West Valley City – The West Valley Symphony of Utah presents: On the Trail, featuring the “Grand Canyon Suite” by Ferde Grofé, under the direction of Music Director Donny Gilbert, Saturday, April 22^nd at 7:30 p.m. The concert features music that describes the wide-open spaces, majesty and people who discovered and settled the western parts of the United States, starting with the energetic “Cowboys Overture”. The symphony will then pay tribute to the Native Americans that inhabited the lands west of the Appalachians with the noble sounds of “The Last of the Mohicans”. The orchestra will then perform a picturesque suite based on one of the most impressive and awe-inspiring features of planet Earth: The Grand Canyon. The “Grand Canyon Suite” features sunrises, the wide-open desert, a donkey ride to the bottom of the canyon and a midnight rain storm complete with lightning and thunder. Come and enjoy this musical journey and tour of the west with the West Valley Symphony.

Composer Ferde Grofé, the Prince Minister of Jazz, was born Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé (pronounced grow-fay) on March 27, 1892 in New York City. While still a child, Grofé’s family moved to Los Angeles, California. His father was an actor and baritone singer while his mother was a cellist and music instructor. In 1931, Grofé’s most famous work, The Grand Canyon Suite, premiered in Chicago at the Studebaker Theater on November 22. The work consists of five movements each designed to describe an episode of life in the Canyon. Grofé had fallen under the spell of the Grand Canyon and had vowed to translate its impressions into a tangible form. As he would later write, “It became an obsession. The richness of the land and the rugged optimism of its people had fired my imagination. I was determined to put it all to music someday.”

in his later years, Grofé wrote: “This composition was born of sight, sound and sensations common to all of us. I think I have spoken of America in this music simply because America spoke to me, just as it has spoken to you and to every one of us. If I have succeeded in capturing some part of the American musical spirit, I am grateful that I was trained to do so. But this music is your music, and mine only in the highly technical sense that a copyright has been filed away with my name on it. Always we must realize that there is much more to hear. Out land is rich in music, and if you listen you can hear it right now. This is our music you hear, surging forth, singing up to every one of us.”