Aaron Jay Kernis Musica Celestis
Copland Appalachian Spring
Dvořák New World Symphony

at Smith Square Hall, London SW1P 3HA (formerly St John’s Smith Square)

This concert opens Outcry: New World, a series exploring music shaped by the idea of America — its landscapes, its energy, and its cultural imagination.

The programme brings together three works written in the United States, spanning more than a century of American musical life.

Musica Celestis by Aaron Jay Kernis opens the evening with a glowing, expansive soundworld, its slow-moving textures and rich orchestration reflecting the breadth and confidence of contemporary American orchestral writing.

That sense of space and clarity continues in Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, a work that has become inseparable from the sound of America itself. Its open harmonies, folk-inflected melodies, and rhythmic vitality evoke community, movement, and possibility.

The concert concludes with Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No 9 'From the New World' , written during his time in the United States. Drawing inspiration from American musical traditions and the scale of the country itself, it remains one of the most powerful and enduring responses to America ever composed.

Please join James for a free pre-concert talk at 5.30pm