version of the score, written for a small group of woodwinds, strings, and piano, won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for music. Copland quickly produced two more versions of the score in 1945: a suite for full orchestra, and a complete ballet score for full orchestra. Then in 1967, he extracted the Shaker Variations as a separate work.

The scenario for Graham’s ballet centers on a young pioneer couple who are about to be married in early 19th-century Pennsylvania, and around their newly built homestead. The couple receives visits and advice from family, neighbors, and a revivalist preacher, and are finally left alone to their new lives and home. Copland’s music is optimistic and evocative, calling up images of strength, courage, and religious faith from the American frontier. His earlier ballets had used folk songs to create an American quality, but nearly all the melodic material in Appalachian Spring is Copland’s own—only at the climactic point of the ballet does he introduce folk material in the guise of an old Shaker melody, Simple Gifts.

What You’ll Hear
After a short trumpet introduction, Copland gives the Simple Gifts melody to solo woodwinds. He follows it with four variations, culminating in a grand version set above a solemn bassline from the low brass. A brief solo trumpet passage leads into a final Amen.

Tchaikovsky channeled his admiration for Mozart into this showpiece for cello and orchestra.

This new work, receiving one of its very first performances at these programs, was co-commissioned for Zuill Bailey by the Spokane Symphony. It celebrates the diversity and unity of the United States, marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This is a collectively created suite: five movements created by five composers of very different backgrounds: four of them American (including two immigrants) and one Mexican.

Avner Dorman (b. 1975)
Mark O’Connor (b. 1961)
Zhou Tian (b. 1981)
Chanda Dancy (b. 1978)
Enrico Chapela (b. 1974)

Visions of Humanity and Unity

• Composed: 2026.
• Premiere: August 8, 2026, in Cincinnati, by Mr. Bailey and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra.
• Duration: 25:00.

Background
Led by Summermusik (Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra), a groundbreaking commissioning consortium brings together a national network of orchestras and festivals—including the Long Beach Symphony, Spokane Symphony, South Carolina Philharmonic, Fairbanks Symphony, Classics Northwest, El Paso Pro Musica, Mesa Arts Center, and Sitka Music Festival—to create Visions of Humanity and Unity in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

This piece is an artistic tribute to the document’s humanistic ideals, celebrating how social and cultural diversity have made our country a beacon of innovation and progress. To mirror this democratic pluralism, the consortium engaged five composers of radically different backgrounds— Avner Dorman, Mark O’Connor, Zhou Tian, Chanda Dancy, and Enrico Chapela. Together, they have each composed one movement of a five-movement cello concerto that can be scaled down to a cello-piano suite. The work’s movements are interchangeable, and each is inspired by a specific phrase from the Declaration. Performed by cellist Zuill Bailey, this collaborative work transforms historic text into a vibrant musical mosaic—proving that distinct national voices can harmoniously champion a shared vision for humanity.

What You’ll Hear
Each of the five composers has provided a note on their movement.

Avner Dorman, Repeated Petitions
This commission began with a prompt connected to the 250th anniversary of the United States: I was asked to revisit the Declaration of Independence and respond to it from my own cultural perspective. Upon re-reading, I found myself struck less by the famous opening preamble and more by what follows: the exhaustive list of grievances and the concept of “repeated petitions.” I was moved by the image of the colonists arguing, reasoning, and trying again—exhausting every verbal and intellectual resource before finally taking responsibility for their own freedom.

That persistence reminded me immediately of Talmudic discussion. While not a literal parallel, both share a fundamental trust that the act of returning to the same question from different angles is a vital part of the search for justice. This spirit of active, persistent engagement became the core of “Repeated Petitions”, my movement of the collaborative cello concerto Visions of Humanity and Unity.

The resulting music is energetic and rhythmic. I was drawn to the early American fife-and-drum music and the marches of the Revolutionary and Civil War eras. Having lived in Gettysburg for the past sixteen years, this soundscape has become very familiar to me; I hear it in the town’s ceremonies and reenactments, and in the way this landscape constantly returns to its own history.

As the music moves from Revolutionary sounds toward Civil War-era material—including quotes from the fife tune “Blatchley’s Banter” and the spiritual “Go Down, Moses”—it reflects my thinking on freedom as an active process rather than a static achievement. I wanted to celebrate freedom not as a finished gift, but as something precious, unfinished, and inextricably linked to responsibility. Ultimately, freedom is something we must keep petitioning for: constantly asking who is free, what we are protecting, and what still needs to change.

Mark O Connor, Fiddler Coming Home
I am pleased to be included as composer of a work for cello and orchestra featuring the world-renowned cellist Zuill Bailey. I’ve come to know him and his playing a great deal over several years. I’m also excited to share the stage with several distinguished composers of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds to complete a classical music mosaic tributing America’s 250th. Indubitably, I am known as an American-styled composer and string-player, so I welcome the task here. When I compose my American music, the conceptualizations seem to always include our beautiful habitat and natural world, the human condition and nostalgia for the best parts of our past, the ongoing struggle in racial reconciliation defining the American experience as well as its artforms, our collective hope and optimism for a better future, and always the longing to be more free.

Zhou Tian, Elegy
Elegy offers a moment of remembrance—honoring those whose sacrifices, struggles, and hopes have shaped the nation across generations. The solo cello serves as a solitary voice, singing over luminous string textures in a meditation on resilience, compassion, and the enduring pursuit of unity.

Chanda Dancy, Intermezzo In Soul
As a part of the Visions Of Humanity and Unity piece, Intermezzo In Soul celebrates the beautiful and complicated soul of our great country through the lens of the Black American experience with orchestral colors of Blues, Soul, Jazz and Spirituals in a lyrical and cinematic work that highlights the hope, longing and boundless optimism of the American spirit.

Enrico Chapela, Alebrije
An alebrije is a traditional Mexican folk art figure representing a fantastical creature made by combining characteristics of different real or imaginary animals. Alebrijes are typically painted in vivid colors and intricate patterns. I chose this image as the title of the movement I was commissioned to write for the Visions of Humanity and Unity project, since it is part of a work composed by five different composers, each contributing their own culture and musical language.

Tchaikovsky channeled his admiration for Mozart into this showpiece for cello and orchestra.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Born: May 7, 1840, Votkinsk, Russia.
Died: November 6, 1893, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra, Op.33

• Composed: 1876.
• Premiere: It was written for the cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, who played the premiere in Moscow on November 30, 1877.
• Duration: 20:00.

Background
Tchaikovsky revered Mozart above all other composers, and adapted Mozart’s style in a few of his works; both his Mozartiana Suite and Rococo Variations are works that are “Mozartean” in conception. He turned to Mozart’s music for solace during dark times. At one point he wrote to a friend: “Do you know that when I play Mozart, I feel brighter and younger—almost a youth?” And he seems to have needed that solace in the mid-1870s. He had been awarded a teaching position at the Moscow Conservatory in 1866 and taught there for a decade. Tchaikovsky’s years in Moscow were often hectic and difficult, and he faced a constant and frustrating lack of time to compose. Despite its drawbacks, the teaching position also allowed him to make contacts with all of Russia’s finest musicians, and he still managed to be tremendously productive during this time.

The Rococo Variations were among the last works he wrote during his Moscow years, composed at the request of cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, one of Tchaikovsky’s colleagues at the Conservatory. The work was immediately successful, performed on tour by Fitzenhagen, and praised by Franz Liszt and others. To Tchaikovsky’s chagrin, Fitzenhagen presented a thoroughly re-arranged and heavily edited version to a publisher without permission. Though he was apparently angry at these unauthorized changes, he eventually went along with the publication, and this remains the version most often played today—perhaps a bit more romantic in style than Tchaikovsky intended, but still a work that retains the straightforward good humor of the late 18th century.

What You’ll Hear
After a brief introduction, the solo cello presents a genial theme that will provide the basis for seven variations. The theme and most of the variations are concluded with a brief woodwind passage. Tchaikovsky’s elaborations of the theme range from straight decorations of the melody (Variations 1-2) to lush and lyrical (Variation 3) to jolly (Variation 5) to mock-tragic (Variation 6). The capstone, Variation 7, is a blazingly fast virtuoso passage for cello.

Still had a long and successful career as a Classical composer beginning in the 1930s. He wrote this gentle portrait of a mother and her child in 1943.

William Grant Still
Born: May 11, 1895, Woodville, Mississippi.
Died: December 3, 1978, Los Angeles, California.

Mother and Child

• Composed: 1943, as the second movement of a suite for violin and piano.
• Premiere: March 12, 1944, by violinist Louis Kaufman and his wife Annette. Still subsequently made several different arrangements of this piece including the version for string orchestra heard here.
• Duration: 8:00.

William Grant Still, who would eventually be known as the “Dean of Afro-American composers” was born in Mississippi. He studied music at Wilberforce University in Ohio but had to withdraw to earn a living. Still worked as an arranger for the early blues composer W. C. Handy and was eventually able to enroll at Oberlin College. His studies were again cut short, this time by service in the Navy during World War I. After the war, Handy invited him to New York City, where he spent the next several years making a living arranging for popular singers and orchestrating Broadway shows. Still’s breakthrough work in what he referred to as “serious music” was his Afro-American Symphony, a work that incorporated the blues, spirituals, and other black musical idioms. Upon its October 1931 premiere by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, it became the first work by a black composer to be programmed by a major American orchestra. Performances by other orchestras quickly followed. In 1934, Still relocated to Los Angeles, where he would spend the rest of his life. He worked occasionally scoring music for Hollywood and later, television, and built a successful career as an independent composer. Still left behind an impressive musical legacy: five operas, four ballets, five symphonies, eight symphonic poems, and a host of smaller works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, chorus, and solo voice.

In 1943, Still pulled out of one of the biggest film scoring contracts of his career, the big-budget Hollywood musical Stormy Weather. This 20th Century Fox production featured an all-Black cast, headlined by Lena Horne, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and Cab Calloway. Still believed that the film’s portrayal of its Black characters was stereotyped and degrading. This typically principled stand by Still no doubt cost him dearly, and when he received his commission for a violin suite, he sought out a more uplifting inspiration, focused on the dignity of African Americans: “I thought of three contemporary Negro artists whom I admire and resolved to try to catch in music my feeling for an outstanding work by each of them.”

What You’ll Hear
The inspiration for Mother and Child came from Sargent Claude Johnson (1888-1967), a San Francisco-based artist and sculptor. Johnson created multiple sculptures with this title, but the inspiration for Still seems to have been a 1932 chalk drawing now held by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This shows a young black mother, seated, stroking the head of a child who is embracing her knees. The string orchestra version of Mother and Child heard here begins with gentle, slightly bluesy music. There is an apprehensive moment near the end that culminates in a sudden pause and a brief solo violin line. All tension now soothed away, the piece returns to the opening mood.

This ballet, the first of Copland’s “American Trilogy,” tells the story of the legendary outlaw, complete with several cowboy songs and fiddle tunes.

Aaron Copland
Born: November 14, 1900, Brooklyn, New York.
Died: December 2, 1990, Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Suite from Billy the Kid

• Composed: Copland’s ballet score Billy the Kid was written in 1938. The concert suite heard here was created in 1939.
• Premiere: The ballet’s first production was on October 16, 1938, in Chicago, though this was a two-piano version of the score. The full orchestral score was played in concert in New York City on May 24, 1939, and the Suite was first played by the NBC Orchestra in a broadcast concert from Radio City Music Hall on November 9, 1940.
• Duration: 18:00.

Background
Copland’s most famous works are his great trilogy of ballets on American subjects: Billy the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942), and Appalachian Spring (1944). In these ballets, Copland cultivated a sparse, sometimes austere style that seemed to echo the sound of the American wilderness. He sometimes made his musical nationality even more clear by quoting American folk material: the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts in the finale of his Appalachian Spring, or cowboy and fiddle tunes in Billy the Kid and Rodeo.

Billy the Kid, the first of this trio, was written in 1938, when Lincoln Kirstein, director of the Ballet Caravan (predecessor of today’s New York City Ballet), approached Copland with a scenario for a ballet on the life of the legendary outlaw. The real Billy, Henry McCarty (1859-1881), led a short, violent, and inglorious life. He participated in the infamous Lincoln County War in New Mexico in 1878—a dispute between ranchers and local merchants that deteriorated into a series of revenge killings. McCarty, now calling himself William Bonney, then rode with an outlaw group of former ranch hands called the “Regulators.” He lived by the gun and rustled cattle, escaping jail three times before being shot by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who had earlier befriended him in Lincoln County. Garrett later published a sensationalist biography of Billy the Kid, and through popular dime novels and a whole series of movies, Billy was transformed into one of the great antiheroes of the West.

Kirstein’s version of the outlaw, choreographed by Eugene Loring, uses this romanticized Billy the Kid. While it was not as successful a ballet as Rodeo and Appalachian Spring, Copland’s concert suite—including nearly all the original music—was heard on Toscanini’s popular NBC broadcasts and was an immediate hit.

What You’ll Hear
The Open Prairie is a calm introduction, setting the stage, creating a sense of endless space as a calm melody winds its way through the instruments of the orchestra. The music grows more insistent until Copland introduces a forceful brass theme. In Street in a Frontier Town, Copland uses a whole series of cowboy tunes to create a picture of cowboys and their girlfriends, beginning with a jaunty piccolo solo (“Great Granddad”). This is followed by “I Was Walkin’ One Mornin’ for Pleasure” and “Goodbye Old Paint.” There is a little conflict as a group of Mexican girls tries to dance a jarabe, the rhythm grating against “Come Wrangle Yer Bronco.” A pair of trombones, playing the role of a couple of fighting drunks, play “Git Along Little Dogies.” In the end, Billy tries to step between the drunks when one of them accidentally shoots his mother, the slapstick playing the role of the gun. Billy stabs him and flees.

Card Game at Night subtly works “O Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” into its calm texture, concluding with a beautiful trumpet solo. This mood is shattered by tense string chords and shattering gunshots from the bass drum. The Gun Battle that follows is dissonant and percussive, with savage punctuations by the bass trombone and bass drum. Billy is captured by Pat Garrett in this battle. The Celebration Dance after Billy’s Capture is a bit cocky as the townspeople celebrate Garrett’s triumph with a mocking dance…and perhaps just a bit too much liquor, as Copland’s music combines two different keys at once. As it turns out, the celebration is premature: Billy escapes into the desert for a brief romantic interlude with his Mexican girlfriend. The brief Billy’s Death brings the action to a close with surprisingly gentle music, a solo violin representing Billy’s restless soul. The Open Prairie Again brings the music full circle with a triumphant version of the opening section.

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Program notes ©2026 by J. Michael Allsen