In its second collaboration with new partner The Phillips Collection, the UMD School of Music Symphony Orchestra performs Derek Bermel’s Migration Series, joined onstage by UMD’s Jazz Band, Chamber Singers and Wind Orchestra. The performance is inspired by paintings from The Phillips Collection’s Migration Series by Jacob Lawrence, depicting the mass movement of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North between the World Wars. Billy Strayhorn's Take the A Train, the signature tune of Duke Ellington's orchestra, kicks off the concert and John Harbison’s Flight into Egypt riffs on the migration theme.

PROGRAM:

• Derek Bermel: Migration Series
• Billy Strayhorn: Take the A Train
• John Harbison: Flight into Egypt

Panelists from The Phillips Collection, the School of Music and the History Department open the concert with a lively discussion that connects Jacob Lawrence's paintings, Bermel's orchestral work and the history of The Great Migration.

UMD Symphony Orchestra: Migration Series