Online ticket orders place after Nov 22nd, will be held at the will-call for day of show pickup. All other ticket orders will be mailed to purchaser

This annual concert featuring area High Schoolers is named in honor of Dr. Mae Adele Berrian, a historic honoree of the Henderson County Education Foundation who willed a large sum of money to the Foundation to start the long-term Berrian Fund for the HCPS strings programs.

Join us for our Fall Concert on December 4th, 2PM at Blue Ridge Community College

We will be performing:

Symphony No. 5, movement 3 - Beethoven

Sleigh Ride - Leroy Anderson

Sorcerer's Apprentice - Paul Dukas

Waltz of the Flowers from Nutcracker - Tchaikovsky

The HSO principal brass quintet, Larry Black and Chris Imhoff on Trumpet, Anneka Zuehlke-King on Horn, Mark Britt on Trombone and Michael Taylor on Tuba continues our series celebrating Simone, Sandburg, and the American symphony.  In a soulful nocturne under the trees of the Carl Sandburg Home amphitheater in Flat Rock, the musicians will be bringing to life a song- and dance-inspired musical portrait of the American spirit.  

The program opens with the world premiere of a dance-flavored fanfare by composer John Muehleisen, winner of a 2020 American Prize for “A Kipling Passion.”  Muehleisen is a master of expressive text painting, and two of his most beautiful and elegant choral settings will be featured on the first half of the program, both in HSO-commissioned new arrangements for brass quintet.  “Nocturne” is a setting of Carl Sandburg’s hypnotically pastoral poem “Peace, Night, Sleep.” And, “Portrait” is an iridescent elaboration on a poem of the enigmatic American poet Gertrude Stein, a portrait of the artist Henry Phaelan Gibb.

The concert also features a celebration of the American spiritual and Jazz more generally.  Highlights include Crys Armbrust’s “Fanfare for Nina,” which was written for the dedication of the Nina Simone sculpture in her Tryon, NC birthplace.  Simone herself recorded several versions of the spiritual “Take Me to the Water,” which is the basis of a new arrangement of the tune by Keelan Lovvorn.  Leonard Bernstein’s “Dance Suite for Brass Quintet,” which consists of five portraits of icons of American dance which was the legendary composer’s final work.  The concert will conclude with several rollocking tunes straight out of the birthplace of Jazz in New Orleans. 

Tickets are $25 per person and may be purchased online by following our link below. Ice cream refreshments will be available for purchase before the performance – our friends at Breedlove Deli will have an ice cream truck on site.

While attending the concert, please maintain social distancing from people not in your group.
Please plan to join us for what promises to be a lovely evening with The Friends. Follow The Friends of Carl Sandburg on Facebook and Instagram for updates on this and all our programs.

For more information and to purchase tickets:
https://friendsofcarlsandburg.org/events

The Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra’s principal brass quintet, Larry Black and Chris Imhoff on Trumpet, Anneka Zuehlke-King on Horn, Mark Britt on Trombone and Michael Taylor on Tuba continues our celebration of the American spiritual and Jazz more generally. Highlights include Crys Armbrust’s “Fanfare for Nina,” which was written for the dedication of the Nina Simone sculpture in her Tryon, NC birthplace. Simone herself recorded several versions of the spiritual “Take Me to the Water,” which is the basis of a new arrangement of the tune by Keelan Lovvorn. Leonard Bernstein’s “Dance Suite for Brass Quintet,” which consists of five portraits of icons of American dance which was the legendary composer’s final work. The concert will conclude with several rollocking tunes straight out of the birthplace of Jazz in New Orleans.

 “The Americas”

 South American Music (Latin Style) - Clarinet & Piano

 Arturo Márquez: “Zarabandeo”

Paquito D’Rivera: “The Cape Cod Files”

Astor Piazzolla: “Libertango”

 North American Music (Jazzy Style) - Clarinet & Piano

 Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story

“Jet Song” & “Something’s Coming”

Leonard Bernstein: “Clarinet Sonata”

George Gershwin: “Rhapsody in Blue”

“La France en Amérique”

With a Modern Swing of Elegant Jazz - (Elegant Jazz) – Flute, Piano, Double Bass & Drums

Claude Bolling: “Suite No. 2 for Flute & Jazz Piano Trio”

Join us for this special night at The Center for Art & Entertainment in downtown Hendersonville.

​​The Hendersonville Symphony begins its celebration of Simone, Sandburg, and the American Orchestra with "The American Songbag."  Carl Sandburg's 1927 anthology The American Songbag was a massively influential song collection that heralded the rise of the widespread appreciation of American folksong.  The HSO's principal wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn) will be performing folksong-inspired works by Dvorak, Still, and Coleman.

The concert will open with “Miniatures" (1948) by William Grant Still, often called the "dean of Afro-American composers."  The piece includes songs and spirituals found in Songbag and other sources, but Still's masterful treatments move beyond the source material, standing as gems of the repertoire on their own. 

One of the earliest composers to explore the question of a "serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States" was ironically the Czech composer Anton Dvorak.  Living and travelling in the US in the early 1890's, Dvorak composed his "American" Quartet in F major, which was inspired by the culture, spirituals, and even the trains and songbirds of America.  The original version for strings has been reworked brilliantly for woodwind quintet by Georges Barrere.

Closing the program is Valerie Coleman’s elegant setting of the traditional spiritual “Steal Away.”