Ellis Island: The Dream of America is a work for actors and orchestra with projected images by American composer Peter Boyer, composed in 2001-02, commissioned by the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford, Connecticut. The work combines first-person narrations of seven immigrants who entered the United States through Ellis Island between 1910 and 1940, selected by Boyer from the Ellis Island Oral History Project, with Boyer’s original orchestral music. The work has received over 250 performances by 120 orchestras. A recording of the work released on the Naxos record label was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in the 48th annual Grammy Awards. [1] In April 2017, performances by Pacific Symphony of Ellis Island: The Dream of America were filmed for broadcast on PBS’ Great Performances series in the 2017-18 broadcast season. [2] [3] Boyer has credited this work to leading to other commissions dealing with American subject matter, including Balance of Power (commissioned by Bonnie McElveen-Hunter in honor of Henry Kissinger's 95th birthday), Fanfare for Tomorrow (commissioned for President Biden's January 2021 presidential inauguration), Rolling River(sketches on "Shenandoah"), and In the Cause of the Free (commissioned as a reflection on Veteran's Day and the WWI Armistice, and inspired by Laurence Binyon's poem For the Fallen ). [4] Among the most high-profile orchestras to perform Ellis Island: The Dream of America was The Cleveland Orchestra, in April 2023. [5]
Leonard Bernstein was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American conductor to receive international acclaim. Bernstein was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history" according to music critic Donal Henahan. Bernstein won seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, 16 Grammy Awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor.
Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by The New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world. After gaining recognition for her first orchestral composition, Sequoia (1981), a tone poem which structurally depicts a giant tree from trunk to needles, she has gone on to compose a variety of instrumental works including Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which is something of a response to Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the Island Prelude, five string quartets, and an assortment of other tone poems. Tower was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her early works, including her widely performed Petroushskates.
The Music Makers, Op. 69, is a work for contralto or mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra composed by Edward Elgar. It was dedicated to "my friend Nicholas Kilburn". It was first performed at the Birmingham Festival on 1 October 1912, conducted by the composer, with Muriel Foster as the soloist.
Colin Matthews, OBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, Britten, Dowland, Mahler, Purcell and Schubert. Other arrangements include orchestrations of all Debussy's 24 Préludes, both books of Debussy's Images, and two movements—Oiseaux tristes and La vallée des cloches—from Ravel's Miroirs. Having received a doctorate from University of Sussex on the works of Mahler, from 1964–1975 Matthews worked with his brother David Matthews and musicologist Deryck Cooke on completing a performance version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony.
Tobias Picker is an American composer, pianist, and conductor, noted for his orchestral works Old and Lost Rivers, Keys To The City, and The Encantadas, as well as his operas Emmeline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, An American Tragedy and Awakenings, among many other works.
Kenneth Daniel Fuchs is a Grammy Award-winning American composer. He currently serves as Professor of Music Composition at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.
The Albany Symphony Orchestra is a professional symphony orchestra based in Albany, New York.
William P. Perry is an American composer and producer of television and film. His music has been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Detroit Symphony and the symphonic orchestras of Cincinnati, Minnesota, Montreal, Calgary and Hartford as well as the Vienna Symphony, the Rome Philharmonic, the Slovak Philharmonic, the RTÉ National Symphony of Ireland and other orchestras in Europe.
The Cleveland Chamber Symphony (CSS) is an American chamber orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music, and has presented over 200 performance premieres. They work in partnership with Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music.
Margaret Brouwer is an American composer and composition teacher. She founded the Blue Streak Ensemble chamber music group.
John McLaughlin Williams is a Grammy award-winning American orchestral conductor and violinist.
Gabriela Lena Frank is an American pianist and composer of contemporary classical music.
David Alan Miller is a multi-Grammy Award-winning American symphony orchestra conductor, and since 1992, music director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Miller served as assistant and associate conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1987–92 and music director of the New York Youth Symphony from 1982-88. He is currently also Artistic Advisor to The Little Orchestra Society in New York City.
Peter Boyer is an American composer, conductor, orchestrator, and professor of music. He is known primarily for his orchestral works, which have received over 600 performances, by more than 250 orchestras.
Metropolis Symphony for Orchestra (1988–93) by American composer Michael Daugherty is a five-movement symphony inspired by Superman comics. The entire piece was created over the span of five years with separate commissions for each movement. Individual movements may be performed separately; however, it is preferred that the 41 minute symphony be performed in its entirety. MetropolisSymphony was premiered by the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra, James Bolle conducting, in November 1993, at the Palace Theater in Manchester, New Hampshire. A connective narrative between movements was written and read by Jack Larson, who had played Jimmy Olsen on television in The Adventures of Superman. The orchestral version without narration was premiered by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, David Zinman conducting, in January 1994, at the Meyerhoff Concert Hall in Baltimore, Maryland.
Deus ex Machina is a piano concerto by the American composer Michael Daugherty. The 33-minute work was jointly commissioned by the Charlotte, Nashville, New Jersey, Rochester and Syracuse Symphony Orchestras. It won the 2011 Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for a recording by soloist Terrance Wilson and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Giancarlo Guerrero.
Giancarlo Guerrero is a Costa Rican orchestra conductor, born in Nicaragua. He is the music director of the Nashville Symphony in Nashville, Tennessee. Guerrero is also Music Director of the Wrocław Philharmonic at the National Forum of Music in Wrocław, Poland and has served as principal guest conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, Portugal. He was formerly the associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra and the music director of the Eugene Symphony. He has won six Grammy Awards.
Jake Runestad is an American composer and conductor of classical music based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has composed music for a wide variety of musical genres and ensembles, but has achieved greatest acclaim for his work in the genres of opera, orchestral music, choral music, and wind ensemble. One of his principal collaborators for musical texts has been Todd Boss.
Fanfare for Tomorrow is a musical composition written by the American composer Peter Boyer. It was originally composed in 2020 as a short fanfare for solo horn on a commission from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops Orchestra and was given its premiere by the horn player Elizabeth Freimuth on YouTube on May 29, 2020. A version for concert band was later commissioned by "The President's Own" United States Marine Band in honor of the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States; this version of the piece was given its world premiere by the United States Marine Band under the direction of Colonel Jason Fettig at the inaugural ceremony of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2021. Boyer also arranged a version of Fanfare for Tomorrow for orchestra; this version was premiered by the Eastern Festival Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwarz on July 3, 2021.