Anchorage Symphony’s Veterans Day Salute
This November we’ll be returning to Anchorage for a special Veterans Day concert featuring our popular World War I & II commemorative pieces, No Man’s Land and Citizen Soldier. This concert follows last spring’s collaboration with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Randall Craig Fleischer where we premiered Sagaland, set to Hovhaness’s Mysterious Mountain and a new community-submitted piece focused on the uniqueness of Alaska, titled North of Ordinary.
This time around, we’re paying tribute to the ongoing anniversaries of WWI and WWII and, more broadly, the men and women who have served—or currently serve—in the armed forces. Alaska played a important home-front role during World War II, and currently Anchorage is home to the Joint Base Emendorf-Richardson (JBER), which merges strategic U.S. Air Force and Army activities in the area. Like our past remembrance-themed concerts, many veterans and active service members will likely attend.
Both of the historic multimedia pieces on the program were created using archival imagery from over a dozen countries. No Man’s Land commemorates the ongoing 100th anniversary of World War I, and the rendition we’ll be performing in Anchorage is choreographed to Copland’s contemplative Quiet City. It’s companion piece, Citizen Soldier, commemorates the ongoing 75th anniversary of World War II and is set to the dramatic Romanza movement from Vaughan William’s Symphony No. 5 for our collaboration. Also on the program are Barber’s Second Essay for Orchestra, Rodgers’s Victory at Sea, and Copland’s Lincoln Portrait.
