On November 8, 2025, the La Porte County Symphony Orchestra will open the subscription season with Dream of America at the La Porte Civic Auditorium, celebrating the rich history of immigration in the U.S. and the pursuit of the American Dream. The centerpiece of the concert is Peter Boyer’s Ellis Island: The Dream of America, which features seven actors in addition to the full orchestra. Led by Music Director Dr. Carolyn Watson and featuring Nick May, saxophone soloist, playing John Williams’ Escapades and the world premiere of Kevin Day’s Upwelling for solo saxophone and orchestra, this concert will also feature Short Ride in a Fast Machine by American composer John Adams.
Short Ride in a Fast Machine
John Adams (b. 1947) was born and raised in New England, Massachusetts. He learned clarinet at a young age from his father and performed in marching bands and community orchestras. He composed his first piece at age 10, with his orchestral works being performed while he was still a teenager. His operas and oratorios such as Nixon in China, Doctor Atomic, and El Niño have transformed the genre of contemporary music theatre.
As a conductor, Adams frequently conducts his own works across the world. He also advocates for young composers, having conducting the premieres of over 100 new works. Adams and his wife, Deborah O’Grady, created the Pacific Harmony Foundation, which supports commissions and performances of new works and musical education initiatives throughout the country.
Short Ride in a Fast Machine was composed and premiered in 1986. It is written as a fanfare for large orchestra, with a bright and joyful energy throughout the piece. It begins with quarter-notes played on a woodblock, before trumpets, clarinets, and synthesizers join in rhythmic harmony. Adams sees the rest of the orchestra as “running a gauntlet through that rhythmic tunnel”. When asked about the title, Adams states, “You know how it is when someone asks you to ride in a terrific sports car, and then you wish you hadn’t?”
Upwelling
Dr. Kevin Day (b. 1996) is an award-winning, multi-disciplinary composer, jazz pianist and conductor based in Las Vegas, Nevada. A unique voice in the world of classical music, Day takes inspiration from a broad range of sources, including romanticism, late 20th century music, jazz fusion and gospel. Across all areas, his work explores the complex interplay of rhythm, texture, and melody across genres.
Day rose to fame with his Concerto for Euphonium in 2018, which was recently performed by the United States Marine Band. Since then, some of the world’s top instrumentalists and ensembles have commissioned and performed his music. Day’s original opera, Lalovavi: An Afrofuturist Opera, will premiere with the Cincinnati Opera in 2026.
Upwelling was commissioned by the La Porte County Symphony Orchestra, and is dedicated to our guest soloist, Nick May, and our music director, Dr. Carolyn Watson. The following is the program note, written by Kincaid Rabb:
“After the clouds of May Gray and Juen Gloom part above the cracked pavements and faded flags of San Diego’s LGBTQ+ neighborhood, a restless excitement stirs in Hillcrest. When glorious sunshine once again illuminates Hillcrest’s gay bars and ocean breezes tickle its gigantic central rainbow flag, its citizens know what is coming: San Diego Pride.
Though most cities celebrate their Prides in June, commemorating each anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, San Diego Pride takes place in July, and its parade and festival attract over 250,000 people to America’s Finest City. The San Diego Pride Parade marches through Hillcrest, westward along University and then southward won 6th Avenue to the Pride Festival at the iconic Balboa Park, with the panoramic view of the Cabrillo Bridge and the California Tower framing two afternoons of unrepentant and unashamed community celebration.
Each of San Diego’s Pride Parades ends with a quarter-mile-long rainbow banner, during which parade-goers are encouraged to step underneath the flag and support the procession. Underneath the colors of the Pride flag, participants feel an overwhelming rush of love and acceptance, the oversaturated upwelling of emotions repressed: the enjoyment of life in red, the necessary healing embodied by orange, the dazzling yellow sunlight, a recommitment to nature embedded in green, blue’s deep serenity, and the spirit of the community that surround us in violet.
After facing year after year of political forces fighting to erase queer people from public life and facing a community normally hellbent on division, we come together once a year to show ourselves the love that we deserve. Pride is a special experience, a time for sharing and loving not just the community encouraged and highlighted by its mission, but each other and oneself. It can be hard to be confronted with one’s own pain and suffering at Pride, but Pride is a conduit for change. It’s an opportunity to become whole again.
Upwelling honors and immortalizes the energy of Pride parades and festivals through the lens of experiencing San Diego Pride with those you love.”
Escapades
John Williams (b. 1932) was born in Queens, New York. He was exposed to music at a young age, studying piano, trumpet, trombone, and clarinet. In 1948, Williams and his family moved to Los Angeles, California where he started learning music composition.
In 1951, John Williams was drafted into the United States Air Force. During his service he arranged band music for the Air Force and began conducting. He left the Air Force in 1954 and moved back to New York to study piano at the Juilliard School of Music. He later returned to California and played piano for films and began composing for television.
In 1975, Williams got his first breakthrough with Steven Spielberg with the movie Jaws. Throughout his career, he composed music for over 100 films. His most well-known scores are for nine of the Star Wars movies, the first three Harry Potter movies, Jurassic Park, E.T., and Jaws.
In addition to film music, Williams has composed music for orchestra and has served as conductor for many organizations. At 90 years old, John Williams continues to compose music for film and guest conducts orchestras across the globe.
Escapades for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra is a concert adaptation of the music John Williams composed for the movie Catch Me If You Can. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Leonardo Di Caprio and Tom Hanks. Williams aimed to capture the sound of the 1960’s with “a sort of impressionistic memoir of the progressive jazz movement that was then so popular.” The alto saxophone is given the prominent soloist role, with the vibraphone often doubling the saxophone’s virtuosic lines and a solo double bass creating a sort of jazz trio throughout the three-movement work.
Ellis Island: The Dream of America
Peter Boyer (b. 1970) is one of the most frequently performed American orchestral composers of his generation. He began composing at the age of 15 and has been commissioned to compose works for major institutions and ensembles across the country. In addition to his original compositions, Boyer has provided orchestration for several Hollywood composers, including James Newton Howard, Michael Giacchino, James Horner, Alan Menken, and many others.
Boyer’s major work Ellis Island: The Dream of America, for actors and orchestra, has become one of the most-performed American orchestral works composed in the last 25 years, with over 300 performances by 125 orchestras since its 2002 premiere. The work celebrates the historic American immigrant experience and the American dream. The spoken texts for the work come from the Ellis Island Oral History Project, an historic collection of interviews with actual immigrants about their experiences coming to America. The work concludes with a reading of the Emma Lazarus poem The New Colossus (“Give me your tired, your poor…”), providing an emotionally powerful ending to this celebration of our nation of immigrants.