Performed by The Toledo Symphony on June 6, 2026 at The Peristyle

blue cathedral 
Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) 

Jennifer Higdon is a wildly successful and popular composer. She has won three Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two separate awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and many (many!) other awards and grants. She works in multiple genres, and her music is performed hundreds of times each year throughout the world. 

Higdon started studying music later than most professional musicians, first playing flute as a teenager and then beginning to compose in college. Higdon studied at Bowling Green State University and the Curtis Institute with David Loeb and Ned Rorem. Higdon explains that Loeb provided a thorough grounding in history and theory, while Rorem focused more on use of the voice and phrasing. She also studied philosophy, and now practices placing music before its theory, saying, “What do the [different] types of music have in common? Melody, Rhythm, Harmony. What they don’t have in common … there isn’t an exclusivity between either genre, but usually musical events (and the speed in which they unfold) run at different speeds. In terms of writing for a broader audience … I don’t think I have more understanding than any other composer. Music is communication. Otherwise, I don’t see the point.” 

Higdon explains, “For me music speaks to a part of each person that is hard to define with words. The truth is, there is not a way to anticipate or even explain this. And while the reason for composing is different for each person who creates music, for me it’s about communicating with something indefinable within musicians and audience members. That’s spiritual communication and a true inspiration for composing.” 

According to her friend Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony, Jennifer Higdon’s music is “inclusive, accessible, and embracing. That is exactly who she is, and that authenticity is extremely appealing.” This directness of musical language is due in part to Higdon’s lack of traditional musical training in her early education. Higdon remarks, “It influenced the way I think about orchestration now. I’m always aware of sudden changes in sound.... There are times when I try to make those changes … You wouldn’t think that I would still be having a reaction to it, but there’s so much color.” 

Fanfare magazine writes, “[Higdon’s music has] the distinction of being at once complex, sophisticated, but readily accessible emotionally,” and the Chicago Tribune calls it “beautiful, accessible, inventive, and impeccably crafted.” 

Higdon wrote her orchestral concerto blue cathedral in 2000 in response to a commission from the Curtis Institute of Music in honor of their 75th anniversary. Beyond this, blue cathedral also honors her younger brother, Andrew Blue Higdon, who had recently passed away from cancer. In a 2005 interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Higdon said, “It was about deciding if life was going to be about living or about death.” She adds, “I’m surprised it turned out so positively.”  

In her program note on blue cathedral, Higdon writes: 

“‘blue cathedral’ Blue ... like the sky. Where all possibilities soar. Cathedrals ... a place of thought, growth, spiritual expression ... serving as a symbolic doorway in to and out of this world. Blue represents all potential and the progression of journeys. Cathedrals represent a place of beginnings, endings, solitude, fellowship, contemplation, knowledge and growth. As I was writing this piece, I found myself imagining a journey through a glass cathedral in the sky. Because the walls would be transparent, I saw the image of clouds and blueness permeating from the outside of this church. In my mind’s eye the listener would enter from the back of the sanctuary, floating along the corridor amongst giant crystal pillars, moving in a contemplative stance. The stained-glass windows’ figures would start moving with song, singing a heavenly music. The listener would float down the aisle, slowly moving upward at first and then progressing at a quicker pace, rising towards an immense ceiling which would open to the sky ... as this journey progressed, the speed of the traveler would increase, rushing forward and upward. I wanted to create the sensation of contemplation and quiet peace at the beginning, moving towards the feeling of celebration and ecstatic expansion of the soul, all the while singing along with that heavenly music. These were my thoughts when the Curtis Institute of Music commissioned me to write a work to commemorate its 75th anniversary. Curtis is a house of knowledge—a place to reach toward that beautiful expression of the soul which comes through music. I began writing this piece at a unique juncture in my life and found myself pondering the question of what makes a life. The recent loss of my younger brother, Andrew Blue, made me reflect on the amazing journeys that we all make in our lives, crossing paths with so many individuals singularly and collectively, learning and growing each step of the way. This piece represents the expression of the individual and the group ... our inner travels and the places our souls carry us, the lessons we learn, and the growth we experience. In tribute to my brother, I feature solos for the clarinet (the instrument he played) and the flute (the instrument I play). Because I am the older sibling, it is the flute that appears first in this dialog. At the end of the work, the two instruments continue their dialogue, but it is the flute that drops out and the clarinet that continues on in the upward progressing journey. This is a story that commemorates living and passing through places of knowledge and of sharing and of that song called life.” 

Higdon’s blue cathedral is scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, and strings. 

Concerto for Trumpet 
Wynton Marsalis (b. 1961) 

Originally from New Orleans, virtuoso trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis was the youngest student ever admitted to Tanglewood’s Berkshire Music Center, then continued his education at the Juilliard School. While living in New York, he joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers before creating his own group in 1981. His career took off quickly, and he began touring and regularly performing with Jazz at Lincoln Center.  

Marsalis is stylistically diverse, both as a musician and as a composer. He especially admires Duke Ellington, though his classical recordings are also incredibly popular. He has nine Grammys in the classical, jazz, and spoken word categories, and his 1994 jazz oratorio Blood on the Fields is the first work by a jazz artist to win a Pulitzer Prize. In addition to performing and composing, Marsalis is very passionate about education and outreach and frequently works with youth orchestras and youth jazz groups.  

Marsalis wrote his Trumpet Concerto for Michael Sachs, the principal trumpet of the Cleveland Orchestra, who premiered it in 2023. It is in six movements and combines classical and jazz idioms (among others). Marsalis notes that this concerto was a somewhat collaborative project, “[Sachs] has a very different body of knowledge and set of skills to the ones that I have.”  

In his program note, Sachs writes:  

“This concerto truly reflects the wide variety of styles that the trumpet can access. With that in mind, there are many players who have influenced me whose voices I hear in this piece. The first movement has many moments of call and response fanfare style. This is a traditional historic role of the trumpet as a signal instrument and one that we play often in the orchestral repertoire. With that call and response fanfare style so evident here, I feel the presence and bold sound of many great orchestral players who have influenced me over the years – chief among them are Thomas Stevens (former Principal, Los Angeles Philharmonic), Philip Smith (former Principal New York Philharmonic), and Adolph “Bud” Herseth (former Principal, Chicago Symphony).  

“In the second movement [Ballad] I hear a lot of the great Louis Armstrong here – his beautiful sound, elegance, and his extraordinary use of timing and space. There are also moments in this movement where I feel the influence of Doc Severinsen and Conrad Gozzo with their soaring and captivating sound that’s like listening to a great vocalist.  

“In the third movement [Mexican Son], I feel a strong presence of the sensational Mexican trumpet player Rafael Mendez, whose suave technique and elegant style seem to reflect more of a virtuoso violinist than a trumpet player.  

“In the fourth movement [Blues], Wynton writes a blues where I explore a wide variety of lyrical and intimate sounds using five different mutes (cup, straight, Harmon, plunger, and felt hat). Each of these mutes helps me capture a different color, mood, and character. For inspirations in this movement, Wynton led me to recordings of jazz greats James “Bubber” Miley and Charles “Cootie” Williams (known for his time with Duke Ellington’s orchestra where he succeeded Bubber Miley). While I knew of Mr. Williams, I had not heard of Mr. Miley until Wynton [sent] me a link to his playing. Being exposed to these great artists was illuminating, and hearing them opened up a door into a stylistic and sonic world that was new to me.  

“The French influenced fifth movement [French Pastoral (flowing waltz)] for me reflects the influence of greats Maurice Andre, Pierre Thibaud (longtime professor of trumpet at the Conservatoire de Paris), and Roger Voisin (former Principal, Boston Symphony). I was very close with Mr. Voisin whose crystal-clear articulation and sense of line embodied the elegant style of this movement.  

“The sixth movement [Harlequin Two-Step] has a strong Eastern European feel coming out of the Jewish musical tradition of that region. Wynton mentioned that along with this he was inspired by the piece ‘Ko Ko’ by Charlie Parker with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. The meshing of the Eastern European/Jewish feel and Bebop is reflected throughout this movement with playful sections and a spirited dancing energy throughout. My first teacher was Ziggy Elman, famed big band trumpet player with the Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey bands among many others, who was known for his wild playing and klezmer influenced style. I feel Ziggy’s voice very strongly throughout this movement as well, which really ties everything together for me and brings everything full circle in a wonderfully personal way.” 

Marsalis hoped that the soloists performing his Trumpet Concerto would “[communicate] the broad depth of feeling and the joy of defying technical limitations that defines our legacy as trumpeters.” He added, “I’ve never really believed in segregating music into different areas. We are all part of a continuum.”  

Marsalis’ Trumpet Concerto is scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, strings, and solo trumpet. Sachs explains, “I used two trumpets – C trumpet for the first movement, B-flat for the second, third, and fourth movement, and then back to the C trumpet for movements five and six, then going back to the B-flat for the ending passage ... along with five mutes (cup, straight, Harmon, plunger, and felt hat).” 

Adagio for Strings 
Samuel Barber (1910–1981)  

Samuel Barber was a prolific composer, with almost half of his output in the vocal genre. However, he also composed a lot of instrumental music, including some of the most beautiful chamber music of the twentieth century. Stylistically, Barber avoided the major modernist movements; throughout his life he remained grounded in the Romanticism of the previous century. Annotator William E. Runyan writes, “No major American composer of the twentieth century was a more ardent and eloquent champion of a lyrical, accessible, yet modern idiom, than Samuel Barber.” Barber’s partner, renowned Italian composer Gian Carlo Menotti, remarked, “Sam is essentially a romantic personality.… [and has] always been an intimate and introverted composer.”   

Barber attended the Curtis Institute of Music as a voice student, here he was recognized for his performances and compositions while still at the school. He won a prize for his overture to The School for Scandal when he was twenty-one, and it was promptly published. Annotator Willard J. Hertz explains, “Barber’s training as a singer had a lasting effect on his work as a composer – namely, in the long lyrical lines that characterize most of his music.” Barber went on to win many accolades, including two Pulitzers as well as commissions from the Metropolitan Opera, dancer Martha Graham, the Boston Symphony, the New York City Ballet, and the Library of Congress.   

Samuel Barber composed his String Quartet between 1935 and 1936. He was only twenty-six at the time and was staying in Europe for the summer with his partner, Gian Carlo Menotti (who was also a wonderful composer). Barber’s compositional style is firmly based on a Romantic ideal that prioritizes beauty and expression, and this String Quartet reveals that.   

Though Barber intended his new Quartet for the Curtis Quartet to premiere, he didn’t finish before the group embarked on their concert tour, and therefore the Pro Arte Quartet premiered the work in 1936 instead, in Rome. The audience loved it.  

Barber’s String Quartet has three movements rather than the traditional four, and the second is longer and undeniably central and vital to the work. Marked molto adagio, this movement became not only one of Barber’s most popular works but one of the more recognizable pieces of music to emerge from the twentieth century. It’s also considered one of the most beautiful pieces of music to have been written in the twentieth century. It opens with a softly sustained chord, which shifts into a contemplative and searching melody, and then grows to a soaring, heart-wrenching climax, before slowly dying away to close without ever offering a conclusive resolution.   

Barber knew immediately that this movement was special, so he arranged it for string orchestra before the String Quartet was even premiered, calling it Adagio for Strings. Barber reportedly sent the score to the celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini, who sent it back some time later without response. Barber felt snubbed by this until Toscanini told him he’d memorized the score and was only returning it in case Barber might need it back. Toscanini conducted the premier of Barber’s Adagio for Strings in 1938 on live radio, broadcast from the Rockefeller Center. Since its first performance, the Adagio has become immensely popular and is performed often.  

Annotator William E. Runyan suggests that Barber’s Adagio occupies a similar niche in the American psyche as Edward Elgar’s Nimrod Variations does for the English psyche. He points out that it’s “almost mandatory for moments of great national reflection and grief.” The Adagio was performed at the funerals of both Albert Einstein and Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as after John F. Kennedy’s assassination. It was also performed after 9/11.   

Appalachian Spring 
Aaron Copland (1900–1990) 

American composer Aaron Copland received most of his compositional training in Paris along with several of his more well-known contemporaries, including Elliott Carter, Philip Glass, Virgil Thomson, and Walter Piston, who traveled there to study with the revered Nadia Boulanger. Copland’s compositional style continued to evolve throughout his life. In addition to his time in Paris with Boulanger, he was also tremendously influenced by the music of Igor Stravinsky and jazz. 

After returning to the States, Copland set about defining his compositional style, settling on what he called “populist.” This Whitmanesque soundworld was intended to be more easily comprehensible to any audience than some of the modernist work being produced in Europe at the time. Along with friendlier tonalities, Copland’s “populist” style is marked by large intervals that symbolize the openness of the American landscape. Trombonist Eli Mennerick adds that this style also reflects “both American democratic ideals and the natural grandeur of the country.” 

Copland completed his Pulitzer Prize–winning ballet, Appalachian Spring, in 1944, for the dancer and choreographer Martha Graham; it is subtitled “Ballet for Martha.” By this time, Copland had published Rodeo and Billy the Kid and had become quite famous. Graham was also well known for her contributions that furthered modern dance. Copland had wanted to collaborate with Graham for some time, but the right project had not presented itself. (Graham had suggested a version of Medea set in New England, but Copland was reluctant.) Annotator James Keller writes, “Graham turned her thoughts instead to something that would reflect the sort of gentle spirit that had made such an impact in Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play Our Town. This would be the emotional heart of Appalachian Spring.” Graham’s first draft of the script read: “This is a legend of American living. It is like the bone structure, the inner frame that holds together a people.” At this point, neither the story nor the choreography was laid out. Keller notes that this slow, organic start was not unusual for Graham, a fact that would frustrate composers she worked with. However, Copland seems to have handled the uncertainty well, simply calling the work “Ballet for Martha” and “allowed the project to develop considerably in Graham’s imagination before [investing] much time in actually committing music to the page.” 

Copland didn’t see the finished work until quite close to the first performance, and when he did, was surprised. Nevertheless, he again responded well, saying, “Music composed for one kind of action had been used to accompany something else…. But that kind of decision is the choreographer’s, and it doesn’t bother me a bit, especially when it works.” 

The story in the ballet follows a new bride and groom as they begin to know each other. They are shy and nervous, and their community surrounds and supports them. The preface in the score reads: “A pioneer celebration in spring around a newly built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the last century. The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, their new domestic partnership invited. An older neighbor suggests now and then the rock confidence of experience. A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate. At the end the couple are left quiet and strong in their new house.” 

As they begin to settle into their new lives with joy and prayer, they find a serenity and comfort that Copland illustrates with the Shaker tune Simple Gifts. Though the full musical score illustrates many different characters, including episodes of more dissonant music, Simple Gifts has become the most familiar and recognizable section. The text of Simple Gifts is: “’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free.” 

Copland recalls, “The theme – sung by a solo clarinet – was taken from a collection of Shaker melodies compiled by Edward D. Andrews and published under the title The Gift to Be Simple. The melody I borrowed and used almost literally is called ‘Simple Gifts.’” About this section (the interlude of the ballet), Graham explained that, “It should have the feeling of a telescoped day with such simple things as take place in times of peace, children playing, women talking, men in some feats of strength, a party at night, dinner, perhaps, and a pattern of work.” 

The use of the word spring in the title was not originally intended as a reference to the season but inspired by Hart Crane’s poem The Bridge. Keller explains, “In the poem the Appalachian spring is unquestionably a stream of water trickling through the hills, rather than a season.” However, even though she attributed the title to Crane, she seems not to have taken his words literally. At the ballet’s premiere, Graham gave the following scenic outline: “Part and parcel of our lives is that moment of Pennsylvania spring when there was ‘a garden eastward of Eden.’” 

Copland commented often on the impressive number of people who shared with him that he could now see the Appalachians and feel the springtime, neither of which had been his intention. He wrote, “I have even begun to see the Appalachians myself.” 

Copland’s Appalachian Spring, with its crisp excitement, long lyrical melodies, and wide, open intervals helped to define the “American sound” every bit as much as Dvořák had several decades earlier. Keller writes, “That it seemed to evoke something inherently American made it irresistible to composers of strictly commercial music, and in a sentimentalized form it thrives to this day as the inspiration for countless movie and television soundtracks.”  

Appalachian Spring was premiered in October of 1944 at the Library of Congress. Only a small ensemble accompanied this performance, as Copland’s original score calls for just thirteen instruments. He later created a concert suite of eight movements and brought in the full orchestra. However, he later said, “I have come to think that the original instrumentation has a clarity and is closer to my original conception than the more opulent orchestral version.”  

The version you will hear tonight includes two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani, percussion, harp, keyboard, and strings.