Laura Jackson, Music Director
Sara Davis Beuchner, piano

Giuseppe VERDI: Overture to La forza del destino

William DAWSON: Negro Folk Symphony

Sergei RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, op. 18
feauturing soloist Sara Davis Beuchner, piano

If fate comes knocking - will you answer? A balance of dramatic intensity and heartfelt melodic expression, Verdi’s Overture from his opera La Forza del Destino is one of the most iconic and influential overtures of all time. Pianist Sara Davis Buechner, “a formidable soloist” (San Francisco Chronicle), returns to Reno to perform Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, a romantic, lush, and majestic work full of memorable melodies. In 1934, William Dawson imagined a symphony that would fuse African rhythms and American laments into the symphonic form. What Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony promised, Dawson delivered. His defiant, triumphant “Negro Folk Symphony” is the greatest symphony you’ve never heard.