MANKATO — Saturday’s season finale concert by the Mankato Symphony Orchestra features the coming together of old friends, a nation and some popular music.
Closing out the symphony’s 75th season while celebrating the country’s 250th, “Soundtrack of our Nation” is doing triple duty in a big way.
It includes Leonard Bernstein’s “Overture to Candide” to open and symphonic dances from “West Side Story” to close the concert, George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” featuring pianist Peter Dugan, and Joan Tower’s “Made in America.”
“To really recognize this really amazing (250th) anniversary, the program is a reflection of everything you can think Americana,” said Bethel Balge, MSO executive director. “It’s American composers, it’s popular music and it’s very familiar music, I think, as well.”
Of Bernstein’s overture, concert mistress Sabrina Tabby said, “(It’s) very upbeat and exciting, and it’s very quick. It’s a short little nugget, but the whole time it’s very engaging and, I don’t know, cheeky. And there’s lots of brass outbursts and intricate playing in the winds and in the strings.”
“Rhapsody in Blue” will include some special instruments, many also reflecting the Americana theme. That includes percussion instruments borrowed from colleges in the area, such as tom toms, cowbells, sleigh bells, a police whistle, egg maracas and a banjo, Balge said.
One of the fun things for Tabby is reconnecting with Dugan, whom she has known since she was 9 or 10 years old and they were both growing up in Philadelphia. They were featured on the NPR program “From the Top,” which Dugan now hosts. They were able to reconnect, albeit virtually, when she and her sister Genevieve appeared on an alumni episode he hosted in 2020.
“I’m just so excited; he’s going to be incredible,” Tabby said. “He’s going to be dazzling, and it’ll be fun to perform together.”
Dugan is just as excited to come together and perform with Tabby and the orchestra on a piece he has loved most of his life. He sees it as a way to bring together his love of jazz and classical music on a piece that people know by name and by an incredibly rich melody with various memorable parts.
“I’m so excited to see her,” he said from Pennsylvania. “We grew up in Philadelphia at the same time. We both studied at the Settlement Music School … so our paths have crossed many times over the years. And this will be really fun.”
He also is looking forward to working with her husband, Ernesto Estigarribia Mussi, who is music director and conductor for MSO. Bernstein’s recording of “Rhapsody in Blue” has been a favorite piece since he was a kid, Dugan said.
“I’ve played it now many times with orchestras and each time, it doesn’t get old. It always feels like this fulfillment of something I dreamed about doing since I was a kid,” he said. “I grew up playing jazz as well as classical music, and the idea that a piece can exist in both idioms — it’s not one or the other — is really exciting to me because I believe that music shouldn’t have to be always defined by a particular genre.”
And now, as host of “From the Top,” Dugan gets to see the next generation of musicians share his excitement and enthusiasm for music in general. He looks forward to following the careers of the well over 500 who have appeared since he became the host.
“When I think about 10 years later into the future, those are going to be the next batch of leaders and concert masters and administrators. And in some cases, not be musicians. Maybe there will be other things, too, but it gives me a lot of hope.”
As the Mankato Symphony looks to its future, it still has about $18,000 to raise toward a matching $75,000 gift, with that open until June 30, Balge said. All money raised will go toward covering the expenses of having the symphony continue to perform because, as she said, it’s not an inexpensive proposition. But it’s something not many cities of Mankato’s size can boast, especially not for 75 years.
“Audiences are growing, and we love to see that,” Tabby said. “I mean, having a high-quality orchestra in town, it’s a really special thing. And it’s great to see that people are appreciating the really special qualities (of having) so many humans on stage, working together and making something beautiful in real time.”