Tapping Into the Twenties

Music Director Leon Botstein leads the American Symphony Orchestra in its debut performance at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, the third of four orchestral concerts in New York City during the ensemble’s 63rd season, on Sunday, March 23 at 3 pm. The afternoon program offers works from the 1920s by John Alden Carpenter, Erwin Schulhoff, and William Grant Still, that demonstrate the influence of jazz on the music of that time period; and a symphonic poem by Edgard Varèse exploring the mysterious and powerful nature of the constellations above. Award-winning pianist and recording artist Orion Weiss, hailed as a “brilliant pianist” by The New York Times, also makes his David Geffen Hall debut at this concert as the featured soloist in Schulhoff’s seldom-heard Concerto for Piano and Small Orchestra. The ASO’s next concert will be a rare performance of Richard Strauss’ first opera, Guntram, with the Bard Festival Chorale on June 6 at Carnegie Hall.