Tue, Jun 2, 2026
America’s Declaration of Independence was signed on 4 July 1776. Enshrining the Enlightenment ideals of freedom, equality and the individual ‘pursuit of happiness’, the document became an example for new democracies all over the world.
The fact that these same ideals are under threat today is all the more reason to reflect on the 250th year of the ‘land of the free’. Hear the Concertgebouw Orchestra in several of their own concerts, as well as sharing a presentation by the John Adams Institute.
Lots of music from the United States
During the entire month of June, we’re playing music from the United States. On 11 and 12 June, Fabio Luisi will conduct Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto with soloist James Ehnes. On 18 June we’ll play a programme entirely by Black American composers, led by Antony Hermus as part of the Mind the Gap! festival in The Concertgebouw. The music includes the first performance in the Netherlands of Wynton Marsalis’ Trumpet Concerto with our principal trumpet Miro Petkov as the soloist, as well as new arrangements of two historically important songs, sung by American bass-baritone Davóne Tines. And on 9 June, musicians from the orchestra will play an all-American ‘Close-up’ programme of chamber music by Gershwin, Bernstein, Reich and Shaw in the Recital Hall.
Lecture with American music
On Wednesday 24 June, orchestra musicians will play during the lecture hosted by the John Adams Institute entitled The Unfinished Promise of American Justice by lawyer, writer and activist Bryan Stevenson. The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson works towards making policies that are fairer to low-income people, youth and people with mental-health issues. He is also the initiator of several monuments acknowledging the role of slavery in American history.
His lecture illustrates how democratic ideas spread thanks to the courage of those who resisted exclusion and oppression, and why the struggle for civil rights and equality is still not over. Members of the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Spanish-American pianist Daahoud Salim will enhance Stevenson’s narrative with music by Tania Léon, Valerie Coleman, Julia Perry, Betty Jackson King and Billy Childs.
