Rhapsody on America

Duration 20' (2025)
Solo Piano, Full Orchestra or Reduced Orchestra
3333 4331 timp+2 strings, solo piano or 3322 4331 timp+2 strings solo piano

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Solo Piano and Full Orchestra

Solo Piano and Reduced Orchestra

Commissioned by Orchestra Lumos, and co-commissioned by the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra, the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra, and the San Jose Symphony Orchestra.

Premiered by Orchestra Lumos, pianist Joyce Yang Nov 15 & 16, 2025.

Program Note

Leshnoff’s Rhapsody on America is his second showcase for Joyce Yang’s virtuoso pianism. She premiered his Piano Concerto (dedicated, like this work, “to Joyce”) with the Kansas City Symphony and Stern in 2019. In this follow-up collaboration, Leshnoff continues his exploration of American melodies of patriotic and national significance. His Symphony for Winds (2023), written for the “President’s Own” United States Marine Band, incorporates the hymn tune “God of Our Fathers” into its final movement, while Of Thee I Sing (2020) draws its melodic material from and culminates in a climactic choral statement of “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” Now, to honor the nation’s 250th Anniversary, Leshnoff further develops that same melody, known by its tune name America. This new work likewise takes inspiration from and provides a companion piece to Rachmaninoff’s similarly conceived Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Presented simply by the piano in unmodified form at the work’s outset, America provides the theme for a continuous sequence of fifteen variations. The first eight grow in intensity and rhythmic complexity, leading to a piano cadenza that begins the slower ninth variation, the emotional heart of the piece. A faster tempo resumes for the spare and unsettling variation ten. The virtuosic demands placed upon the pianist increase across variations eleven through fourteen, while the fugal fifteenth variation culminates in a triumphant restatement of the original tune.

In discussing his earlier Of Thee I Sing, Leshnoff observed that “To me, the song ‘My Country, ’Tis of Thee’ is so profound, so simple and so cogent. It has been used by great American leaders to strengthen the country in dark times—to give hope and direction.” His Rhapsody on America surveys the tune’s expressive implications across a sometimes troubled, sometimes celebratory trajectory that offers a vision of “hope and direction” while acknowledging the challenges ahead, as our nation strives to live up to its promise at the beginning of its second quarter millennium.

Rhapsody on America was commissioned by Orchestra Lumos, and co-commissioned by the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra, the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra, and the San Jose Symphony Orchestra.