Mark Bebbington performs Gershwin's Concerto

Bursting with energetic jazz rhythms and harmonies, the first half of this programme features works by Bernstein and Gershwin, composers who seamlessly blended classical traditions with exciting new elements of jazz, thus creating an iconic twentieth-century American sound. Tonight, British pianist Mark Bebbington performs Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, sometimes referred to as the ‘jazz concerto’.

Dvořák’s Symphony No.9, ‘From the New World’, was written in NYC in 1893, when the rich, lush sounds of romanticism were still the fashion. His inspiration came not only from the Native American and African-American music he heard, but the ‘wide open spaces’ he saw in America.