Symphonic Dances

Did You Know?

Anna Clyne’s Masquerade had its world premiere during the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms in 2013. The composer drew inspiration from the original mid-18th century promenade concerts held in London’s pleasure gardens — a place where people from all walks of life mingled to enjoy a wide array of music. (Source: Boosey & Hawkes)

Florence Price’s Juba Dance & Finale are from her first symphony, which received its world premiere in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, making it the first time a major orchestra played music by an African-American woman. (Source: NPR)

Composer Joaquín Turina drew inspiration for Danzas fantásticas, his most-celebrated orchestral work, from the Andalusian region of Spain where he grew up, as well as from a 1919 novella titled La orgía by the Sevillan writer José Más y Laglera, from which Turina inscribed extracts into his score as headings. (Source: The Kennedy Center)

Impressions of Cheonmachong, composed by siblings Kyle and Brooke Newmaster, is not a straightforward Korean traditional three drum dance. Looking to maintain respect for the original form, it is a new work with traditional and modern movement. (Source: billbonk.com)

Sergei Rachmaninoff settled permanently in the United States at about the time he completed his Third Symphony, in 1936. He then busied himself performing and recording some of his works, but a hiatus in his creative activity was broken only by the composition of the Symphonic Dances — the only major work Rachmaninoff composed fully in America. (Source: The Kennedy Center)