Sutter Creek, CA…The Mother Lode Friends of Music, the regional organization of classical music performances, presents a concert of music by American composers on Sunday, March 12, at the Sutter Creek Theatre, 44 Main Street, in Sutter Creek, starting at 3 pm.

The centerpiece of the program will be the Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland in the original version for 13 players, created to accompany the ballet by Martha Graham. The work from its inception has become a timeless classic, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1944. No other work more perfectly captures the vast open spaces, haunting plainness and the bracing pioneer spirit of America.

Also on the program are two other works by Copland, Quiet City for English horn, trumpet and strings, written originally to accompany a play by Irwin Shaw, and Hoe Down, from the ballet Rodeo, in an original collaboration with choreographer Agnes de Mille. The program opens with the well-known Adagio for strings of Samuel Barber, in a performance dedicated to the memory of Henrik Jul Hansen, longtime conductor of the Friends of Music Orchestra, who died of cancer last fall. Other selections are the Suite for strings of American Romantic composer Arthur Foote and the second movement of the Piano Trio for violin, cello and piano of Charles Ives, an innovative American composer of the 19th to 20th centuries who presented snippets of American folk tunes and hymns in a polytonal modernist style that was well ahead of its time.

Conducting the Chamber Orchestra of the Friends of Music is Ryan Murray, making his local debut. He is currently Artistic Director of the Fresno Grand Opera and the Townsend Opera in Modesto, Associate Conductor of the Modesto Symphony, and Conductor of the Modesto Symphony Youth Orchestra. Performing the English horn solo is Candis Hanson, principal oboe with the Solano Symphony in Fairfield. The trumpet solo will be performed by Jeff Chambers, principal trumpet of the South Valley Symphony in Gilroy. Performing the Ives trio are violinist Corina Stoian, cellist Jia-mo Chen and pianist Ron Brickman.

Tickets to the concert are $25 for adults and $10 for children under 18. They may be ordered by mail by sending a check to MLFM, PO Box 1362, Jackson, CA 95642 or purchased at Mother Lode Music in Martell, or at the door.