Program

Scott Joplin‍ ‍Maple Leaf Rag

Scott Joplin‍ ‍Sunflower Slow Drag

George Gershwin‍ ‍Overture to Girl Crazy (original orchestration)

John Coltrane‍ ‍A Love Supreme (arranged by David Balakrishnan, CityMusic

Commission)

William Grant Still‍ ‍The Black Man Dances

George Gershwin‍ Rhapsody in Blue (Yaron Kohlberg, piano)

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Artists

John McLaughlin Williams, conductor

Yaron Kohlberg, piano

David Balakrishnan, violin

CityMusic Cleveland Orchestra

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About this Performance

Centered on George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, performed by Piano Cleveland Artistic Director Yaron Kohlberg, this program explores the common roots of American music in ragtime, Broadway, and jazz. Also in celebration of the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth, CityMusic will premiere a new arrangement of his seminal work A Love Supreme, commissioned by CityMusic from David Balakrishnan of the Turtle Island Quartet. William Grant Still’s The Black Man Dances, commissioned by Paul Whiteman contemporaneously with Rhapsody in Blue, will receive its second performance at these concerts, which are rounded out with selected rags by Scott Joplin and Gershwin’s Girl Crazy Overture. Grammy-winning conductor John McLaughlin Williams will lead these concerts.