Composer

Celebrate the American spirit with a concert that honors history, resilience, and the power of music to tell our nation’s story. Peter Boyer’s American Mosaic, a newly commissioned work, weaves together images by renowned photographer Joe Sohm, music, and the voices of America in a powerful reflection on the nation’s past and future. The program concludes with William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, composed in 1934, a masterful fusion of African American spirituals and symphonic grandeur, bringing the season to a triumphant and deeply moving close.

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American Mosaic

Williamsburg Community Chapel

Concert Orchestra – Thomas Wilkins, conductor

Musical Arts Center

Celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States and the grand opening of the Thaddeus Stevens & Lydia Hamilton Smith Center for History and Democracy with Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, William L. Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, and a powerful new work celebrating the lives of Stevens & Smith by Lancaster’s own D. Michael Wege.

Stevens & Smith

Lancaster Country Day School

Barber + Blue Cathedral

Riverview Theatre

Immerse yourself in this unforgettable evening featuring the artistry of pianist Michelle Cann and a musical program that reflects the influences of American jazz, African-American spirituals and folk themes.

Gershwin’s Piano Concerto

Frauenthal Center

In 1934 at Carnegie Hall, Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony received its New York premiere, which was met with wild enthusiasm by audiences. Prominent critics called it “the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has so far been achieved” (New York American). Tonight, The Met Orchestra offers a rare opportunity to hear this now-shockingly neglected work, which remains every bit as powerful today. Plus, hear Metropolitan Opera star Isabel Leonard in a favorite from West Side Story and Barber’s gorgeous Knoxville: Summer of 1915. The concert concludes with the spirited suite from Fancy Free, Bernstein’s first collaboration with choreographer Jerome Robbins.

The Met Orchestra 2026 Concert 1

Carnegie Hall

We start where it all began, back in 2015, with the first piece the ensemble ever played in the Queen Elizabeth Hall – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade. This wild orchestral ride brims with energy and excitement, and has become something of a signature piece for the orchestra who are long time champions of the composer.

Then it’s an all-star line-up for one of the most renowned works for multiple soloists by Beethoven, as Tai Murray, Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Isata Kanneh-Mason join the orchestra to play Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. The three musicians, all alumni of the orchestra, come together for the first time, bringing their extraordinary talent to this mighty piece.

Beethoven's Triple Concerto

Southbank Centre

The Gateways Music Festival Orchestra returns to Carnegie Hall following its remarkable 2022 debut that featured pianist Jon Batiste performing an original world premiere. This extraordinary ensemble, which comprises musicians from many of the nation’s top orchestras and conservatory faculties, showcases the contributions of classical musicians of African descent—including composers and performers both past and present. Led by its highly versatile conductor Anthony Parnther, the orchestra presents a brand-new program in this matinee concert with a soon-to-be-announced guest artist.

Gateways Music Festival Orchestra

Anthony Parnther leads Gateways Festival Orchestra in a thoughtfully curated program of Antonín Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony, William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, and selected songs and spirituals featuring Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges.

Gateways Festival Orchestra

Eastman Theatre

Dr. Felicia Barber is the Associate Professor, Adjunct, of Choral Conducting at Yale University and conductor of the Camerata. In addition to teaching graduate-level choral conductors and aspiring undergraduate conductors, Dr. Barber is developing a new initiative designed to prepare Yale students to work with young musicians on choral music in school and church settings. 

Octavo Series (SATB) Felicia Barber, Guest Conductor

Rhapsody In Blue

Veterans Memorial Auditorium

MSM Symphony Orchestra presents Opera in Concert Act III of The Crucible and William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony

Manhattan School of Music

New World Symphony subscribers play a vital role in launching the careers of the world’s best young musicians.

I Dream a World: Transitions and Trailblazers

New World Center

Ballade in A Minor was one of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s early works following his studies at the Royal College of Music.  It premiered in 1898 at the Three Choirs Festival and helped launch his career. He incorporated African folk melodies and rhythms to add a unique and vibrant layer, creating a blend of familiar and refreshingly new sounds. 

Zee Zee Plays Liszt

Robinson Center

Extraordinary rising conductor, composer, and educator Jason Max Ferdinand joins the Los Angeles Master Chorale for Lift Every Voice | Jason Max Ferdinand Conducts! This powerful program, presented on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, features music curated by Ferdinand to tell our stories, bring hope in challenging times, and share joy. This concert includes a world premiere by Jason Max Ferdinand, a 25 in 5 commission.

Lift Every Voice | Jason Max Ferdinand Conducts!

Walt Disney Concert Hall

If fate comes knocking - will you answer? A balance of dramatic intensity and heartfelt melodic expression, Verdi’s Overture from his opera La Forza del Destino is one of the most iconic and influential overtures of all time. Pianist Sara Davis Buechner, “a formidable soloist” (San Francisco Chronicle), returns to Reno to perform Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, a romantic, lush, and majestic work full of memorable melodies. In 1934, William Dawson imagined a symphony that would fuse African rhythms and American laments into the symphonic form. What Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony promised, Dawson delivered. His defiant, triumphant “Negro Folk Symphony” is the greatest symphony you’ve never heard.

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto

Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts

Globally renowned cellist Alisa Weilerstein joins BBC NOW in this season closing concert for one of the most highly regarded of all cello concerti. Melodic genius, irrepressible energy and a love of his native folk music radiate as Dvořák looks back at life well lived, full of joy but also of deep loss in his virtuosic cello concerto. Similarly, intuitive musical invention, rich orchestration, and an exploration of the cathedral “as a symbolic doorway into and out of this world” form a platform for floating and contemplative other-worldly atmospheres to unfurl in Higdon’s expertly crafted sonic journey through a sacred space and upward into the heavens - Blue Cathedral.

Season Closing Concert

Wales Millennium Centre

Brangwyn Hall

If the American Dream includes the hope of a better life in a promised land, then the story we tell must also acknowledge that the dream has not always been equally available to all Americans. This concert gives us both sentiments of this “American Story.”

Choruses of UC Davis: "Sorrow and Joy: An American Story"

Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

A tale of two tenacious composers today with the BBC Philharmonic, as they’re joined by conductor Joshua Weilerstein and pianist Alim Beisembayev.

Triumph and tenacity with the BBC Philharmonic

MediaCityUK

Featuring students from the Juilliard Preparatory Division, this concert will celebrate the creativity of young musicians with newly commissioned works for professional and youth orchestras. In partnership with the Juilliard Preparatory Division and American Composers Forum.

Young People’s Concert: Composing Inclusion

Lincoln Center

Thomas Wilkins, Music Director Laureate of the Omaha Symphony and Principal Conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, returns to Omaha.

Wilkins Returns

Omaha Performing Arts

Bars Spring Concert 2024

San Francisco War Memorial & Performing Arts Center

Stanford University

Gershwin’s orchestral music defined the American sound, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet joins us for our centennial celebration of Rhapsody in Blue plus his Piano Concerto in F. Gershwin is complemented by Florence Price and William Dawson, whose compositions stemmed from the Black American Experience. At its 1934 Carnegie Hall premiere, Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, based on spirituals and emphatically symphonic, brought audiences to their feet. And Price’s Dances in the Canebrakes is drawn from Black folk songs and dances of the 1920s and ‘30s.

Dawson, Price, and Gershwin's America

Shermerhorn Symphony Center

Juilliard LIVE was launched in 2021 under the leadership of President Damian Woetzel, dramatically expanding access for audiences around the world to Juilliard performances through livestreams and on-demand video. Juilliard LIVE streams nearly 700 performances each year, with new on-demand programs regularly added to the accessible library of content. 

Pre-College Orchestra

The Juilliard School

O le´ me shine

Henry W. Coil Sr. and Alice Edna Coil School for the Arts

Celebrate the 100th Anniversary of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Rhapsody in Blue At 100

The Smith Center for the Performing Arts

In February, Hersh and the MSO will explore the sounds of the 1920’s and 30’s in the U.S. and France. We’ll open the program with William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony which debuted to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall in 1934 with Leopold Stokowski leading the Philadelphia Orchestra. Hersh then takes us to France to discover what an actual American in Paris would have heard in the 1920s with Lili Boulanger’s colorful and energetic D’un Matin de Printemps (Of a Spring Morning). The evening will end with An American in Paris.

Gershwin’s An American in Paris

Gallo Center for the Arts

Las Vegas Philharmonic Presents Rhapsody In Blue At 100

Igor Stravinsky was commissioned to write The Firebird early in his career by Sergei Diaghilev, famed director of the Ballets Russes in Paris. Inspired by folklore, this suite from the ballet takes the listener through a dramatic and fantastical journey.

Stravinsky Firebird Suite

Ohio Theatre

After a rapturous reception at its Carnegie Hall debut, William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, quickly disappeared into obscurity. This American masterpiece is only now starting to receive the attention it merits.

Gershwin In New York

Lesher Center for the Arts

Whether it’s unjustly neglected through history or fresh ink on the page, great music deserves to be heard! In this concert, we walk through some of each. The now world-famous Samuel Barber — who wrote the iconic Adagio for Strings — also penned his rarely-heard but unforgettable Symphony No. 1 around the same time in 1936. Barber was a widely-admired and well-supported young composer, having just graduated from one of the most prestigious conservatories in the world. William Dawson wrote his Negro Folk Symphony just two years earlier in 1934, at the age of 35, without any of those advantages, yet it is just as commanding. This symphony — based on themes from Black spirituals — was the only one he ever wrote, tragically. His stirring and heartfelt music powerfully and surely lifts the soul. SoNA is especially proud to announce that this concert will feature the world premiere of multi-genre composer Aldo López-Gavilán’s Oceans to Cross, written for and performed by the inimitable Lara Downes. So, jump in to the great unknown and discover sounds that you may have never heard before, but that will surely make their mark once brought to life.

The Great Unknown

Walton Arts Center

Conductor Joshua Weilerstein leads Dvořák’s enchanting Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” The composer reflected on his time in the United States, and inspired by Black spirituals and Native American music, Dvořák created a work filled with majestic fanfares and brilliant melodies. Just four decades later in 1934, the world premiere of William Dawson’s passionate Negro Folk Symphony brought a Carnegie Hall audience to its feet in enthusiastic applause. A critic in attendance called it “the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has so far been achieved.”

American Masterpieces: The Music of Dvořák and Dawson

Joan and Irwin Jacobs Music Center

November brings two great staples of the symphonic repertoire, Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony in our first performances in over twenty years, and another all-time favorite of mine, Schumann’s Piano Concerto. I am so looking forward to welcoming back the brilliant pianist Jonathan Biss who has a special affinity for this concerto. It is also with great excitement that we will perform William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony for the first time. This work, which was greeted with great acclaim when it premiered under the baton of Leopold Stokowski in 1934, was all but forgotten until recently, and has been heralded as a masterpiece. Using folk melodies and spirituals as its thematic source, the work is colorfully orchestrated and an absolute delight to listen to. I wanted to perform this work with the orchestra the minute I first heard it and so look forward to sharing it with you.

Symphony Gems

Overture Center for the Arts

In 1934, William Dawson imagined a symphony that would fuse African rhythms and American laments into the symphonic form. What Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony promised, Dawson delivered. His defiant, triumphant “Negro Folk Symphony” is the greatest symphony you’ve never heard, premiered by no less than Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra to thunderous acclaim. Also, the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s 2nd Piano Concerto “The Peaceable Kingdom”, written for Lara Downes. And Chia-Hsuan Lin joins Valentina Peleggi for a two-conductor meditation by Roxanna Panufnik.

Loving V Virginia

Dominion Energy Center

Music Director Fabio Luisi makes his first appearance on the Pops Series presented by Capital One. The evening opens with classic Gershwin, followed by selections from the Great American Songbook. These important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards began in the early 20th century and continue to be written to this day. Closing the program are pieces by Jule Styne, William L. Dawson, the great arranger of spirituals, and the foot tapping Drums by James P. Johnson.



Great American Songbook Selections

Meyerson Symphony Center

The 2023-24 Season opens with Princeton-based composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s inspirational work Forward Into Light and Henri Tomasi’s expressive saxophone concerto performed by Steven Banks. William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony adds the final touch to this engaging concert.

Opening Weekend Forward Into Light

Princeton University

A rising star performs a beloved concerto. Mao Fujita’s meteoric rise is fascinating and extraordinary — he burst on the international scene when he won the Silver Medal at the 2019 International Tchaikovsky Competition as an unknown 20-year-old.  He makes his not-to-be-missed Cleveland debut performing Tchaikovsky’s powerful, iconic piano concerto.

Fujita Plays Tchaikovsky

Blossom Music Center

Carlos Kalmar welcomes the dazzling young American virtuoso Zlatomir Fung to perform one of the greatest works for solo cello, Elgar's poignant Cello Concerto. The program includes The Bamboula by African-British artist Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a man who, as a young composer, got a career boost from Elgar. His piece, The Bamboula, is inspired by the West African drum and dance of the same name. The concert closes with a symphony by William Dawson inspired by American spirituals.

Elgar Cello Concerto

Millennium Park

The BBC Philharmonic return, conducted by Joshua Weilerstein, beginning with Beethoven’s Overture for Egmont, encapsulating the story of the Dutch Count who defied a Spanish attack, securing freedom for his country. We then take a visit to Spain courtesy of Ravel in the frenzied dance rhythms of his Alborada del Gracioso. Our whirlwind tour then calls in on Japan in Takemitsu’s Towards the Sea II before returning again to Europe for Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, before our final piece by the African-American composer William Dawson where we return to ideas of freedom and salvation in the opening movement of his Negro Folk Symphony.

Manchester Classical - Freedom and Salvation

The Bridgewater Hall

Music is certainly one way to express individuality, but it is also a great unifier, helping to relate people to one another despite their differences. It can connect people across cultures and continents with ideas and feelings. In this concert, two incredible symphonies from two seemingly disparate composers (Antonín Dvořák and William Dawson) will demonstrate how traditional music from their cultures informed their symphonic works. William Dawson incorporated African American spirituals while Antonín Dvořák integrated folks tunes from his Czech homeland.

Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony constantly beckons the listener to dance, though it is not a dance piece. Even in its more solemn moments, the symphony is spirited, graceful, and optimistic. The music soars over and traces the spirit of Bohemia so much that the listener is transported to Dvořák’s home country.

Dvořák 8th Symphony

Gaillard Center

Sibelius, Kodaly, & Dawson

Northeastern University

Finnish conductor Dalia Stasevska makes her Minnesota Orchestra debut in an all-American program featuring the Orchestra’s own Concertmaster Erin Keefe. Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute alumna Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) opens the concert with enchanting music that churns and roils. Then, Keefe leads the way through a witty dinner table conversation set to music in Bernstein’s Serenade, after Plato’s “Symposium.” Finally, the Orchestra brings William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony—a remarkable work of art and story of true perseverance, inspired by African American spirituals—to the Orchestra Hall stage for the first time.

Erin Keefe Plays Bernstein

Orchestra Hall Minneapolis

Popular music meets classical when guest conductor Ryan Bancroft makes his Atlanta Symphony Orchestra debut. The concert opens with the suite from Háry János, a 1926 Hungarian folk opera by Zoltán Kodály, a man who devoted his life to the preservation of Indigenous folk music. The kinetic young pianist Conrad Tao returns to Atlanta for Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, and the program concludes with the Negro Folk Symphony, a piece infused with spirituals from the American South by Alabama native William Dawson.

Conrad Tao Plays Ravel

Atlanta Symphony Hall

Rooted in America

Paramount Theatre

Winner of the Solti Conducting Award, Berlin-based American conductor Roderick Cox brings a relative rarity along with Ravel and Prokofiev: William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony. Premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1934, it won over an enthusiastic audience and critics, one of whom wrote “[it is] the most distinctive and promising American symphonic proclamation which has so far been achieved,” and yet it was scarcely performed since. Written in the tradition of American post-Romantics, Dawson’s remarkable achievement uses African American folk material and works it into a sophisticated orchestral fabric. Virtuoso Karen Gomyo joins in for Prokofiev’s relatively Romantic First Violin Concerto, and Cox concludes with the ultimate musical sensuality of Ravel’s Daphnis.

Ravel, Dawson, and Prokofiev

A conductor who is “paving the way” (NBC News) and a “trailblazer” (Minnesota Star Tribune), Roderick Cox returns to the Seattle Symphony. He’s joined onstage by Concertmaster Noah Geller for Glazunov’s Violin Concerto, followed by Bartók’s lurid Miraculous Mandarin.

The Miraculous Mandarin

Benaroya Hall

Jayce Ogren's insightful examination of American music continues in this wide-ranging program exploring the musical character of the nation on the approach of its 250th birthday. The concert opens with a profound arrangement of our National Anthem by Italian-American composer Luigi Zaninelli. Sarah Kirkland Snider, a composer with "an unerring knack for breathtaking beauty" (The New Yorker), presents an anticipated new work called Marmoris co-commissioned by Monterey Symphony. Next up is Leonard Bernstein's effervescent Symphonic Dances from West Side Story followed by icon Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, narrated by surprise honorable guests from Monterey. The season concludes with William Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony, a 1934 work that reflects Black experience in America and has an enigmatic conclusion, representing an unresolved struggle.

Composer

William L. Dawson

Events

Upcoming events

16 - 17 May, 2026

USA 250 West Side Story + Lincoln Portrait · Monterey Symphony

Past events

May 7, 2026

American Mosaic · The Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra

Apr 23, 2026

Concert Orchestra – Thomas Wilkins, conductor · Indiana University Jacobs School of Music

About

William L. Dawson hasn't added a bio