A mostly American Prom taking in the influences of jazz and popular music alongside iconic classic works by Barber and Copland respectively evoking a balmy Tennessee night and Pennsylvanian pioneer settlers.
California-born Ryan Bancroft makes his Proms debut as Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Bancroft grew up in a household where jazz and prog-rock was heard more often than Bach, so it’s no surprise that jazz plays a role in this mostly American programme.
Martinů’s quirky Jazz Suite complements John Adams’s Chamber Symphony, whose sound-world only became clear to the composer when, as he was studying Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony one day, he became aware that his young son was watching cartoons in a neighbouring room. According to Adams, ‘The hyperactive, insistently aggressive and acrobatic scores for the cartoons mixed in my head with the Schoenberg music, itself hyperactive, acrobatic and not a little aggressive, and I realised suddenly how much these two traditions had in common.’
After a new commission by British composer Gavin Higgins comes two American classics: Barber’s nostalgic evocation of a balmy summer Tennessee night and Copland’s ballet inspired by early-19th-century pioneer settlers in Pennsylvania.
BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff Bay