This program features works by two of America's most eminent composers, John Adams and Aaron Copland. Guest conductor Apo Hsu leads the UCLA Philharmonia, with UCLA faculty pianists Gloria Cheng and David Kaplan performing as soloists in Adams’ Grand Pianola Music.

The Alpert School commemorated John Adams’ 70th birthday this past spring with a festival and symposium based around the composer's works. His Grand Pianola Music (1982) is a seminal work of musical “minimalism.” Despite its initially severe and negative reception, it has had a long and successful performance life, and features fascinating textures, sly humor, California accents and in the words of the composer, “dueling pianos, cooing sirens, Valhalla brass, thwacking bass drums, gospel triads, and a Niagara of cascading flat keys.”

Copland's Symphony No. 3 is one of the composer's grandest and most spacious works, and one of the most beloved symphonies of the post-1945 period. Commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky and premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the work features the famous "Fanfare for the Common Man.”

Guest conductor Apo Hsu is a native of Taiwan. She currently directs the National Taiwan Normal University Symphony Orchestra. Previous music director appointments include the Springfield Symphony Orchestra in Missouri and the Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco. She has been a mentor to young conductors throughout the world through her work at NTNU and the Conductor's Institute at Bard College in New York City. Her appearance at UCLA (as well as Neal Stulberg’s Brahms Requiem performance at NTNU this fall) is part of a larger academic exchange program between NTSU and UCLA, signed this past August.

This concert was made possible by the David and Irmgard Dobrow Fund. Classical music was a passion of the Dobrows, who established a generous endowment at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music to make programs like this possible. The school is proud to celebrate this program as part of the 2017-18 Dobrow Series.