The Vanderbilt University Orchestra will perform a concert on Saturday, Feb. 12, as a fundraiser for the Shade Tree Clinic.
The concert will be held in Ingram Hall at the Blair School of Music at 8 p.m. It is free and open to the public. Vanderbilt staff, faculty and employees will be asked to swipe their I.D. badges upon entry.
The orchestra will perform Antonín Dvořák’s celebrated New World Symphony, the centerpiece of musicology professor Douglas Shadle’s 2021 book, Antonín Dvořák’s New World Symphony.
Shadle’s book focuses on the drive, at the turn of the 20th century, for a classical music style that reflected an American identity, and centers that in Dvořák, a European with radical ideas about basing it on African American folk music. At the time, Shadle argues, Dvořák’s symphony raised new questions in classical music about the place of African American music within the broader musical culture of the United States. Blair alumnus Dean Whiteside, an acclaimed conductor, will lead the orchestra for this piece.
Opening the evening is Passion Fruit: A Quarter-Tone Poem, written by Blair undergraduate Neo Scott, which was selected in a 2020 “call for scores” among Vanderbilt Blair composition students.
This program is a benefit for the medical- and nursing student-run Shade Tree Clinic, which provides health care to Nashville’s uninsured population. Donations will be accepted in the lobby, but are not required to attend the performance.
This is in addition to the Shade Tree benefit dinner and auction, which is set for Feb. 16.
Registration is open for the Shade Tree Trot annual benefit for the clinic, which will be April 9.
