Aaron Copland made four highly publicized government-sponsored trips to Latin America between 1941 and 1963. During these visits, he shared contemporary American concert music with Latin American audiences, including his own violin sonata, heard on tonight’s program. Back home, he drew US attention to the composers and musicians he met in Latin America, such as Heitor Villa-Lobos of Brazil and Silvestre Revueltas and Manuel Ponce of Mexico, all whom Copland knew personally and whose works are also featured. Another contemporary of Copland was the Black American composer William Grant Still, whose Panamanian Dances were inspired by a collection of Latin American folk songs. The history of Pan-American musical exchange predates Copland. This program also includes music by pianist-composer Edward MacDowell, an American student of the Venezuelan pianist and composer Teresa Carreño, and composer-pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who traveled extensively throughout Latin America. UC Davis musicology professor Carol Hess will speak before the concert about musical diplomacy and cultural exchange in the Americas.

PROGRAM

Aaron Copland – Sonata for Violin and Piano (1942–43)

Heitor Villa-Lobos – Saudades das Selvas Brasileiras (1927) | . No.1

Manuel M. Ponce Cuellar – Cuatro Danzas Mexicanas (1941) | No. 1 & No. 2

Silvestre Revueltas – “Canto a una muchacha negra“ (words: Langston Hughes), voice and piano (1938)

Copland – Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (1950)

INTERMISSION

Teresa Carreño – Deux esquisses italiennes | I. Venise. Rêverie-barcarolle

Edward MacDowell – Selections from Woodland Sketches, Op.51; Sea Pieces, Op.55; From an Old Garden, Op.26

Rebecca Helferich Clarke – Viola Sonata (1919)

Louis Moreau Gottschalk – Le banjo, Op.15 (1854)

William Grant Still – Danzas de Panama for String Quartet (1948) | II & IV