Fourth of July Before you know it

It's right around the corner, the 2014 Pilot/Flying J Independence Day Concert! Come on down to the South Lawn of World's Fair Park at 8:00 on the 4^th of July for a FREE musical (and ballistic!) celebration of our nation's inception. This is to be the 30^th Annual 4^th of July concert, and the 238^th birthday of Uncle Sam. We can't predict the weather, but trust me, it's going to be a beautiful night. Last year we learned that we can make even a rainy night outdoors festive.

Concertmaster Gabe Lefkowitz will perform the Rondo from Mozart's Haffner Serenade. This effervescent work has shades of Appalachian fiddlin' in it, but check it out: this Mozart work IS ALSO CELEBRATING ITS 238TH BIRTHDAY. Yep. Premiered the 4^th of July, 1776, on the eve of the wedding of the SISTER of Sigmund Haffner the Younger, a pal and benefactor of Mozart. 

We heard that some of you missed Christopher Sanders (aka Santa Claus) at the Clayton Holiday Concerts this past December, so we've brought him back for the 4^th. He will perform four numbers with the orchestra: the Pledge of Allegiance, Copland's The Boatman's Dance, America the Beautiful, and The Wheels of a Dream from the Broadway musical Ragtime.

I have to qualify a statement in the first paragraph. Yes, the fourth of July IS Uncle Sam's birthday, but I actually DO have an Uncle Sam, or should I say, my wife does. His name is Sam Ward. If you are up on your patriotic music, you'll know that the music for America the Beautiful was penned by a Samuel A. Ward in 1880. Although not direct descendants of this composer (he died childless in 1903), my wife and her uncle are definitely related to him.