NEW SOUNDS | The American Dream is for Perfect People

What does the country we call HOME look like today? What values do we uphold, and who decides them? Do our ideals match the reality around us? Who do we celebrate as the face of America? What is this doing to our young people—and to the values we hope to pass along? This program of provocative composers does not offer easy answers. Instead, it asks us to listen deeply: to the music, to one another, and to the society we are shaping together.

Charles Ives’ “Piano Trio, TSIAJ (This Scherzo Is a Joke)” opens the evening with playful wit, weaving familiar American folk songs into unexpected twists that both delight and provoke. Andy Akiho’s “Haiku 2” continues the evening with an inventive palette of everyday objects—metal pipes, pot lids, spoons, and rice bowls—inviting us to reflect on the sounds that surround our daily lives and the meaning we give them. Jacob TV’s “Body of Your Dreams” pairs piano with electrically manipulated excerpts from a diet-program infomercial, confronting the ways media and desire shape our self-image. The centerpiece, Cleveland composer Andrew Rindfleisch’s “American Descent”, unfolds across an expanded chamber ensemble, offering a searing, urgent soundscape that examines the fractures, tensions, and contradictions of contemporary America. With layers of intensity, reflection, and confrontation, the work challenges us to listen—and to reckon—with the reality of the country we call home.