The Chicago Symphony Orchestra opened its month-long celebration of America’s 250th anniversary with a program that traced a century of the nation’s musical lineages. The concerts to follow will feature an eclectic lineup, from pianist Conrad Tao and mandolinist Chris Thile, to Leonard Bernstein’s The Age of Anxiety. But by uniting the voices of John Adams, Aaron Copland, and Wynton Marsalis in its opening program, the CSO is establishing a clear baseline for its audience: Here is how our country’s orchestral style has evolved under the talents of its artistic voices.
In Copland, one finds the midcentury ideal: a cultivated European training transformed into an expansive, distinctly American language. Adams marks the late twentieth century turn away from the more abrasive strains of academic modernism and toward a broader, more accessible musical vocabulary. Marsalis has spent much of his career arguing for straight-ahead jazz as a serious American art form, one deserving a place alongside the nation’s other notated traditions.
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