Dvořák's prophecy : a new narrative for American classical music. Film 1, Dvořák's New world symphony, a lens on the American experience of race

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"This first film in the series keys on Dvorak's prophecy and explores its present-day pertinence. In New York City and Spillville, Iowa, Dvorak boldly chose to regard African-Americans and Native A...

"This first film in the series keys on Dvorak's prophecy and explores its present-day pertinence. In New York City and Spillville, Iowa, Dvorak boldly chose to regard African-Americans and Native Americans as representative Americans. That decision was both acclaimed and ridiculed at the time. It remains inspirational. His New World Symphony, still the best known and best loved symphonic work conceived on American soil, is saturated with the influence of plantation song, and also with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha. This act of appropriation, the film argues, was an act of empathy performed by a great humanitarian. The participating commentators include the music historians Mark Clague and Lorenzo Candelaria, the literary historian Brian Yothers, the conductor JoAnn Falletta, faculty members from Howard University - and also (sagely commenting on cultural appropriation) the bass-baritone Kevin Deas."--Publisher's website.

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