Charleston Reporter

The Charleston Symphony will kick off celebrations for the city’s 350th anniversary with performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Gaillard Center.

Highlights will include selections by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, with the musicians led by Charleston’s own Edward Hart, dean of the School of the Arts at the College of Charleston. 

“This performance will explore fanfare, reflection, and fate with music from two living composers and a 19th Century Russian Romantic,” the symphony touts on its website.

Other featured performances will come from Adolphus Hailstork and special guests, the Harlem Quartet.

Hailstork is an American composer and educator. His selection will be “Fanfare on ‘Amazing Grace.’” Music appreciators might recognize the selection from President Joe Biden’s inauguration, when The President’s Own — elite musicians of the U.S. Marine Corps — performed it.

Hart will follow that with the premiere of his own “A Charleston Concerto,” a three-part piece composed for the city’s 350th. “Through imagining native people’s discovery of the harbor, by celebrating the Gullah culture with nods to its musical heritage, and with optimism for what is to come, the concerto does not shy away from history,” the symphony says on its website.

After the intermission, the symphony will close with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, a melancholy opus whose tone reflects the tumultuous time of the composer’s life when it was written, the Charleston Symphony said.

The symphony will be joined by guest musical group, the Harlem Quartet. The quartet’s mission is “to advance diversity in classical music, engaging young and new audiences through the discovery and presentation of varied repertoire that includes works by composers of color,” according to the group’s website.

The New York City-based Harlem Quartet has performed around the world, including at the White House in 2009.

Tickets range from $25 to $131 and can be purchased online.