American Riffs

Multi-talented Minnesota Orchestra trumpet player Charles Lazarus is skilled at showing the many intersections between classical music and that great American tradition, jazz. Here students will learn about the development of American music through works such as Duke Ellington’s It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing; Gershwin’s languid Summertime, from Porgy and Bess; Fats Waller’s Honeysuckle Rose; and dynamic music from Leonard Bernstein. Conducted by Sarah Hicks, the program features dazzling trumpet work from Lazarus supported by a quartet of jazz stars and, of course, the Minnesota Orchestra.