Boston Symphony Orchestra, dancers take stage at Tanglewood

By K en Ross Special to The Republican

The pioneering spirit of America will be featured in music and dance this week at Tanglewood.

On Friday at 8 p.m., the Boston Symphony Orchestra — under the direction of conductor Xian Zhang and Nimbus Dance — will perform “Appalachian Spring,” the rousing musical composition created by Aaron Copeland in 1944.

Copeland originally wrote the music for Martha Graham’s ballet with same name. The BSO will perform Copeland’s sweeping music and Nimbus Dance will bring the spirit of Graham’s powerful choreography to life.

Nimbus Dance’s artistic director and founder Samuel Pott choreographed the dance being performed on stage Friday with the BSO. But fear not, Martha Graham fans. You can expect to see many of the same sweeping, soaring movements Graham made famous in “Appalachian Spring.” There just might not be enough room for a farmhouse on stage since the dancers have to share the space with the orchestra.

Pott knows Graham’s choreography well. Before he founded Nimbus Dance in New Jersey in 2005, Pott was a soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company, where he danced many of Graham’s iconic roles, including the Husbandman in “Appalachian Spring.”

Friday night’s BSO concert also features another classic American work — Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9. Known as the “New World Symphony,” Dvorak composed the music in 1893 while in the United States. The Czech composer’s symphony perfectly captures the awe and wonder of American folk music and. It also vividly brings to life our country’s wide-open spaces, especially in the Midwest, where Dvorak finished composing the symphony in Iowa. No wonder astronaut Neil Armstrong took a recording of Dvorak’s symphony with him on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969. Fans of popular classical works are in for a treat on Saturday and Sunday as well at Tanglewood.

On Saturday at 8 p.m., the BSO — under the direction of