The UNCSA Symphony Orchestra opens its season with Music Director Robert Franz leading a program that features composers striving to evoke the sound and spirit of their people. Antonín Dvořák struggled to loosen the formal German structures prevalent in his time and express his identity as a Bohemian composer.

He accomplished this beautifully in his magnificent Symphony No. 8, where those Bohemian flavors come into play. Similarly, legendary jazz icon Duke Ellington sought to elevate the music of African Americans in his historic first Carnegie Hall concert in 1943 that presented his panoramic symphonic masterpiece “Black, Brown, and Beige.” Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Higdon’s “Spirit” opens the concert.