CT symphony orchestras celebrating America’s 250th anniversary with patriotic performances

Over a dozen symphony orchestras in Connecticut are performing at least 16 separate concerts through July honoring the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.

Certain themes, composers or trends often declare themselves when symphonies announce their seasons. Some years there’s a lot of Beethoven or Bach. American composers such as George Gershwin or Florence Price have been getting widespread attention in recent years.

Honoring the semiquincentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence may seem like an obvious theme for classical music organizations, but it’s really not all that obvious. While what we think of as classical music today was the predominant concert music of the late 18th century when the American Revolution was being fought, it took a while for the Puritans and other religious organizations to realize that public entertainment shouldn’t be banned outright. It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that symphonies as we know them started happening.

The New York Philharmonic, considered to be the first symphony orchestra in the United States, wasn’t established until 1842. Connecticut’s first symphony orchestra, the New Haven Symphony Orchesta, wasn’t founded until 1894. The Hartford Symphony Orchestra began 40 years later, in 1934.

The neatest fit between a local orchestra and the founding of our nation is the New Haven-based Orchestra New England. ONE may be a youngster compared to many other orchestras in the state, having been founded in 1974 by James Sinclair. ONE may be best known for championing the work of modernist Connecticut composer Charles Ives. Yet, since 1980, the orchestra has also become known for its annual “Colonial Concerts,” that dress up New Haven’s United Church on the Green to look as it might have looked in the late 18th century.

The concerts feature appearances from celebrities of the time such as Benjamin Franklin, who died in 1790. Its “America 250” concert in May will feature premieres by two American composers — “The River” by Jan Swafford, a Yale School of Music alum who is also known for his biographies of major composers (including Charles Ives) and “Concerto for Violin” by Neely Bruce, the esteemed Connecticut composer who has taught at Wesleyan University for over 50 years. ONE will also perform one of the most American of all orchestral works, Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” a countryside wedding dance celebrating the music and culture of the Shaker faith.

Some symphony orchestras started early. Orchestra Lumos made its entire 2025-26 schedule an “America 250” season. Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra has a “Sounds of America” concert in April, but just did another American anniversary-themed concert, “American Enginuity,” in February.

Here’s a list of classical concerts to celebrate America’s birthday.

March 7 and 8: Stamford’s Orchestra Lumos does two performances at two different locations of its “American Gems” concert: March 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the Palace Theatre, 61 Atlantic St., Stamford and March 8 at 3 p.m. at the Quick Center, 1073 N. Benson Road, Fairfield. Composers include Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, ragtime icon Scott Joplin, Samuel Barber and Arthur Foote.

March 15: CONCORA, aka Connecticut Choral Artists, has a 4 p.m. concert at Trinity College Chapel, 300 Summit St., Hartford on March 15 playing alongside projections of artworks that can be found at the New Britain Museum of American Art. Works include such American artists and compositions as William Billings’ “Chester,” Randall Thompson’s “Americana” and John Corigliano’s “Fern Hill.” $32.55-$43.06, free for students.

March 22: New Haven Symphony has an afternoon concert at 3 p.m. in Yale’s Woolsey Hall, 500 College St., New Haven, with a strong American component. There’s Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, the “New World” symphony, inspired by his explorations of Black and Native American culture, as well as “Visual Rhythms” by the NHSO’s current composer-in-residence Courtney Bryan and “Lenox Avenue” by a major 20th century Black composer, William Grant Still. The New Haven Heritage Chorale is part of the performance, which is titled “Goin’ Home.”

April 11: The Nutmeg Symphony’s “Celebrating America” concert is an official event of the town of Bristol’s 250 America Committee. The 7:30 p.m. concert at Bristol Eastern High School, 632 King St., Bristol, features American composers Charles Ives, Walter Mamlok (the Connecticut composer who will also perform in the concert), Dudley Buck (another Connecticut composer), Carlos Simon, Chen Yi, Robert Sierra, William Steffe (of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” fame) and yet another Connecticut composer, longtime Yale band leader Thomas Duffy with his “Overture 1776.” The Bristol Chorale is featured in several of the pieces.

April 18 and 19: Orchestra Lumos has made its entire four-show 2025-26 schedule its “America 250” season. It culminates with two performances of a concert also called “America 250” on April 18 at 7:30 p.m. and April 19 at 3 p.m. at The Palace Theatre, 61 Atlantic St., Stamford. Besides the inevitable Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland and George Gershwin, there’s the world premiere of five works by American composers specially commissioned for this occasion by Orchestra Lumos. The composers, most of whom have had their works performed by other Connecticut symphonies over the years, are Clarice Assad, Liam Cummins, Quinn Mason, Nicky Sohn and Christopher Theofanidis, and the premieres are collectively billed as “Five American Portraits.”

CT rings in 2026 with a months-long list of events to honor the United States Semiquincentennial

April 25: The Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra’s “Sounds of America” concert, at 7:30 p.m. at the Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London, celebrates America’s 250th anniversary with works by American composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Randall Thompson (who died in 1984), Jake Runestad (who’s still in his 30s), Aaron Copland (represented by his Symphony No. 3 from 1946, the one that contains his immortal “Fanfare for the Common Man”), ECSO music director Daniel McDavitt’s setting of poetry by Walt Whitman and the evening’s centerpiece, selections from Leonard Bernstein’s score for “West Side Story” with guest operatic vocalists Grace Murphy and Henry Cox.

April 25 and 26: The New Haven Symphony Orchestra shoots for the stars with two performances of a concert uniting two science fiction epics conceived by American artists that speak of interworld peace. “A Galaxy Far, Far Away” isn’t one of those concerts where an orchestra plays along to a movie, it’s all about the music, which includes John Williams’ themes from “Star Wars” and “ET” as well as Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Trek” theme and Hans Zimmer’s scores for two European sci-fi films, “Dune” and “Interstellar.” There’s a Saturday performance at 3 p.m. in Shelton High School and Sunday at 3 p.m. at Yale’s Woolsey Hall. $15-$49, $10 students.

May 2: Orchestra New England’s “USA 250” concert, May 2 at 7:30 p.m. at Yale University’s Battell Chapel, concentrates on 20th and 21st century composers such as Aaron Copland, Jan Swafford and Neely Bruce, with Gary Capozziello of Hartford Symphony Orchestra performing Bruce’s new Concerto for Violin. $$30, $50 preferred seating, $5 students.

May 2: Not a lot of details on this one yet, but Torrington Symphony Orchestra’s “Celebrating America” is at the Warner Theatre’s Nancy Marine Studio space, 68 Main St., Torrington.

May 3: The Danbury Symphony Orchestra is the rare ensemble giving the British a chance to be heard during America’s 250th birthday year. “Across the Pond and Back,” at 4 p.m. at the First Congregational Church of Danbury, 164 Deer Hill Ave., Danbury, offers what the DSO describes as “choral works by living British and American composers, exploring shared traditions and fresh voices on both sides of the Atlantic.” Composers include Rollo Dilwort, Dominic DiOrio, John Rutter, Jennifer Tibbetts, Gwyneth Walker, Eric Whitacre and others.

May 8: The Cheshire Symphony Orchestra’s “Music for the Semiquincentennial” concert, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 59 Main St., Cheshire, offers works by Florence Price, Dudley Buck, William Grant Still, Leroy Anderson, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and the CSO’s music director Hilarie Clark Moore.

May 15: “America 250″ is the theme of the May installment of Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s intimate Sunday Serenades series at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, where a chamber orchestra pairs classical pieces with artworks at the museum, plays works by the American composers Joan Tower, Samuel Barber, Kenneth Fuchs and Leonard Bernstein, as well as the “American Suite” by Czech composer Antonin Dvorák. $45, $10 students. The 3 p.m. concert is preceded by a talk.

June 6: The Farmington Valley Symphony, which performs at First Church of Christ, 75 Main St., Farmington, ends its 2025-26 season with a 6 p.m. “Happy 250th Birthday America” pops concert on the church’s lawn. There is picnicking allowed before the show. Selections include patriotic songs or other compositions by all the expected names: Aaron Copland, Irving Berlin, Samuel Augustus Ward (who wrote “America the Beautiful”), John Philip Sousa, John Williams (“Star Wars Suites), not to mention Francis Scott Key’s “Star Spangled Banner.” The FVSO Jazz Combo is part of the concert.

July 3: Hartford Symphony Orchestra does its “Celebrate America” concert every year on the Friday closest to Independence Day as part of its outdoor Talcott Mountain Music Series at the Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center, 22 Iron Horse Blvd, Simsbury. This year is no exception, with “Celebrate America” happening on at 7:30 p.m. even though the HSO is performing the very next day in Bushnell Park.

July 4: Hartford Symphony Orchestra has been doing a free Symphony in the Park concert every summer. This year, that concert will be part of an “America 250” event happening all day on July 4 in Bushnell Park. That event is also a variant on an annual festival that happens in the park every summer, Hartford Bonanza, which is produced by the same organization that does First Night Hartford. The HSO will be on Hartford Bonanza’s main stage, surrounded by what First Night Hartford Inc. is calling “an unforgettable full day of arts, culture, food, community, history and commemoration.”

July: Wallingford Symphony Orchestra’s July “Patriotic Pops” concert, happening on a date yet to be determined in July at Choate Rosemary Hall, 333 Christian St., Wallingford, is a free public event. The concert runs the gamut from folk tunes to showtunes to jazz standards to film scores by Raymond Scott (his chase theme “Powerhouse” and some of his “Looney Tunes” arrangements), Max Steiner (“Gone With the Wind”) and others. Of course there’s also some Gershwin — the songs rather than the rhapsodies — as well as composer/arranger Bob Lowden’s “Armed Forces Salute.”

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