S.D. Symphony Orchestra, SDSU School of Performing Arts present Italian pianist, scholar

The South Dakota Symphony Orchestra and the South Dakota State University School of Performing Arts are teaming up this week to introduce the orchestra’s next soloist, Emanuele Arciuli, to Brookings in a concert set for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26, at the Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center.

SDSU’s participation is supported by the William Mibra Griffith and Byrne Griffith Educational Fund.

Arciuli is in South Dakota to perform Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. His program in Founders Recital Hall will feature solo works by Antonin Dvorak, George Gershwin, Charles Ives and Harrison, among others. New York-based music historian Joseph Horowitz will also be on hand to provide a narrative regarding how this music attempted to articulate an artistic American identity.

The musical samples are arranged in such a way that connects Dvorak and Arthur Farwell with others who spent lifetimes attempting to discern what artistically distinguished the New World from the old. Farwell’s “Pawnee Horses” is an exquisite keyboard cameo based on a Navajo tune. Like this 20th century work, the South Dakota Symphony’s Lakota Music Project, too, explores Native American music and its possible applications in the concert hall.

Arciuli is a distinguished Italian pianist who specializes in American music and is an author of a book (in Italian) about American keyboard literature. He lives and teaches in Bari, Italy.

Horowitz is a frequent visitor to SDSU and is the author of more than a dozen books dealing with the history of American music. His documentaries, including one on “Shostakovich in South Dakota,” are regularly heard on National Public Radio.

The concert and discussion are free, and the public is invited to attend.