Curated 2026 Playlist for the 4th of July

Here is the link to my Spottify Playlist for this year.

We kick off this year’s curated playlist with a delightful work by Ellen Taafe Zwilich, Upbeat!  Lots of fun rhythmic play gets things off to a lighter start here for this year’s collection of music.  First appearing in 1926, John Alden Carpenter’s Skyscrapers is an unjustly overlooked jazzy ballet with touches of Americana as we head into the big city.  In a time of uncertainty we move into Umoja: Anthem of Unity by Valerie Coleman which makes for another excellent introduction to this important contemporary composer.  From there we move to the more chaotic sound world of Charles Ives and his depiction of all the things that come together in the Fourth of July from his Holidays Symphony.  I’ve chosen this particular recording as a way to also honor Michael Tilson Thomas who died this past Spring and was a great performer of Ives.

The second half of the program features some fun surprises to celebrate this important year of our nation’s history.  We start with a little overture to the musical 1776.  Then we head West to explore one of the great rivers of our country in Ferde Grofe’s evocative Mississippi Suite composed 100 years ago.  I heard John Williams’ Song of Peace recently and it just felt like a hopeful way to reflect before we head into some of the lighter works that follow.  First up is a suite from Alex North’s excellent score for A Streetcar Named Desire.  Released 75 years ago, the film introduced North’s music to audiences and provided one of the first jazz scores for a dramatic film.  Leroy Anderson is also one of those wonderful miniaturists and his beautiful Forgotten Dreams seemed like a way to reminisce about the state of our world these days.  For contrast, we celebrate with his fun Plink, Plank, Plunk composed 75 years ago.  Three marches bring the program to a close.  We start with one of John Williams’ most moving works for the 1976 film Midway.  He programmed the title march often, but it is his The Men of Yorktown March that is really a stellar work honoring the men who die serving our country.  Sousa wrote hundreds of marches and the city of Philadelphia commissioned his Sesquicentennial March for festivities in 1926.  We close then with his most famous work, The Stars and Stripes Forever March.