New Jersey Symphony Hosts a Concert Weekend Examining 'The American Dream' This Month

The New Jersey Symphony will present a concert program called “The American Dream,” focused on the many facets that make up the long-held idea of the American Dream, the stories of those who have immigrated to America, and the differences found in the American experience through different cultures.

The Saturday and Sunday concerts will include the world premiere of a new piece by Rob Kapilow, titled We Came to America, commissioned by the Thurnauer School of Music at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades. “The American Dream” will be performed Thursday, January 18, 2024, at 1:30 pm and Saturday, January 20, 2024, at 8 pm at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark; and Sunday, January 21, 2024, at 3 pm at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown.

Thursday’s performance is conducted by New Jersey Symphony Music Director Xian Zhang, and features a piece by Resident Artistic Catalyst Daniel Bernard Roumain called i am a white person who _____ Black people. The piece, written originally for strings and percussion, was commissioned during the COVID-19 pandemic by New Jersey Symphony in 2020, to be performed on its virtual season. This performance features an updated version of the work that includes winds and brass.

Saturday’s performance will feature the world premiere of We Came to America by Rob Kapilow, the artist-in-residence at the JCC Thurnauer School of Music, who will also conduct his work on Saturday and Sunday’s concerts (Music Director Xian Zhang conducts the rest of the program). The work was inspired by Faith Ringgold’s 2016 children’s book of the same name, which chronicles the country’s rich history of immigration and diversity and celebrates the unique gifts and stories of the many cultures that make up America.

Rob Kapilow says, “I’m looking forward to bringing this wonderful four-year journey, inspired by our intergenerational interviews with immigrant families about their experiences of coming to America, to musical life with our three choirs—Ember Choral Arts, Young People’s Chorus of New York City, and Young People’s Chorus @ Thurnauer—and the New Jersey Symphony. The five-movement piece looks at the immigrant experience from multiple perspectives past and present, with our own intergenerational interviews turned into a libretto by Sokunthary Svay along with additional texts from the Bible, Walt Whitman and multiple U.S. immigration statutes. The issue of how we welcome or exclude others has been with us since Biblical times, and it is my hope that the piece will honor the extraordinarily challenging experience of coming to America in an affirmative, thought-provoking way.”

The commission of We Came to America is part of a larger project the Thurnauer School of Music has undertaken, which also includes an educational curriculum for students of all ages and backgrounds about the value of immigrants and diversity; a research study led by St. John’s University which builds upon both the performance and the educational experiences connected to the project; and a new We Came to America music education scholarship fund for students who wish to study music but lack financial resources. 

We Came to America is written for chorus and orchestra, and the New Jersey Symphony will be joined by three choral groups for the performances on Saturday and Sunday: JCC Young People’s Chorus @ Thurnauer, the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and Ember Choral Arts.

In keeping with the theme, all three performances include Darker America, written by composer William Grant Still in the 1920s to depict the struggles of his fellow Black Americans, aiming to show the “triumph of a people over their sorrows;” three dance episodes from the musical On the Town, by Leonard Bernstein; and the Symphonic Dances from Bernstein’s famous West Side Story. Of note, the original production of On the Town on Broadway was known for its racially diverse cast, and its insistence on avoiding racial stereotypes commonly found in 1940s media. West Side Story is equally famous for the tragic love story between teenagers from two different cultures, as well as its focus on social issues in the 1960s.

The JCC Young People’s Chorus @ Thurnauer (YPC@T) is Bergen County’s premier youth choir. Ranging in age from 6-18 years and performing diverse and challenging repertoire, the choristers perform frequently and work with professional artists and composers. YPC@T is an affiliate of the award-winning Young People’s Chorus of New York City.  

The Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC) is an internationally renowned multicultural youth chorus founded by Artistic Director Francisco J. Núñez, a MacArthur Fellow and Musical America’s 2018 Educator of the Year. YPC’s mission and values are deeply rooted in an innovative model of diversity, which provides children of all cultural and economic backgrounds with a unique program of music education and choral performance.

Ember Choral Arts (formerly Schola Cantorum on Hudson) is a semi-professional choral ensemble whose mission is to extend the role of art beyond that of its own intrinsic value, leveraging it to bring visibility and expansive thinking to issues of human significance. Ember accomplishes this through innovative programming designed to touch lives and of almost exclusively living composers.

We Came to America is generously presented by Eva Holzer.

The Richard H. Holzer Memorial Foundation is a partial sponsor of Ember Choral Arts, the adult choir in performances of Rob Kapilow’s We Came to America.

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