What about the music?
An inside look with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Gershwin’s An American in Paris & Copland’s Rodeo
Friday, January 16, 2026 | 7:30PM | Chrysler Hall – Get Tickets
Saturday, January 17, 2026 | 7:30PM | Diamonstein Concert Hall – Ferguson Center – Get Tickets
Eric Jacobsen, conductor
Alexis Colner, harp
Vocalists from Norfolk State University
Harlan Zackery, director
George Gershwin: An American in Paris
Jennifer Higdon: Harp Concerto
Curtis Stewart: New Work (world premiere)+
Aaron Copland: Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo
By Stella Feliberti
The Performers
conductor
Eric Jacobsen
Already well-established as one of classical music’s most exciting and innovative young conductors, Eric Jacobsen combines fresh interpretations of the traditional canon with cutting-edge collaborations across musical genres. Hailed by the New York Times as “an interpretive dynamo,” Eric, as both a conductor and a cellist, has built a reputation for engaging audiences with innovative and collaborative programming.
Eric joined the Virginia Symphony Orchestra as Music Director in 2021, being named the twelfth music director in the orchestra’s 100+ year history. Current and recent projects include recording projects of Dvorak and Coleridge-Taylor with Gil Shaham and Rhapsody in Blue (on banjo!) with Bela Fleck.
Eric’s musical life started from a very young age surrounded by a musical family, where he discovered his love of pulling a bow across a string as a cellist. He and his brother founded the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and also performed regularly with Yo-Yo Ma as a member of Silk Road, touring around the world. This collaborative spirit and sense of music is something that Eric strives to bring to every concert and project.
Eric brings joy, storytelling, and a touch of humor to what he describes as “musical conversations” that delight audiences around the world, including those who do not traditionally attend classical music concerts. Jacobsen is married to Grammy-Winner singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan and together they have a daughter.
harp
Alexis Colner
Recently appointed principal harpist of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Alexis began her first season with the VSO in the fall of 2023, under the baton of music director Eric Jacobsen. In demand as an orchestral player across the country, Alexis has been invited to appear as guest principal harpist with world class orchestras including the Minnesota Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and Omaha Symphony. Additional performance credits include concerts with the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Opera and Sarasota Orchestra.
Alexis served as the principal harpist of the Aspen Music Festival’s Chamber Symphony for both the 2017 and 2018 festival seasons in addition to receiving the sought after Aspen Harp Fellowship. Her festival and summer engagements have gone on to include seasons at the Britt Music Festival, Spoleto Music Festival, Artosphere, Music Academy of the West, and The Orchestra of the Americas, where she has worked with pioneering music directors such as Teddy Abrams, Michael Stern, Osmo Vanska and Robert Spano, among others.
At the age of five, Alexis began her harp instruction while her family lived abroad in the Netherlands. Upon returning to the US, she studied with Seattle Symphony principal harpist Valerie Muzzolini before going on to receive her Master’s in Harp Performance at The Juilliard School under the tutelage of New York Philharmonic principal harpist Nancy Allen. Alongside her harp studies, Alexis earned her Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology from USC, where she graduated at the top of her class with summa cum laude and Renaissance Scholar honors. Dedicated to spreading her love of the harp to the next generation, Alexis maintains a private studio and also serves on faculty at the Governor’s School for the Arts in Norfolk, VA.
Alexis is a native of Portland, Oregon, where she honed an appreciation for the Pacific Northwest’s natural wonders into a love of hiking and scenic photography. When not performing, Alexis can be found anywhere from backcountry mountain trails to a local coffee shop, curled up with a good book.
Vocalists
Norfolk State University
Harlan Zackery, director
Harlan Zackery, Jr., is Director of Choral Activities and conductor of the Concert Choir at Norfolk State University. He completed the Bachelor of Music degree in music education, cum laude, as well as the Master of Music in choral conducting at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he was recipient of the Ruth Hartness Piano Scholarship and was a winner of the University Concerto Competition. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Southern Mississippi. Zackery has served a public schools of North Carolina as a band, orchestra and chorus teacher In addition, he has served as assistant director of the Durham Youth Symphony. He has taught on the music faculties of Winston-Salem Bible College, the North Carolina School of the Arts and Jackson State University.
He has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico and Canada as a piano soloist, accompanist, conductor and clinician. In 2012, Zackery, along with Dr. D. Royce Boyer, co-founded the Jackson Metro Male Chorus, a skillful group of male singers of all ages, residing in the metro-Jackson area. He has also served as accompanist and assistant artistic director for the Jackson Choral Society and the Mississippi Chorus. Dr. Zackery is a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity, and Pi Kappa Lambda music honor fraternity.
Zackery is past vice-president of the Mississippi Girlchoir and currently serves on the executive board of the Virginia Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association, the Virginia Children’s Chorus and the Advisory Council of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.
The Creators
George Gershwin
Fast Facts:
- George Gershwin was born in 1898 in New York City to a Russian Jewish immigrant family. He grew up around local Yiddish theatres, often running errands for them or appearing as an extra on stage. It wasn’t until age 10 that Gershwin developed a keen interest in music.
- In 1924, Gershwin composed his first major work: Rhapsody in Blue. He originally denied the commission for this piece from Paul Whiteman, but wrote it anyways a the New-York Tribune falsely declared that Gershwin had begun “work on a jazz concerto” for Whiteman. Thus, Gershwin, at lightning speed, finished the work for Whiteman’s all-jazz concert.
- Like many composers of the time, Gershwin went to study with the great composition teacher Nadia Boulanger and other composers, like Maurice Ravel. However, both turned him down as they were afraid the classical study would ruin his jazz-influenced style.
- In 1933, George Gershwin wrote his most famous opera Porgy and Bess, based on DuBose Heyward’s play Porgy. Many critics at the time struggled to evaluate it as according to historian Robert Kimball, “it wasn’t a musical work per se, and it wasn’t a drama per se … the work has sort of always been outside category.”
- Gershwin’s style encompasses many of America’s melting-pot elements. From syncopations of African-American blues and ragtime, to Hispanic rhythms, to Hebrew chant, to the harmonies of Chopin, Debussy, and Liszt, Gershwin’s musical language truly had it all.
Jennifer Higdon
Fast Facts:
- Jennifer Higdon is an American contemporary classical composer. She was born in 1962 into a family supportive of the arts. Her father was a painter and tried to expose Higdon to various different types of art to help her form an idea of what art is. Despite this, she did not have exposure to classical music growing up and instead listened to rock and folk music of the 1960s.
- In high school, Higdon’s musical journey began with percussion and flute, leading to her study flute performance. Yet, it was her flute professor who encouraged her to explore composition.
- Since Higdon did not grow up in classical music, she was fairly behind her colleagues in her undergrad. However, this lack of exposure gave a unique advantage. According to Higdon, “because [she] came to classical music very differently than most people, the newer stuff had more appeal for me than the older.” Thus began Higdon’s focus on more contemporary classical music.
Curtis Stewart
Fast Facts:
- Curtis Stewart is an American violinist and composer, born in 1986. Both his parents were musicians as his father was an avant-garde jazz tuba pioneer and his mother, a Greek jazz violinist. Growing up, he was surrounded by musicians and jazz, often watching his parents perform while hanging out backstage.
- While studying at Eastman School of Music, Stewart met violist Nick Revel, with whom he now plays with in their improvising string quartet: the PUBLIQuartet. As a multi-GRAMMY nominated ensemble, the group focuses on blending genres to highlight American multiculturalism through an approach of classical, jazz, improvisation, and world chamber music.
- As a composer, Stewart’s works often include recompositions of other composers’ works. Through these recompositions, Stewart explores themes of Afro-futurism, climate change, authenticity, African American history, and more.
- Stewart is also a dedicated educator. Before his solo and composition career, he taught at the LaGuardia School of the Arts as a teacher of music theory and string orchestra. Now, he serves on faculty at the Juilliard School teaching Chamber music improvisation and performance practice of Blues.
Aaron Copland
Fast Facts:
- Copland was born in 1900 in Brooklyn, NY. As a child, he wanted piano lessons but could only get them from his sisters. It wasn’t until graduating high school that Copland began to seriously engage in music when he decided to enter do music as a career.
- He studied with famous music composition teacher Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Here, he had afternoon tea with other infamous composers such as Stravinsky, Poulenc, Ravel, Villa-Lobos, and Saint-Saëns.
- Copland was known for his ability to capture the Americana culture in many of his works. His pieces such as Rodeo, Appalachian Spring, and his ballet Billy the Kid all exemplify this quality.
- He was a notorious night owl as he mainly composed in the evening after dinner, working until midnight or later.
- Copland was good friends with conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. They maintained correspondence through their lives. Bernstein revered Copland’s music and Copland helped mentor Bernstein, hence their close relationship.
The Piece
Gershwin
An American in Paris
Listen to Gershwin’s An American in Paris from the Frankfurt Radio Symphony:
- An American in Paris was written in 1928 based on Gershwin’s visit to Paris in 1926. It’s a jazz-inspired tone poem (a piece of orchestral music inspired by an idea, story or “program” that the title alludes to). Gershwin himself referred to the work as “a rhapsodic ballet.”
- The piece is meant to “portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the various street noises, and absorbs the French atmosphere,” as Gershwin explained in Musical America.
- The piece first started as a sketch of a melody Gershwin wrote on a thank-you card to his hosts which he marked as “Very Parisienne.” As he composed the work, he came back to this motif as inspiration.
- In order to capture the Paris color and street life, Gershwin calls for a large ensemble. The score calls for a large orchestra, 3 saxophones, and extensive percussion, including 4 taxi horns.
- An American in Paris is made up of five sections, each with its own themes. These themes however reappear throughout the piece once stated, often juxtaposing one another. The first section showcases a “sauntering” American as he walks down the Champs Elysées. This is followed by two sections of his “blues” or homesickness he feels after drinking too much wine. The piece concludes with a final section where he emerges from his drunken stupor, realizes how lucky he is to be in Paris, and revels in its vivacity.
Higdon
Harp Concerto
Listen to Higdon’s Harp Concerto from the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra with Yolanda Kondonassis, harp:
- Jennifer Higdon’s Harp Concerto was written in 2018 for harpist Yolanda Kondonassis. It was a commission from the Orchestra Philharmonic Orchestra, Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, Lansing Symphony Orchestra, and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.
- In 2020, Higdon was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical composition for the Harp Concerto.
- According to harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, the Harp concerto is “strong, agile, lyrical, feisty, energetic and even heroic when necessary; it should be challenging, but really fun to play and it should have a groove that allows the harpist to catch a musical wave with the orchestra once in a while.”
- Unlike most classical compositions, Higdon’s Harp Concerto has movement titles that characterize the music that allows listeners to immerse more into the music. The movements are titled, “First Light, Joy Ride, Lullaby, and Rap Knock.”
- The first movement is an intimate piece, welcoming the audience with a delicate melody from the solo harp. Conversely, the second movement brings vivacity and energy with grooving melodies from the orchestra and harp. The third movement returns to the serenity of the first movement with a trio of viola, harp, and flute to lead a bedtime serenade. However just as the music lulls, the atmosphere is disrupted by rhythmic percussion from the orchestra and harp. Here, Higdon asks the harpist to bang on the body of the instrument, allowing for a colorful and rollicking finale.
Copland
Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo
Listen to Copland’s Four Episodes from Rodeo from Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra:
- Rodeo was a ballet composed by Copland in 1943. The original ballet includes five sections: “Buckaroo Holiday,” “Corral Nocturne,” “Ranch House Party,” “Saturday Night Waltz,” and “How-Down.” In the symphonic version, “Ranch House Party” is omitted.
- The piece was a commission from the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from choreographer Agnes de Mille. The story takes place at Burnt Ranch, where a Cowgirl is competing with visiting city girls for attention from the local cowboys, especially Head Wrangler.
- In order to capture the Americana of the American West, Copland quotes many American folk tunes as part of the score. For example, the main theme of “Hoe-Down” is based on the American folk song “Boyparte” or “Bonaparte’s Retreat.”
- “Buckaroo Holiday” opens with a burst of energy like wild horses, until it shifts into a lilting melody for the Cowgirl’s theme. This reflects her bid for the Head Wrangler. However, she makes a fool of herself by getting thrown off a bronco trying to impress him. Wallowing in defeat, “Corral Nocturne” highlights the Cowgirl’s sadness and disappointment. The melancholy continues into “Saturday Night Waltz” as it illustrates the Cowgirl’s isolation. Yet, this sadness is short lived as the Cowgirl is revived in “Hoe-Down” with its jaunty dynamism as the Cowgirl reappears as the prettiest girl in the room. The episode ends with a romping American square dance, showcasing the Cowgirl getting the right guy for her — not the snobby Head Wrangler but Another Cowboy who shows her respect and kindness.