Michael Daugherty’s new Flute Concerto, featuring Amy Porter, to Premiere March 26

March 2010

Trail of Tears, a new flute concerto by Michael Daugherty, will premiere on Friday, March 26, featuring Amy Porter as soloist, with the Omaha Symphony, under the direction of Thomas Wilkins.

The forced removal of peoples from their homeland for political, economic, racial, religious, or cultural reasons is the theme Daugherty has taken up for this work is. In America, the forced removal of all Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River began with the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The work is divided into three movements: I. where the wind blew free, II. incantation, and III. sun dance.

“My flute concerto is a musical journey into how the human spirit discovers ways to deal with upheaval, adversity, and adapting to a new environment,” says the composer. The first movement, “where the wind blew free,” was inspired by a quote from Native American leader Geronimo: “I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun.”