- I've been very active and involved in orchestra work.

I serve on two committees both the Artistic Advisory Committee as one of the seven musicians.

And I'm also on the DEI; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.

I feel fear a lot and it's difficult to be a minority and to know that everybody has a different perspective.

And to know that, you know people might not agree with what I've just said because they have different experiences.

And it just felt like, well, programming is something that we can do immediately to address some of these issues and confront some of these issues head-on and just sort of say to our community, you know this is important to us and we want to be inclusive, to start, you know, bringing into the fold and play more artists of color and composers of color.

And some of those composers have included Devonte Hynes, Valerie Coleman, Jesse Montgomery and Saint-Georges.

Saint-Georges was a remarkable man.

He was born in 1745, and passed in 1799.

He was born in Guadalupe.

His mother was of African descent and his father was French.

He was born Joseph Bologne, and he was then given the title Chevalier de Saint-Georges.

And this was after he joined the King's Guard because of his superlative fencing skills and swordsmanship.

And so that in and of itself is pretty extraordinary.

He was a true Renaissance man.

President John Adams declared him the most accomplished man in Europe in writing and fencing and music and all these different aspects that you don't necessarily associate with a musical composer.

He was a virtuous, a violinist.

He was, he served as a concert master of one of the leading orchestras in Paris.

He composed music obviously, and he was also pretty good friends with Marie Antoinette.

He was a prolific composer, too.

He wrote two symphonies, multiple sonatas.

He wrote, what was it?

12 violin concertos, several operas, 18 string quartets.

And he wrote 8 symphony concertantes, and that is a format that he was a pioneer of which basically combines a symphony with a concerto.

And it features two almost soloists with the orchestra.

And the fact that he wrote 8 of those is really interesting because I know we have Mozart on this program as well, but he and Mozart shared time together under the same roof in 1778, I believe.

And it's hard not to think they knew each other and then to think, well, you know maybe they even played some of these symphony concertantes together?

Then, after Mozart left Paris, the first piece he chooses to write is is his gorgeous, beautiful, renowned symphony concertante for violin and viola in E flat.

And so to think about how he was influenced by Saint-Georges is so fascinating.

So, I'm so excited to have the orchestra play Saint-Georges' first symphony.

It's been truly a delight to get to know his music and who he was as a person and musician and artist.

And I think it's really exciting for us as an organization to program composers of color and to share with you their music and to have you get to know them as we do.