Sunday, July 3, 2011

Independence Day 2011

Best wishes for a happy July 4.



OTR saw Virgil Fox perform way back in the 1960s. He was amazing and there's been no one like him at the keyboard since. Fox was only too happy to add a bit of his personality to everything he played. Like Fox, Charles Ives was a serious original. He debuted Variations on America on July 4, 1892 to a somewhat shocked audience. The piece wasn't published until 1949 after listeners and the music world began to recognize his genius. In the spirit of the American Experiment established on July 4, 1776, our cultural experience continues to reinvent itself every day. We can thank the Founding Fathers for that freedom, but with that freedom comes the awesome responsibility to preserve the system that created and sustains it.

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