News

November 9, 2022

This Saturday at the Palace: Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, Duke Ellington’s River Suite, and Joel Thompson’s Exciting Return

The Albany Symphony, led by Music Director David Alan Miller, returns to Albany’s Palace Theatre stage this Saturday, Nov. 12, at 7:30pm for a program featuring music by Sergei
Rachmaninoff, Edward K. (Duke) Ellington and composer Joel Thompson, who made his ASO debut just last month at the Symphony’s Opening Night.

Thompson, whose powerful work An Act of Resistance, was a highlight of the Opening Night program that brought concertgoers to their feet, is currently touring his latest work—a work Miller and the Symphony simply had to bring to the Capital Region after the profound impact the composer had on everyone last month. Maestro Miller saw an opportunity after tuba soloist Carol Jantsch, who was originally scheduled to join the Symphony for this performance, had to withdraw from the program.

“Joel has a fantastic new work—To Awaken The Sleeper, a gorgeous setting of texts by James Baldwin—which I’ve been eager to share on a future concert,” Miller said. “Joel is a superstar, a
thrilling new voice on the music scene, the kind of composer the Albany Symphony and I are proud to share the stage with.”

About the upcoming program Miller continued, “In addition to Joel Thompson’s new piece, narrated by the composer, we present radiant late works by two of the most inspirational creative artists of the 20th Century, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Duke Ellington. Ellington’s beautiful, deeply evocative late ballet, The River, from 1970, is a remarkable synthesis of Duke’s unparalleled mastery of jazz idioms and his great interest in the sound possibilities of the orchestra. Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, his last orchestral work, is his crowning masterpiece, a passionate, deeply romantic exploration of life, love, and humanity. A not to be missed, life-affirming concert!”

Know Before You Go

Albany Symphony presents:

Ravishing Rachmaninoff

Saturday, November 12 at 7:30pm

Pre-concert talk, free to ticketholders, at 6:30pm

David Alan Miller, conductor

Duke Ellington: Suite from The River

Joel Thompson: To Awaken the Sleeper

Joel Thompson, narrator

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances

Tickets: $20 to $65 and at 518-694-3300, AlbanySymphony.com, the Albany Symphony Box Office at the Palace Theatre, and at the door.