Acclaimed new-grass player Sam Bush will join the
Nashville Symphony, along with other Americana stars,
Sept. 12. (Photo courtesy of Sugar Hill Records)
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"Classical Americana" is the namesake of the Sept. 12 concert at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center that will mark the first-ever collaboration between the Music City orchestra and the Americana Music Association.
As part of the opening-gala weekend to ring in the local symphony's 2009-10 concert season, the Nashville Symphony will team with the AMA to explore the strong links between classical and roots music in what has been described as a one-of-a-kind musical event.
In its quest to demonstrate said fact with musical aplomb, organizers have recruited a list of guest performers—from Alison Brown, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas and Byron House, to Buddy Miller, Karen Parks and Abigail Washburn—that's nothing short of stellar.
The idea for the Americana-meets-classical collaboration came about several months ago during a casual conversation between Jed Hilly, AMA's executive director, and Alan D. Valentine, president and CEO of the Nashville Symphony.
“We were former classmates in Leadership Music,” Valentine explained, “and one day we started talking about how magical it would be to bring together some fantastic Americana artists with the Nashville Symphony. The essential connections between these musical genres are amazing, as this concert will amply demonstrate.”
Come Sept. 12, then, Albert-George Schram, the orchestra's resident conductor, will lead the symphony and guest players in performing a selection of works that pays tribute to the nation's rich musical traditions, including the blues and gospel to Aaron Copland as well as George Gershwin.
“This concert will illustrate the amazing connection between roots music and classical music that goes back generations,” Hilly said. “Some of the best-known classical composers, from (Antonin) Dvorak to (Aaron) Copland, have long used roots music as a foundation for composition.”
The "Classical Americana" concert will be partly arranged into segments, with each introduced by a narrator. According to concert reps, a unique feature of the program will be that a particular musician will present a traditional version of a familiar work, such as “Simple Gifts,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” or “When the Saints Go Marching In,” which then will be followed by the full orchestra performing a well-known classical composition that makes use of that original.
As for the headlining guest players, Miller is a celebrated guitarist and noted singer-songwriter who has won more Americana Awards than any other artist and Grammy-winning Brown is a progressive banjoist who's also taken home the International Bluegrass Music Association's Instrumentalist of the Year prize. Mandolinist Bush, meanwhile, is not only a founding member of the influential New Grass Revival, but also one of acoustic music’s most respected figures, while Douglas is easily the world’s best-known dobro player, per many.
House, too, will add his own stamp to the Sept. 12 show, with an acclaimed versatility that's made him one of the top bass players in the country. And rounding out the Americana lineup will be soprano Karen Parks, who recently released a critically acclaimed collection of operatic spirituals, and vocalist Abigail Washburn, also a cross-genre banjoist who has collaborated with Béla Fleck.
For more info: For ticket information, please call the Symphony Center Box Office at 615-687-6400 or access the orchestra's Web site by clicking here. For more information about the AMA, please visit www.americanamusic.org.
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