The UL Lafayette Symphony Orchestra will present Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait" on Friday, April 1.
The performance begins at 7:00 pm in Angelle Hall Auditorium on the UL Lafayette campus.
Friday's concert will feature University President Dr. Joseph Savoie as narrator, graduate student Louisa Peng performing the first movement from Grieg’s "Piano Concerto in A Minor" and the UL School of Music faculty members Andrea Loewy, Michael Blaney and Yuling Huang-Davie performing Ibert's Duex Interludes.
One of Copland's most popular pieces, the UL Symphony says "Lincoln Portrait" was commissioned during the early years of World War II by conductor Andre Kostelanetz for a program of three new works by American composers.
Copland chose excerpts from Lincoln's own words for the narration, they say.
The score includes quotations from "Springfield Mountain" and "Camptown Races."
According to Copland, "I hoped to suggest something of the mysterious sense of fatality that surrounds Lincoln's personality. The challenge was to compose something simple, yet interesting enough to fit Lincoln."
The piece has been performed on many occasions and with many narrators, among them Carl Sandburg, William Warfield, Eleanor Roosevelt, James Earl Jones, and Copland himself.
To learn more about the UL Lafayette Symphony and Friday's performance, click here.