Summertime
Program
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George Gershwin
An American in Paris
1928 -
A Concert of Songs
Excerpts from the opera
Porgy and Bess
1935/2024
Cast
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Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha
soprano
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Kevin Short
bass-baritone
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A Song for you
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Cologne Citizens' choir
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Andrés Orozco-Estrada
conductor
Paris! Breathless, colourful, racy and full of secrets. This is true today as it was 100 years ago, when the young American George Gershwin frequented the cafés of Montmartre, listening to the sounds of the big city and overcome with homesickness for New York, that other glamorous metropolis. In Gershwin’s musical portrait An American in Paris, revving motors, honking horns, the Cancan, Charleston, blues and ragtime merge in an irresistible symphony of the big city – a audible journey that is so concrete and thrilling that one could actually cancel one’s own city trip. The human soul with all its flights of fancy and abysses, love, desperation, death – and then there’s »Summertime«, possible the aria with the most cover versions in music history: the highlights from Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Besstransport us to a world of overpowering emotions.
Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Gürzenich Orchestra, returning well-rested from their summer break, team up with two great vocal soloists and the Cologne Citizens’ Chorus – launching the new season with swing and jazz vibes!
