EDITORS: Photo of Mike Wallace available on request.

ANN ARBOR—Mike Wallace will join the University of Michigan Symphony Band on Dec. 7 as narrator of Aaron Copland‘s “Lincoln Portrait.”

Fully aware of the historic significance of the concert’s date and the country’s current military involvement, conductor Michael Haithcock has put together a program of appropriate symphonic works.

The program for Dec. 7 will open with the Schuman’s “Chester Overture” which is based on a Revolutionary War hymn by William Billings, referred to by some as the “founder” of American music. The text of the hymn concerns trusting in God and overcoming tyranny.

“Stucky’s ‘Funeral Music for Queen Mary, after Purcell,'” says Haithcock, “is the most famous funeral music I am aware of. Therefore, dedicating this selection to the victims of the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks seems to make sense.

“Following WWII, American composers increasingly became independent of European ways,” Haithcock says. “Vincent Persichetti was a model of that generation both as a composer and as a teacher of composition. U-M’s William D. Revelli was a leader in championing his music and this piece.” The piece Haithcock will conduct is “Divertimento, Opus 42.”

Darius Milhaud‘s “Suite Francaise” was written to honor the Americans who fell in France and is based on folk songs from the geographic regions of Normandie, Bretagne, Ile De France, Alsace-Lorraine, and Provence. “It is a mixture of the joy of the reconstructed country and the bitter sorrow/hardship faced by those who lived, fought, and died,” says Haithcock. Damon Talley, a U-M graduate conductor, will take the baton for this presentation.

Aaron Copland’s “The Lincoln Portrait” was premiered in May of 1942, and, in the composer’s words, “presents through Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address the most profound words from the nation’s history expressing patriotism and humanity.”

“It seems appropriate to relive these words on the anniversary of a day that has indeed lived in infamy,” says Haithcock. And it is appropriate to have Wallace, a Navy veteran of World War II, as narrator.

The Symphony Band concert begins at 8 p.m. on Dec. 7 in Hill Auditorium. Admission is free.

Mike WallaceMichael HaithcockWilliam BillingsVincent PersichettiDarius Milhaud