FAYETTEVILLE — The North Carolina Symphony celebrates the nation’s 236th birthday with a concert of patriotic favorites and high-spirited classics. The orchestra performs its traditional free “Independence Day” concert with fireworks at Fayetteville’s Festival Park on Sunday, July 1, at 8 p.m.
The performance marks just the second time Music Director Grant Llewellyn conducts the symphony’s Independence Day performance in Fayetteville.
Llewellyn launches into the festive program with “The Star-Spangled Banner” and leads the orchestra in rousing, all-American selections including Sousa’s Semper Fidelis March, music from “South Pacific” and “Saving Private Ryan” and — in anticipation of the upcoming London Olympics — John Williams’ commanding Olympic Fanfare and Theme.
The symphony’s principal trumpet, Paul Randall, is featured as soloist on a pair of challenging numbers: Jacques Offenbach’s American Eagle Waltz and Leroy Anderson’s A Trumpeter’s Lullaby. Audience members will also have the chance to lend their voices to the symphony’s Fourth of July salute with James Stephenson’s “Sing Along, America!”
The performance is part of the symphony’s summer “Concerts in Your Community,” free concerts presented throughout the state in celebration of the orchestra’s 80th anniversary. Complete information on the performance, as well as the symphony’s Rex Healthcare Summerfest Series in Cary, taking place now through July 7, and the symphony’s 80th Anniversary Season, is available at www.ncsymphony.org or by calling the Symphony Box Office at 919-733-2750 or toll free 877-627-6724.
Festival Park is located along Ray Avenue in between Rowan Street and Maiden Lane in downtown Fayetteville.
The symphony’s statewide partner is Progress Energy. The Fayetteville concert is sponsored by Reed-Lallier Chevrolet and supported in part by the Arts Council of Fayetteville and Cumberland County.
Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony performs more than 175 concerts annually to adults and school children in more than 50 North Carolina counties. An entity of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, the orchestra employs 67 professional musicians, under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry and Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks.
Based in downtown Raleigh’s Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It holds regular concert series in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington — as well as individual concerts in many other North Carolina communities throughout the year — and conducts an extensive education program.
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