Dvorák's Prophecy #4 - A New Narrative For Americ

Benjamin Pasternack, PostClassical Ensemble

Buffeted by social and political currents, Aaron Copland can seem unmoored: a cork in a stream. He was politicized by the Depression -- and by the example of Mexico, whose artists galvanized national identity and progressive thought. He wrote a prize-winning workers’ song and addressed a Communist picnic in Minnesota. Twenty years later, the Red Scare targeted him as a traitor. Can his odyssey be read as a parable illuminating the fate of the American artist? The film features a re-enactment of Copland’s grilling by Senator Joseph McCarthy. It also highlights his ingenious music for Lewis Mumford’s 1939 World’s Fair film The City, itself a complex product of the Popular Front. The commentators include the music historian Beth Levy, the pianist Benjamin Pasternack, and the American historians Michael Kazin and Joseph McCartin, who ponder the tangled legacy of American populism left and right. Also featuring PostClassical Ensemble conducted by Angel Gil-Ordonez.

Price: $18.98

In stock
ships in 3 to 5 days