Music in Times of Civil Unrest  

Friday, January 30, 2009
7:30 p.m. at the Modlin Center for the Arts
Richmond Symphony • Erin R. Freeman, conductor

Richmond Symphony, Erin R. Freeman, conductor
University of Richmond Schola Cantorum, Jeffrey Riehl, conductor
James River Singers, Christopher Lindbloom, guest conductor

A reception, hosted by A Moment in Time, will follow.

Inspired by the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, the Richmond Symphony presents an evening of
music that has figured prominently in times of war and civil unrest. Compositions of consolation,
propaganda, historical interest, anger, and peace have been assembled for this moving concert as an homage to the Great Emancipator. Among the selections are:

• Ashokan Farewell, the only modern composition documentary filmmaker Ken Burns used in the PBS series The Civil War. It is the theme song.
• Thomson’s Fugue and Chorale on Yankee Doodle from the 1944 wartime propaganda film Tuesday in November.
• Schoenberg’s haunting choral work, Friede Auf Erden, which sets to music a passionate poetic essay by Conrad Myer on peace and mankind’s struggle to overcome the cruelty of war.
• Haydn’s Agnus Dei and Dona Nobis Pacem from Mass in Time of War, composed when Napoleon was on the march.
• Verdi’s Prelude to Act II from Masked Ball, the only opera he set in North America. Lincoln attended a New York debut performance days before his 1861 inauguration. The opera ends with an assassination of an American leader.
  

More about the music

This Richmond Symphony concert is presented in partnership with the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, the Modlin Center for the Arts, and the University of Richmond Department of Music and is sponsored in part by The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation’s Education Fund, The Robins Foundation, and the Richmond Quest.

The reception following the performance is provided for our guests by A Moment in Time, a joint public history outreach of the University of Richmond and Commonwealth Public Broadcasting. The program, which airs worldwide and reaches a daily audience of 7.3 million, is marking its 15th anniversary this year.