Americans in Paris is the name of the program that New Century Chamber Orchestra and Chanticleer will present this week, in their second collaboration. Music Director Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg says the program will include works by Satie, Ravel, Stravinsky, Roussel and Faure, as well as some Americans who visited Paris, like George Gershwin and Cole Porter.
There’s more information about the concerts at the New Century Chamber Orchestra and Chanticleer websites.
“It was a complete no-brainer to come back to this,” Salerno-Sonnenberg says. “Our first collaboration was such a success, the audience just eating up, but also, more so, and selfishly, the musicians and the boys. I mean, it was just so much fun.” This is the follow-up to ‘Atlantic Crossing’ from several years ago, which brought the groups together for the first time, and focused on music by European and American ex-pats. “I had thought that this could be magical, and it was. So, before the concerts were over, we were already discussing what we were going do next. And so, the thematic material is different this time, as it’s all about Paris, in the ‘20s and ‘30s in Paris.” Chanticleer Music Director William Fred Scott sees the concert, which begins with more classical repertoire this way: “I like to think that the first half of the program, they’re an orchestra who happened to be in Paris that have asked us to come sing with them, and in the second act, we seem to own a cabaret, and we’ve asked them to sit in.” They’ll sing and play from Thursday night until Sunday in Berkeley, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and San Rafael. And on Sunday night’s Bay Area Mix, there’s a medley of Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn from their last collaboration.
