New Jersey Symphony: Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances

Jazz and classical meet in this genre-defying program full of color, rhythm, and fun. Montclair’s own jazz legend and nine-time Grammy Award winner Christian McBride debuts with the New Jersey Symphony in a concerto tailor-made for him, George Duke’s Dark Wood: Bass Concerto for McBride, alongside McBride’s own composition Fried Bacon. Conductor Eric Jacobsen, hailed by The New York Times as an interpretive dynamo, also leads Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun before closing with Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, the composer’s deeply nostalgic final major work, written entirely while living in the United States after fleeing the Russian Revolution. Rachmaninoff, who said that in losing his country he lost himself also, composed only six works in his 24 years in America, with Symphonic Dances standing as his poignant farewell, quoting his own earlier compositions alongside the Dies Irae theme of death and a Resurrection theme from his All-Night Vigil that ultimately triumphs in the finale.