[PIANO MUSIC] [LINUS]: Hello everyone, welcome to the State of the ArtZ.

I'm Linus Lerner, conductor of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra and I'm here to talk to you about some exciting programming we have coming up in February to honor the Black History Mont [PORGY AND BESS MUSIC] SASO is the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra and it has been here in Tucson for over 40 years.

We do a season of five cycles here and extra concerts in Tucson and also SaddleBrooke.

I'm the Artistic Director and I am the Conductor.

So, Artistic Director is the guy who normally plans the season, who gets in touch with the soloists, decides what we are doing.

And as the Conductor, I am the one who rehear I love the moment of rehearsal.

I think when we get to the perform everything is already done, it's the moment just to enjoy and pass happiness, that moment to the audience.

For this program especially, I decide to look for black composers or something to do with the black history, but not to stay only with American c although we have two major, George Walker and William Grant Still.

From William Grant Still, we'll be doing the Afro-American Symphony, and fr be doing one of his most famous pieces, the Lyric for Strings.

And then I also choose a very importan African-British composer, Samuel Coleridge We'll be doing a violin concerto.

Carissa Powe, who is going to be our soloist, she's a black lady and pa st, so it's very exciting.

Now she has a career and coming back to play as a soloist.

And also we're doing a dance from Coleridge and a Brazilian piece that was, it's not a black composer, but it's about black music.

It's about the carnival, the batuque.

Lorenzo Fernandez, it's called Batuque from a collection of pieces in Brazil.

And I think the audience is absolutely going to love because we have a surprise, at the end we're going to end like a carnival in Brazil.

I picked different pieces, different moods, so the audience can, you know, you have a moment of they can cry and then they can stand up and joy.

So I think this program in specific it was moved, the idea was moving in the sense of put first great music together.

Because there's so many composers of black ethnicity that I could choose, but I decide on this because it really has a sense, you know, we have the blues, we have the samba, the batuque, then we have a more sort of classical, like the violin concerto.

So we have different things happen and I think that's a recipe for a great concert.

George Walker just passed in 2018.

He was a composer that really left so much music, about 150 works, I think.

But the most famous piece is the one we're playing, which is the Lyric for Strings, and that is a second movement from his first string quartet.

William Grant Still is way more known in the world and in America indeed, because until 1950s, William Grant Still was his Afro-American symphony was the most played American symphony in the world.

So for me, the blue, the jazz, the bossa no the samba, they all come fro And different countries in Africa, but they all come from black So we wouldn't have this great in America, the jazz, or in Brazil, the samba, if it weren't for the the black contribution.

If someone wants to check us out, our website is www.sasomusic.org.

That's our website for the orchestra.

You can get tickets there.

You can check also our Just look for Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra In SaddleBrooke, you can come on Saturday, February the 10th at the DesertView Performing Arts Center.

If you wanna see us performing here in Tucson, we perform at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Sunday, February 11th at 3 p.m. And it's a great alternative for you if you're not into Super Bowl.

There's some people that really don't care.

So there is a much better pr Just kidding.

You at this wonderful concert.

Thank you for joining us at the State of the I'm Linus Lerner, Conductor of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra.

And I hope to see you See you soon.

[PIANO MUSIC]