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MARIN ALSOP conducts
KAREN SLACK soprano

R. STRAUSS Don Juan
KATHRYN BOSTIC Work for Soprano and Orchestra (Lorene Cary, Libretto) (World Premiere)
Lorene Carey, Libretto
BRAHMS Symphony No. 2

Celebrated conductor Marin Alsop leads the DSO in the tale of the notorious libertine, Don Juan. But the brilliant score by the then-just-24-year-old Richard Strauss shows us a different man…one who is world-and-pleasure-weary, bored with searching for the ideal woman. Beginning with Don’s theme — the rising thunder of horns — to sensuous love music of exquisite beauty; to the eerie, shuddering gestures of the iconic lover’s demise, Don Juan requires a virtuoso orchestra, especially horns. The graphic music scandalized the audience at the premiere but established young Strauss’ genius. Kathryn Bostic, award-winning composer of film, TV and Broadway music — whose accolades include being the first female African American score composer to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — pays homage to Gladys Bentley, African American blues singer of the Harlem Renaissance.