2700 F St NW
Washington, DC 20566
USA
NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONCERT HONORING JOHN F. KENNEDY
Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 8 p.m.
National Symphony Orchestra
Joshua Weilerstein, conductor
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano
Concert Hall–from $79
Program:
Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
William Grant Still: Poem for Orchestra
Mason Bates: Passage
John Williams: Cello Concerto
Bernstein: Three Dance Episodes from On The Town
This performance features Kennedy Center Artistic Advisor at Large Yo-Yo Ma and is led by young American conductor Joshua Weilerstein in his Kennedy Center debut.
The National Symphony Orchestra performs the world premiere of Mason Bates’s Passage, an NSO commission created especially for JFK’s 100th. Passage examines the theme of American exploration through the visionary words of Walt Whitman and President John F. Kennedy. Composed for renowned mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and the NSO, the work imaginatively sets Whitman’s “Passage to India” alongside recorded fragments of JFK’s moonshot speech given in 1961. Two iconic American voices—that of poet and President—come together on a journey to the ever-expanding human frontier.