The Cal Poly Symphony will team up with the University Jazz Band for their Fall Concert.
“This will be the symphony’s first-ever collaboration with the big band in a program that will explore the intersection of symphonic and jazz traditions,” said Cal Poly Symphony Director David Arrivée. Pieces include orchestral works written in the jazz style to big band charts with string orchestra backing and everything in-between.
First, the orchestra will perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Waltz No. 2” from his “Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2.” This work features the symphony with student saxophonists from the jazz program.
Next, the band will join the orchestra to present works for both ensembles: “Cinco Salsa,” a salsa version of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, first movement, arranged by Sverre Indris Joner; Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “Wave,” a bossa nova for jazz band, three alto flutes and strings; Claude Debussy’s “Arabesque” as arranged by Jack Matthias and recorded by Harry James; and Bert Ligon’s “Bookends.”
Duke Ellington’s “Three Black Kings,” will conclude the first half. It’s a mixed genre representation of King Balthazar (one of the three Magi), King Solomon and Martin Luther King Jr. Music faculty member Ana Nelson will be the featured tenor saxophone soloist in the second and third sections.
After intermission, the ensembles will perform “A Walk to Remember,” a contemporary jazz work by University Jazz Band Director Jamaal Baptiste.
The orchestra will close the program with George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris,” a jazz-influenced work inspired by his time in Paris in the 1920s. He wrote it so at one moment it’s in the style of the French composers known as “Les Six,” and in the next he evokes the style of the blues. He even captures the raucous noise of Parisian taxis with orchestral instruments and actual taxi horns. The music was used in the 1951 film “An American in Paris” for an extended dance sequence featuring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron.
The event is sponsored by Cal Poly’s Music Department, College of Liberal Arts and Instructionally Related Activities program.
