Cadman, Charles Wakefield – Selections from Daoma
Shostakovich – Symphony No. 10

Guest vocalists: TBA

Our season finale is deeply meaningful to all of us in the Vista Philharmonic. This is a performance about change, about respect, and about standing up for the things we believe in. 

Charles Cadman set out to incorporate diverse influences and build a new American sound for his 1909 opera, Daoma. He used the stylistic language of his romantic classical training alongside elements of Omaha traditional music to compose something simultaneously fresh and reflective. This piece represents a moment in American history where cultural exchange, creation, and recording were all swirling together, and that excitement carries forward to our orchestra today.

Maestro Bruce Hangen was raised in Montana, a state steeped in Native American culture, and has made it part of his lifelong artistic mission to pay homage to people and practices that shaped him as a young man. Hangen last conducted this unique piece with the Omaha Symphony in 1992 after thoroughly researching its fascinating history, performing it just down the road from the Omaha Nation with representatives in the audience. 

We end our evening, and our 50th season, with a big work from a major symphonic composer. Dmitri Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony is all about Stalin’s criticism of his work – and the enduring lesson that artistry prevails. “For the listener of today,” wrote conductor Kurt Sanderling, who was there in 1953 when Shostakovich was composing the symphony, “it is perhaps more like a portrait of a dictatorship… of a system of oppression.” Music encourages us to think and to feel, and whether we’re performing on stage, listening in the audience, or composing deep into the night, it is that transformative power that truly carries us all forward.