Delightful evening of classical works at Music & Arts Community Center

March 25

Music & Arts Community Center
13411 Shire Ln, Fort Myers

Gulf Coast Chamber Orchestra is bringing a delightful evening of classical works to Fort Myers on March 25. The program features Valerie Coleman Seven O’Clock Shout, Price Ethiopia’s Shadow in America and Dvorak Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70.

Tickets Start at $35!

Program

Coleman Seven O’Clock Shout

Valerie Coleman’s Seven O’Clock Shout was commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2020 and written to honor frontline workers in the COVID-19 pandemic. This lively work, which treats us to a huge variety of sound colors. Coleman comments, “To me, Seven O’Clock Shout is a declaration of our survival. It is something that allows us our agency to take back the kindness that is in our hearts and the emotions that cause us such turmoil. . . We cheer on the essential workers with a primal and fierce urgency to let them know that we stand with them and each other.”

Valerie Coleman 

Valerie Coleman is regarded by many as an iconic artist who continues to pave her own unique path as a composer, GRAMMY®-nominated flutist, and entrepreneur. Highlighted as one of the “Top 35 Women Composers” by The Washington Post, she was named Performance Today’s 2020 Classical Woman of the Year, an honor bestowed to an individual who has made a significant contribution to classical music as a performer, composer or educator.

Price Ethiopia’s Shadow in America

Price wrote Ethiopia’s Shadow in America before 1933; its score was lost for several decades and recovered in 2009. There is no record of a performance earlier than one given by the University of Arkansas Symphony Orchestra in January 2015. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic delaying performances of her music around the world, she has rapidly become one of the most widely programmed American composers of her generation. Given a vast catalog, boundless creativity, and an engrossing life story, it’s easy to understand why.

Florence Beatrice Price 

Florence Beatrice Price (April 9, 1887 – June 3, 1953) was an American classical composer, pianist, organist and music teacher. Price is noted as the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra.

Dvorak Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70

The Symphony No.7 by Antonín Dvorak is a work of unprecedented expressive power. It was composed at the height of his powers, and its composition was marked by a number of unusual features. The symphony’s three movements are performed without a break, and the overall form of the piece reflects its programmatic content: it begins with a long, solemn introduction that depicts the “dark forest” mentioned in the composer’s program note; this is followed by a lively scherzo which represents the two main characters’ escape from their pursuers; finally comes a lyrical slow movement (the third movement) depicting the prospects for happiness that await them.

Antonín Dvorak 

Antonín Leopold Dvořák (8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czech composer, one of the first to achieve worldwide recognition. Following the Romantic-era nationalist example of his predecessor Bedřich Smetana, Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia.

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