VSO’s 90th anniversary at the Flynn kicks off with an all-American program and two living greats: virtuoso banjoist Béla Fleck and composer Adolphus Hailstork. Fleck makes his East Coast debut with his catchy arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue for banjo, and Hailstork joins the VSO in person at the Flynn. This concert marks the VSO’s premiere performance of William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1, with narrated epigraphs written by Paul Laurence Dunbar and other prominent Black poets.

The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. and is preceded at 6:30 p.m. by Musically Speaking, a free pre-concert discussion that provides entertaining insight into the evening’s program.

PROGRAM

Adolphus Hailstork - An American Port of Call

George Gershwin - An American in Paris Rhapsody in Blue

William Grant Still - Symphony No. 1 (“Afro-American”)