Eastern Kentucky University’s Symphonic Band, along with the University Singers, will perform a spring concert on Wednesday, April 24, at 8 p.m. at the EKU Center for the Arts.
The Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemorative Concert is free and open to the public.
The groups will present “A Walt Whitman Portrait,” a work by Dr. Richard Crosby, professor of music at EKU, depicting the political strife of the Civil War. The three-movement work incorporates three different Whitman poems about the war, found in his collection “Leaves of Grass.”
The first movement, “Beat! Beat! Drum!” illustrates the coming of enemy forces, while the second movement “Old War Dreams” is a piece of mourning describing the nightmares and flashbacks of the war from Whitman, who worked as a war nurse. The final movement, “For You, Oh Democracy,” is a cry of triumph in the potential of our democratic government and an upbeat, patriotic depiction of Whitman’s vision of its spread.
“When my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, I decided that I needed to write something significant for him while he could still understand,” Crosby said of the composition. “Although he couldn’t read a note or play an instrument, he had always played records of Chopin, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and others in our home when I was growing up, and I am convinced he liked music even better than I do. After he retired, he would drive up from the Tampa Bay area to Cincinnati just to hear me give a recital and then drive home again. I thought that that sort of support deserved a major ‘thank you.’ I am happy to report that he and my mother were here for the premiere (of “A Walt Whitman Portrait”) and he understood why I had written it.”
For more information, contact Katherine Williams at katherine.williams@eku.edu or 859-622-3266.
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