This concert will be conducted by Guest Conductor, Francesco Lecce-Chong.

As the nation marks 250 years since its founding, the Canton Symphony Orchestra closes its 2025–2026 MasterWorks season with a program that reflects the evolving American story through voices both historic and contemporary. We the People is an orchestral reckoning with identity, heritage, and the complexities of shared national memory.

Opening with Amy Beach’s Bal Masqué, we celebrate one of the first prominent American women composers, who so brilliantly captured the spirit of early 20th-century American romanticism. Violinist Zhan Shu then performs Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, a piece renowned for its sweeping lyricism and striking contrasts.

Jessie Montgomery’s Hymn for Everyone and Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land Suite share a quiet optimism shaped by struggle. Montgomery’s piece layers rich string writing with moments of dissonance, offering a somber vision of healing through unity. Copland’s music, rooted in rural Americana, mirrors that sensibility with open textures and folk-inspired themes that reflect perseverance and dignity. Together, they suggest that even in uncertainty, there is beauty—and a future worth imagining.

Through four distinct compositional voices, We the People traces the contours of a nation still finding its way—one story, one sound at a time.