Orchestra New England’s USA250 Concert features American Premieres and ‘Appalachian Spring’ May 2

Orchestra New England (ONE) celebrates the nation’s semiquincentennial year with a “USA250” concert featuring two new works by American composers and one of the country’s most cherished masterpieces, Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. The concert is held at Battell Chapel (400 Elm St.), located at the corner of Elm and College Streets, on Yale’s Old Campus.

Composer Jan Swafford (also known for his masterful biographies Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Ives) has written for ONE a work for strings: The River. Composer Neely Bruce of Wesleyan University has offered to us for premiere his Concerto for Violin.

The violin soloist will be ONE’s own Gary Capozziello who teaches at the Hartt School of Music, Promisek Bach+ workshops, and the Hotchkiss School, and is additionally the assistant concertmaster of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.

When Appalachian Spring premiered in 1944, New York Times critic John Martin wrote, "Aaron Copland has written a score of fresh and singing beauty. It is, on its surface, a piece of early Americana, but in reality, it is a celebration of the human spirit." ONE has performed this masterwork in the past, most notably when Copland himself —collaborating with ONE’s Founder and Music Director, James Sinclair — conducted ONE at Yale University in 1977.

ONE’s tradition of a celebratory, post-concert, catered reception takes place just across Elm Street in Yale’s  Berkeley College Common Room.

Tickets: $50 reserved seating; $30 general admission; $5 Student Rush tickets are available at the door. Media Sponsors: WSHU and WMNR. For tickets and information, www.orchestranewengland.org, email info@orchestranewengland.org or call 203-777-4690.