Ochestre National de Cannes - New World

"I like to be in America, Okay by me in America", sings Anita, a Puerto Rican immigrant, in West Side Story, to proclaim her joy at being in New York and pursuing the American dream. The promise of a better life, of a new world, which, when set to music, gives rise to a grandiose firework display of
tradition, jazz, rock, mambo and European music.

With West Side Story, Bernstein demonstrates his perfect mastery of all these repertoires and delivers a musical reflection of the New York mix that makes it a universal work. Written in New York, where Dvořák lived, the New World Symphony bears witness to the Czech composer's fascination with the new sounds he discovered there. Although exalting a sense of conquest, his symphony is also tinged with a certain homesickness, a nostalgia expressed through reminders of country dances or colours born of memories of Bohemia.

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