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The work of pioneering American composer Charles Ives will be featured in the SUNY College-Community Orchestra concert set for Tuesday, Nov. 15, in the Dowd Fine Arts Theatre.

“Charles Ives and His World” will be directed by Ubaldo Valli of the Performing Arts Department. The concert will begin at 8 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Charles Ives (1874-1954) was an iconoclastic American composer who composed music that reflected the America he knew, the America of New England, of marching bands, sometimes several playing different pieces at the same time in a parade, and of baseball, Decoration Day celebrations and barn dances. His music, innovative and uncompromising, was met through most of his life with indifference and confusion until the mid 20th century. 

Ives composed a piano sonata titled “Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840–60,” which he described as an “...impression of the spirit of transcendentalism that is associated in the minds of many with Concord, Mass., of over a half century ago.” One of the movements is titled “The Alcotts” and depicts the household of Bronson and Louisa May Alcott. In “The Alcotts,” Ives quotes Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner and the popular music of the day.

The concert centers around an arrangement for full orchestra of “The Alcotts” movement from the Concord Sonata. In addition, the concert features music related to the music quoted in “The Alcotts,” including Wagner (Rienzi Overture), Beethoven (Finale to the Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral”) and the popular music of his day as composed by Oskar Boehme (Russian Dance for Trumpet and Orchestra) featuring Professor of Music Ralph Dudgeon playing trumpet.

For more information, contact the Performing Arts Department at (607) 753-2811.