2022 Deer Valley Music Festival: Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings

Australian conductor Christopher Dragon makes his Utah Symphony debut leading Tchaikovsky’s ever-popular Serenade for Strings on a concert that also features Steven Banks performing Glazunov’s Saxophone Concerto, which showcases the lyrical expression of the alto sax and is largely responsible for bringing the saxophone to the concert hall.

The concert opens with the First Symphony of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges—a noted composer who was also a renowned fencer and, during the French revolution, colonel of the first all-Black regiment in Europe. It is followed by George Walker’s beautiful Lyric for Strings. Jessie Montgomery’s Strum—described by The Washington Post as “American folk melodies tossed into a strong wind, cascading and tumbling joyfully around one another”— opens the second half of the program.