<<  -- 2 --  Lawrence Budmen    PLEA FOR PEACE

Appropriately titled In Celebration of Peace, the concert began with a stirring rendition of Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man (by the orchestra's brass and percussion sections) from the balcony of the church sanctuary. The choir's associate conductor Jeffri Bantz led the orchestral strings in a richly luminous performance of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.

Barber's orchestral version of the second movement of his string quartet has become America's national music of mourning. (The score was played at the funerals of Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy. Director Oliver Stone used this music to telling effect in the film Platoon.)

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