Continuing the celebration of America’s 250th birthday, the LCSO’s third subscription concert at the Holdcraft Performing Arts Center in Michigan City on March 8, 2026 will reflect on the themes of America’s struggles and triumphs as a young nation. The New World opens with Charles Ives’ Variations on America, followed by two pieces inspired by Abraham Lincoln, Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, and Stella Sung’s Lincoln’s Battle. Closing the concert will be Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, or New World Symphony, which Dvorak wrote during his brief, but significant time spent in New York City.
Variations on “America”
Charles Ives (1874-1954) was an American composer known for several innovations that preceded 20th Century music styles. Ives began studying music with his father, who was a bandleader and music teacher, and introduced Ives to the sound of quarter tones in music. At the age of 12, Ives started playing organ for a local church and began writing music, with his first composition being played by the town band. Ives solidified his compositional style with Song for the Harvest Season, where the four parts of the piece were each written in a different key.
After graduating in 1898, Ives became an insurance clerk and part-time organist in New York City. As an insurance agent, he created the concept of estate planning and headed his own business until 1930. He considered his years in business a valuable human experience that contributed to the substance of his music. Almost all of Ives’ compositions were written before 1915, but his music did not become widely known until the last years of his life, with many of his pieces being premiered after his death. His compositions, while using contemporary music styles, often integrated music from American folk tunes, hymns, barn dances, and classical music.
Variations on America was written in 1891 when Ives was 17 years old, and is an arrangement of America (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee). Ives’ wrote the piece for solo organ and first performed it in 1892 for a 4th of July celebration at the church where he was the organist. The piece was unpublished until 1949, and since orchestrated by William Schuman in 1962 for orchestra and William E. Rhoads in 1968 for wind band. The piece contains nine sections, starting with the Introduction and Theme, followed by five variations, two interludes, and a final Coda. The interludes contain the first notated use of bitonality (writing music in two different keys) by Ives, which became a notable contemporary music style.
Ives’ biographer Jan Swafford writes, “whilst it might be tempting to hear Variations on America as a satire, the probability is that Ives meant the work as a sincere exercise in variations for organ.” Ives’ did note that his father wouldn’t allow him to play the piece often as “it made the boys laugh” in church.
Lincoln’s Battle
Stella Sung (b. 1959) is an American composer and currently serves as the director of the Center for Research and Education in Arts, Technology, and Entertainment at the University of Central Florida. She received her Bachelor of Music in piano performance from University of Michigan, her Master of Fine Arts degree in composition from the University of Florida, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from the University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Sung is a national and international award-winning composer, with her music being performed around the world. She was the first Composer-in-Residence for the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, and was one of five composers selected to serve as the Composer-in-Residence for the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance. Dr. Sung is currently the Composer-in-Residence for Dance Alive National Ballet in Florida.
Notable premieres, performances, and commissions of Stella Sung’s works include compositions for Yo-Yo Ma, the German Ministry of Culture, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Pops, and many other national and international ensembles and soloists. Her music is published internationally, and recordings are broadcast on radio stations worldwide.
Lincoln’s Battle was commissioned by Christopher Wilkins and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. Maestro Wilkins asked Dr. Sung to write a work for a concert centered around Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. While researching Lincoln and the Civil War, she learned that “Lincoln was a fascinating personality; kind and gentle, yet ambitious with tenacious perseverance. A man with humor, but also a dark and deep melancholy that affected him from about the age of 24 onward.” Stella Sung tries to express the darkness and struggle that Lincoln faced, both as a leader in the Civil War and in his own internal battle. Dr. Sung uses three American folk tunes from the Civil War throughout the piece: Dixie, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and Taps.
Lincoln Portrait
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) was an American composer known for establishing the “American sound” in classical music and separated American music from European classical music and its influence. Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, where he started learning piano from his older sister at the age of six. At 16, he studied composition fundamentals in Manhattan under Rubin Goldmark. A few years later, he traveled to France to study at the Summer School of Music for American Students. While in France, Copland began establishing himself as a composer, blending European musical styles with American jazz music.
As Copland’s composition career blossomed, he began studying the popular music of other countries. Copland’s goal was to make classical music as popular as jazz or folk music. He established the first American music festival and organized concerts to present the works of young composers. He started writing music for film and ballet in the late 1930’s and 40’s, which is where he found the largest audience to promote classical music. One of his most popular scores, Appalachian Spring, blended American folk traditions and classical music, earning Copland the Pulitzer Prize and fully established the “American sound”.
Lincoln Portrait is one of Copland’s most successful and popular pieces. It was commissioned at the start of World War 2. Copland was asked to compose a portrait of an eminent American, to express the “magnificent spirit of our country”. The piece incorporates popular American folk tunes from Lincoln’s life, as well as narration using excerpts from Lincoln’s own words. According to Copland, “I hoped to suggest something of the mysterious sense of fatality that surrounds Lincoln’s personality.” The piece has been performed on many significant occasions with narrators such as Carl Sandburg, William Warfield, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Copland himself.
Symphony No. 9, From the New World
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) was the first Bohemian composer to achieve worldwide recognition as a nationalist composer, using folk music in his classical compositions. He was introduced to music early, learning how to play violin and performing at his father’s inn. At the age of 12, he moved to live with his aunt and uncle, where he began studying harmony, piano, and organ. His teacher convinced his father to enroll Dvořák at the Institute for Church Music in Prague, where he completed a two-year course and continued to play music for inns and theatre bands.
Early in Dvořák’s professional career, he faced many challenges and his compositions did not receive much attention. Finally, in 1875, he received a grant from the Austrian government which brought him in contact with Johannes Brahms. Through this new connection, Dvořák improved his compositional technique and found his first influential publisher for his music. Two of his pieces, Moravian Duets and Slavonic Dances, attracted worldwide attention to Dvořák and the folk music of Bohemia that he incorporated into his compositions. This recognition propelled his success, travelling across Europe and Russia to present his works.
In 1892, Dvořák accepted the position of director of the newly established National Conservatory of Music in New York. While his time in America was short (he returned to Bohemia in 1895), it was incredibly influential to his compositions and musical career. He spent his time travelling across the states, learning about different cultures and their music, becoming interested in Native American music and African American spirituals.
Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, also known as New World Symphony or From the New World, was written and premiered in 1893, shortly after his arrival in New York. The piece sounds different from his previous works, and he wrote that it “will be fundamentally different from my earlier ones. Anyone with a ‘nose’ for these things will detect the influence of America.” While some may disagree about how “American” the symphony may be, it has remained a staple in American culture.
The themes that Dvořák uses throughout the symphony are influenced by folk music, but all the material is original. The opening movement uses a theme similar to the African American spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. According to sources close to Dvořák, the slow movement was inspired by Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha. Many people today know the theme from this movement as the folk song “Goin’ Home”. The third movement was inspired by the dance at Hiawatha’s wedding feast, but the material he uses is characteristically Bohemian. The final movement introduces two new themes, but also recalls themes from the previous three movements, bringing the piece to a satisfying conclusion.
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