Anna Kim, 16, of Marlton, will join the Philadelphia Sinfonia, an award-winning youth orchestra led by Music Director and Conductor Gary D. White as they perform Café Society.
The ballet was found and painstakingly pieced together the parts and score of the ballet, composed by prominent American composer, Ferde Grofe, and will present this work in a multimedia performance at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center on May 2.
The composer’s son, Ferde Grofe, Jr., plans to attend and is the honorary chair of this historical event.
An original piano reduction score of the ballet is owned by a Sinfonia parent and dance historian, Sharon Skeel, and was shown to Gary White in the summer of 2009.
The work was commissioned by early 20th Century Philadelphia choreographer, Catherine Littlefield, for her dance company known both as the Littlefield Ballet and the Philadelphia Ballet Company.
It was premiered in Chicago, during a residency Littlefield held with the Chicago City Opera Company in 1938, but was subsequently performed by her company in Philadelphia; its last known performance was also here; in 1942, a concert version was performed by the Pennsylvania W.P.A (Works Projects Administration) Orchestra.
Catherine Flaherty, Littlefield’s niece, is also expected to attend the concert.
Fragile instrumental parts and a score were eventually found in The Fleisher Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the only known location of extant parts in the world.
Additional research in the Ferde Grofe archives at the Library of Congress allowed Maestro White to fill in the missing notes and phrases in these parts and score, and the orchestra has begun to rehearse the piece.
Café Society is a satire; it is fun; and it has much of the flavor of the jazz and big band music of its time. Grofe’s interest in uniting jazz and classical elements made him an ideal choice for the collaboration with Catherine Littlefield.
Littlefield was known for works with American themes, a number of them lighthearted and combining elements of classical ballet with musical theater.
Ferde Grofe shared her interest in Americana and the blending of orthodox and popular forms.
Both had worked in vaudeville and movie palaces, and they both held the view that art should be entertaining.
In many respects they foreshadowed the currently popular trend of blending jazz and classical genres.
They viewed music and dance as whole art forms, not strictly divided into separate categories.
The public is invited to the concert in the Perelman Theater of the Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, on Sunday, May 2, at 3 p.m. Tickets will be available at the Kimmel Center box office.
This concert closes Philadelphia Sinfonia’s thirteenth season and also includes Franz Schubert’s Rosamunde Overture; sMikhail Glinka’s Russlan & Ludmilla Overture and Polovetsian Dances by Alexander Borodin.
For more information about Philadelphia Sinfonia or directions to the concert, please visit www.philadelphiasinfonia.com or call (215) 351–0363.
