The Albany Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Music Director, Claire Fox Hillard, will present an “American Voices” concert on Saturday, November 12, 2022, featuring renowned clarinet soloist Anthony McGill (see attached bio and photo). As principal clarinetist, McGill currently serves as the first African American principal player in the New York Philharmonic’s history. McGill will perform Claude Debussy’s “Premiere Rhapsody” along with Edmund Thornton Jenkins’ “Clarinet Concerto.” The performance begins at 6:30 pm at the Albany Municipal Auditorium. Music Director Hillard states that, “our ‘American Voices’ concert will showcase a sampling of the diversity of music the USA has produced and continues to produce in the world of classical music.”

Clarinetist Anthony McGill will perform the “Clarinet Concert” by Charlestonian composer Edmund Thornton Jenkins (see attached bio and photo) in addition to the Debussy “Premiere Rhapsody.” Jenkins, born in 1894, got his start taking private lessons, playing in the Jenkins Orphanage Band, and at his father’s church. He completed his studies at Avery Institute in Charleston, Morehouse College in Atlanta, and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He won awards for several of his compositions and performed at a high level on several instruments with his main instruments being clarinet and saxophone. He died prematurely at the age of 32 in Paris. Jenkins grand-nephew, Tuffus Zimbabwe, has worked diligently to create preforming editions and to re-construct the works of Edmund Thornton Jenkins. Zimbabwe also currently serves as a keyboardist for Saturday Night Live.

The concert also features the Georgia, as well as the Southeast, premiere of Pulitzer-Prize winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s “Cold Mountain Suite.” Higdon’s opera Cold Mountain, based on the bestselling 1997 novel by Charles Frazier, garnered 2 Grammy nominations and won the International Opera Award for Best New Opera in 2015. Through New Music for America and a consortium of more than three dozen orchestras – including the Albany Symphony Orchestra – Higdon created this suite using dramatic musical themes from the opera to highlight the emotional throes of love, war, and the journey of a soldier making his way back home to Cold Mountain.

Rounding out the ASO’s concert will be Aaron Copland’s iconic Appalachian Spring Suite and “New Dance” by Albany born composer Wallingford Riegger.

Thank you to the following foundations for their support, James M. Barnett, Jr. Foundation, WB Haley Foundation, Sarah R. Wetherbee Foundation, Loretta Haley McKnight Foundation, and the Carlton Foundation. The Presenting Sponsors for the orchestra’s 59th season are: WALB-TV; Phoebe Putney Health System; Watson Spence Attorneys LLP; and In the Light Creative Studio.

Season tickets for the orchestra’s “Next Adventure” season are currently still available as well as single tickets to this performance. Single tickets for are $25 for adults, $22 for senior (65+) and $15 for students/military. Season tickets provide a savings over single ticket prices. For more information and to purchase tickets, call the Albany Symphony offices at (229) 430-8933 or visit

www.albanysymphony.org.