Akron is getting an unusual gift for its 200th birthday: a new theme song. The piece “Festive Fanfare (For Akron’s Bicentennial)” premieres Tuesday at E-J Thomas Hall. The piece was commissioned by Tuesday Musical Executive Director Cynthia Snider.
“The recording, we hope, will be played at school graduations, at sporting events, at the Akron Roundtable; all kinds of community events,” Snider said.
That recording happens the day after the concert and will include the ensemble of 19 brass and percussion players, mostly from the Cleveland Orchestra. Michael Sachs, the orchestra’s principal trumpet, said after several years of retirements, they’ve been able to staff those sections with an infusion of younger players.
“For the first time in quite a while, we have a full brass section and virtually a full percussion section,” Sachs said. “In many ways, we're going for the first time ever with the full forces like this. The orchestra's brass and percussion sections, from my knowledge, have never done a concert like this. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to really showcase all of these wonderful virtuosos that we have in this orchestra.”
Sachs and Snider worked together with Grammy-winning producer Elaine Martone, who will oversee the recording of the piece, to select a composer: Peter Boyer. He was most recently in Northeast Ohio to conduct the the Cleveland Orchestra's performance of his piece “Ellis Island” in 2023. To write about Akron, though, he had to do some research.
“My sense has been that there is a strong musical, artistic community focused there,” he said. “I got the sense that Akron is a city that kind of punches above its weight in terms of its size.”
The Los Angeles-native is looking forward to conducting the fanfare and visiting the Rubber City.
“In the course of four minutes, how much can one convey?” he said. “Certainly a sense of energy, a sense of celebration, a sense of optimism, all of which I think will be very evident from the first bar in this piece.”
Tuesday’s performance also includes pieces by Giovanni Gabrieli, Percy Grainger, Modest Mussorgsky and others.
