Celebrate America with the music of Peter Boyer

Parental rating: PG - Parental guidance suggested Links: Home Page RSS Feed Hosts: not available Show contact: Last update: Thursday, June 30, 2005 Managing editor: not available Language: en-us Skype:

We would like to invite you to join Naxos, the world's leading independent classical music label, in exploring the best of today's classical music. This podcast features composer Peter Boyer, and his moving work, Ellis Island: The Dream of America Celebrate America with the Music of Peter Boyer

How did you like the show?
Report a problem

Reviews:

Review this podcast

Review this podcast

Episodes

• (3mb)
  Celebrate America with the Music of Peter Boyer
  July 04, 2005 Author: Naxos
  

  What was it like to be one of the millions of immigrants coming to America through Ellis Island early in the 20th century? Peter Boyer¡¦s Ellis Island: The Dream of America brings that experience to life in a unique and powerful way. This work combines elements of symphonic music, theatre and history to celebrate the American immigrant experience. Boyer chose stories from the Ellis Island Oral History Project, wove them together into a narrative describing the hopes, dreams and struggles of these individuals, and composed dramatic and evocative symphonic music which frames and amplifies these stories. A cast of renowned stage and screen actors joins with symphony orchestra in bringing to life the actual words of these real American immigrants. The work closes with a stirring reading of Emma Lazarus¡¦s The New Colossus (¡§Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free¡K¡¨), the classic poem inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty.