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Symphony No. 3 was Aaron Copland's final symphony. It was written between 1944 and 1946, and its first performance took place on October 18, 1946 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing under Serge Koussevitzky. If the early Dance Symphony is included in the count, it is actually Copland's fourth symphony.
Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (September 5, 1867 – December 27, 1944) was an American composer and pianist. She was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music. Her "Gaelic" Symphony, premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896, was the first symphony composed and published by an American woman. She was one of the first American composers of her era to succeed without the benefit of European training, and was known as one of the most respected and acclaimed American composers. As a pianist, she was acclaimed for concerts she gave featuring her own music in the United States and in Germany.
The Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor, Op. 45, is a composition for solo piano and orchestra in four movements by the American composer Amy Beach. The work was composed between September 1898 and September 1899. It was first performed in Boston on April 7, 1900, with the composer as the soloist and the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing under the conductor Wilhelm Gericke. The composition is dedicated to the musician Teresa Carreño and was the first piano concerto by an American female composer.
The Boston Pops is an American orchestra based in Boston, specializing in light classical and popular music. The orchestra's music director is Keith Lockhart.
Founded in 1885 as an offshoot of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), the Boston Pops primarily consists of musicians from the BSO, although generally not all of the first-chair players. The orchestra performs a spring season of popular music and a holiday program in December. For the Pops, the seating on the floor of Symphony Hall is reconfigured from auditorium seating to banquet and cafe seating. The Pops also plays an annual concert at the Hatch Memorial Shell on the Esplanade every Fourth of July. Their performances of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" and Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes Forever" are famous for howitzer cannons firing and fireworks exploding during the former and the unfurling of the American flag that occurs near the end of the latter. Identified with its longtime director Arthur Fiedler, the orchestra has recorded extensively, made frequent tours, and appeared often on television.