American Vignettes

While quintessentially American in spirit, the musical snapshots in this program are as diverse as the men and women who composed them. Drawing from influences as disparate as the blues, jazz, Broadway, gospel, and the wild west, these "American Vignettes" merge popular idioms into a new canon of the cello and piano repertoire.

Margaret Bonds's Troubled Water typifies the composer’s moving arrangements of African American spirituals. Stacy Garrop's Noir Vignettes draws on the sexy and violent world of American 1930s film noir. Gabriela Lena Frank's Manhattan Serenades bustles with life in the big city.

Carter Pann's Differences is, true to its title, a melting-pot of genres. Kevin Puts' Air evokes peaceful Coplandesque landscapes, and Stephen Paulus' American Vignettes closes the program with a suite of old folksongs, arranged in the composer's sophisticated style. The distinctive voices of each of these late 20th and early 21st century composers come together to weave a virtuosic and colorful tapestry of Americana.