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Sunday, June 16, 2019

MUSIC IN THE SOMERSET HILLS PRESENTS AARON COPELAND’S “APPLACHIAN SPRING” OUTDOORS IN FAR HILLS

Appalachian Spring

WHEN: Saturday, June 22, 2019 (rain date is June 23, with an indoor performance if it rains both days) *Performance begins at 8:30pm, gates open at 7:30pm
WHERE:
Somerset Lake and Game Club, 455 Lake Road, Far Hills, NJ
TICKETS: $65 general LAWN SEATING; parking pass $10; reserved seating $100
Tickets and info here

Appalachian Spring may be the most instantly recognizable work in all American music.  Aaron Copland composed it in 1943-44 in response to a commission from Martha Graham and Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge for “a ballet on an American theme”.  It was an instant success when Martha Graham and her troupe first danced it at the Library of Congress in October 1944. 

The following year, the conductor Artur Rodzinski asked Copland to rearrange the score as an orchestral suite, and Copland did this in the spring of 1945 while staying at a cottage on the Claremont estate on Bernardsville Mountain.  The original 13-instrument ballet score now became a full orchestral score, somewhat shorter than the ballet, and that is how it will be heard when Music in the Somerset Hillsbrings it home to the Somerset Hills on Saturday, June 22. 

This concert, which will also feature works by Leonard Bernstein and Samuel Barber (Copland’s longtime friends and companions at Claremont), is dedicated to a singular moment when the originality and creativity of American music reached what many might say was its zenith …... on Bernardsville Mountain in the spring of 1945. 

Those with lawn seats are encouraged to bring a blanket and/or lawn chairs. All ticket holders are free to come early, bring a picnic and your beverage of choice, and enjoy the beautiful surroundings for the hour before the performance begins at 8:30.