On 19 June Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony returned to the work of Michael Daugherty for the premiere of Dancing in the Streets – a PSO commission celebrating both America’s 250th anniversary and the centenary of the Martha Graham Dance Company.
…[a] boisterous, high-octane affair. The PSO gave Daugherty’s colorfully orchestrated score a vigorous workout…Angular gestures here suggested a strident, mid-century modernism…The familiar ‘This Land is Your Land’ was introduced in a solo passage from concertmaster David McCarroll, coloured by piquant double stops. The tune appeared in a multitude of guises across the orchestra, some quietly reflective, some searingly romantic, before building to a high-intensity close.
Seen and Heard International (Sam Jacobson) 21 June 2026
Horns heralded a strong opening to the three-movement piece, immediately immersing the listener…I was reminded of a landscape of rolling hills or ocean waves…Switching seamlessly between fast, intense segments and soft, lulling melodies, the orchestra transported the audience…left us so awestruck that they received a long, but deserved, standing ovation.
OnStage Pittsburgh (Claire Stevens) 20 June 2026
Dancing in the Streets was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary and the 100th anniversary of the Martha Graham Dance Company. A “dance symphony” in three movements without a break, it is inspired by four influential figures from American dance, and the democratic, all-embracing heterogeneity of its history. The first is a tribute Gene Kelly – one of Graham’s students - who revolutionized the Hollywood musicals of the 1950s, such as Singing in the Rain, by blending vernacular dance idioms with modern, ballet, and jazz. ‘Martha’s Maze’ celebrates Graham herself, the “Mother of Modern Dance”.
Woody and Marjorie Guthrie inspire the finale, ‘Dance a Little Longer’; Marjorie was another dancer in the Graham company and appeared in 1944’s Appalachian Spring. She would frequently collaborate with her folk-singer husband on modern dance projects, children’s songs, and progressive political causes. Alongside Copland’s seminal ballet score, Dancing in the Streets appears alongside works by Jessie Montgomery and Mark Godden.
An established composer for the dance stage, Daugherty’s most recent scenic work was Summer & Smoke for Houston Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, an evening-length work choreographed by Cathy Marston after Tennessee Williams’ 1948 drama of sexual and spiritual transfiguration in early twentieth-century Mississippi.
In 2024 the Pittsburgh Symphony and Honeck premiered the double concerto Songs of the Open Road, featuring the orchestra’s principal oboe Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida and principal horn William Caballero as soloists. Named for Walt Whitman’s great poem of travel from his 1856 collection Leaves of Grass, the 23-minute work is Daugherty’s tribute to the great American road trip, cast in six movements each celebrating the American landscape as seen from its highways. Its waypoints include the majestic Californian coastline of ‘Big Sur’, with a Spanish musical flavour; the majestic peaks of the Rocky Mountains in ‘Continental Divide’; and, in ‘Sleeping Bear’, the timeless beauty of the eponymous dunes along the shore of Lake Michigan based on a Native American legend.
In February 2022 Honeck and the orchestra premiered Daugherty’s Fifteen: Symphonic Fantasy Inspired by the Art of Andy Warhol – one of the many icons of American popular culture and landscape to which Daugherty has turned for musical inspiration. In 2024 George Jackson and the Amarillo Symphony premiered Cadillac Ranch, a 22-minute set of variations inspired by the iconic public art installation located on the outskirts of Amarillo; watch the PBS documentary about the creation of the work here. Other recent works in this vein include Blue Electra (2022), a violin concerto for Anne Akiko Meyers, which illustrates four episodes from the life of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, and the 2015 Grammy-winning cello concerto Tales of Hemingway, drawing on the turbulent life of the great American novelist.