People from other lands can be keen observers of what’s most special to a culture. When Czech composer Antonín Dvořák visited the United States for three years, beginning in 1892, he discovered that truly American music came from Black spirituals, Native American dances and melodies.
French-born conductor Nathalie Stutzmann chose the music of Dvořák for her debut recording as music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. She recently joined Lois Reitzes on “City Lights” to discuss her appreciation of Dvořák and excitement about her new role with the ASO.
Stutzmann shared with Lois that she felt a number of parallels between her own story and that of Dvořák’s, which led her to choose Dvorak’s Symphony from the New World and American Suite as the repertoire for her first symphonic recording with the ASO.
“I wanted to give them kind of a tribute to America and to this orchestra … And I felt a little bit like the story of Dvořák related a little bit to my feelings,” said Stutzmann.
Both she and Dvořák made their way to America after successful careers in the classical music world, excited to discover new bodies of culture and music grown from the unique soil of American history.
