Lucas Richman Symphony's THIS WILL BE OUR REPLY to Make West Coast Premiere

GRAMMY award-winning conductor/composer Lucas Richman's three-movement symphony, This Will Be Our Reply will make its West Coast debut on August 17 in Los Angeles. Conductor Noreen Green will lead the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony in performance of the piece as part of the Friendship & Harmony concert at 8 p.m., Saturday, August 17, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Symphony: This Will Be Our Reply is inspired by Leonard Bernstein's "An Artist's Response to Violence." After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein spoke at the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York's annual fundraising event, the twenty-fifth "Night of Stars" in New York. The event became a memorial to President Kennedy. Bernstein's words included the remarks, "This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."

Lucas Richman received special permission from the Leonard Bernstein Office to compose the three-movement symphony inspired by Bernstein's words, which resonate just as much today as they did more than a half-century ago. The three movements in the piece expand upon the three directives from Bernstein: Intensity, Beauty, and Devotion.

Symphony: This Will Be Our Replyhad its World Premiere earlier this year to great critical and audience acclaim, with Harold Duckett of KnoxTNToday.com declaring, "It was one of the most exquisite pieces of music I have ever heard."

Richman's music has been performed by more than two hundred orchestras across the country including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops and the Detroit Symphony. He has fulfilled commissions for numerous organizations including the Pittsburgh Symphony and San Diego Symphony, both ensembles of which subsequently recorded those works to critical acclaim.

After nearly four decades on the podium, Lucas Richman's international reputation as a conductor is one of graceful musical leadership in a diverse field of media. He has served as Music Director for the Bangor Symphony Orchestra in Bangor, Maine since 2010, and held the same position with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra for more than a decade. Mr. Richman has served as a guest conductor with more than a dozen orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic.

"We are all struggling with a division in our country and our world unlike anything we have seen before," said Richman. "Music continues to unite us. The art form, the language, the sincerity and passion come through in ways that remind us of the beauty around us and within each other. It is so important to continue creating art because, without art, we lose our own humanity. That's why I consider it to be such an honor and a privilege to be creating art around the world for audiences that are finding an opportunity to unite and communicate with each other through the language of music."

Friendship & Harmonytickets are available now at www.lajewishsymphony.com.