Spokane Symphony’s Masterworks 3: ‘An American Celebration’ hits just in time for Election Day; award-winning transgender pianist celebrates 100th anniversary of ‘Rhapsody in Blue’

In the days leading up to the election, award-winning pianist Sara Davis Buechner – in addition to her civic duty – is finding her own way to celebrate America.

The guest soloist for this weekend’s Masterworks 3 will play “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin with the Spokane Symphony, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the piece.

“It was a huge hit when he premiered it in 1924, because the audiences at that time could hear in that music a very genuine American sound,” Buechner said. “And I think until that time, most Americans thought of classical music as a strictly European kind of thing, but here was this talented young man.”

Gershwin was 26 when he wrote the composition for solo piano and jazz band.

“He wrote this piece, which was just brimming with sound of the new cities going up – skyscrapers and trains and things like that,” Buechner said. “You could hear that in the music, and then it has a very famous signature tune, which United Airlines stole for their advertising a few years ago. And almost everybody recognizes that melody, so that attests to Gershwin’s skill as a songwriter.”

Gershwin’s work acts as a framework for Masterworks 3’s theme, “An American Celebration,” and is especially timely with Election Day on Tuesday.

“Hopefully, (when) people come to a concert, they’re there to hear the music. They’re not there for political battle,” Buechner said. “Now, having said that, to me there’s a very clear choice here for Americans and a very important choice. So I’m not going to say what I think that choice is, but hopefully the tenor of my voice and also the experience of my own life as a transgender American, you can imagine how I lean.”

Buechner has appeared as a speaker and performer at many LGBTQ events. She is a bronze medalist of the 1986 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the gold medalist of the 1984 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition.

“My life is very, very much impacted by the tenor of politics of our time as the ‘T’ of LGBT,” Buechner said. “I had the feeling that this country was making great, great strides over the past 25 years or so, and then somehow in the last four to five years, this has become a lightning rod for people who decide that key folks shouldn’t have rights, shouldn’t be equal, shouldn’t be able to go to the bathroom where they need to.”

Now, Buechner is faculty at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance in Philadelphia.

Buechner has yet to meet conductor Morihiko Nakahara, who is leading the Spokane Symphony for Masterworks 3, but is looking forward to it. The feeling is mutual.

“I’ve been looking forward to finally getting a chance to meet Sara and work with Sara, and especially on something that is as often played as the Gershwin,” Nakahara said. “I’m always looking to see what unique qualities each artist brings to a timeless classic that is like ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’ ”

Opening the night’s concert will be “Celebration Overture,” by composer Greg Yasinitsky, a retired professor at Washington State University, where Yasinitsky spent 40 years as coordinator of jazz studies, professor of saxophone, composition and arranging, director of the WSU Jazz Big Band and as director of the School of Music. The overture was commissioned for the 10th anniversary of McCall SummerFest and premiered in 2022 in McCall, Idaho.

Yasinitsky has also been a longtime saxophonist with the Spokane Symphony.

After the opening piece, is “Concertino Cusqueño,” by composer Gabriela Lena Frank – the daughter of a Peruvian immigrant – whose music, Nakahara says, exemplifies just how hard it is to define “American” music.

“I think decades ago people would have pointed to Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ or (Leonard) Bernstein. You know, we’re doing ‘Fancy Free.’ But of course, like ‘West Side Story’ … and (Aaron) Copeland’s ‘Appalachian Spring.’ All of these things. That is American music.

“But now, just like the country itself, American music is so diverse and so varied. This concert is sort of a representation or microcosm of that rich, diverse tapestry of styles and influences and sounds that are all American.”

Following Buechner’s performance of “Rhapsody in Blue” will be John Adams’ “The Chairman Dances,” subtitled “Foxtrot for Orchestra,” which Nakahara describes as an “outtake” from Adams’ 1985 opera “Nixon in China.” The opera depicts Madame Mao crashing a presidential banquet. She hangs paper lanterns and performs a dance, which Chairman Mao – coming to life from a portrait painting – joins, and then the two perform a foxtrot. The piece ends with the winding down of a gramophone.

“It’s a mesmerizing piece to listen to,” Nakahara said. “Unfortunately, it’s also mesmerizing to perform, because it gets so repetitive, so it keeps everybody on our toes, because it’s very rhythmic. It’s one of those things where it takes hyperfocus in a way to do it.”

Closing out the night is Bernstein’s “Fancy Free,” another composition with an entertaining tale.

“It takes place at a bar in New York City during the war, and three sailors are on a leave, right?” Nakahara said. “So they’re looking to have a good time, have a few drinks and, you know, to meet girls, basically.”

“There’s definitely a big jazz influence,” Nakahara added. “In this music, that kind of connects with the Gershwin.”

While Nakahara lives in Virginia, he is set to return four more times this season to conduct. One of those concerts will be an audience favorite: the Star Wars series. This time, it’s “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” on May 3-4.

The last time Nakahara conducted a Star Wars symphony event, it didn’t quite go as planned. Nakahara had suffered a fall on his way back to his hotel earlier in the day, so Spokane Symphony Music Director James Lowe had to step in.

Nakahara got six stitches in his forehead and rushed out of the hospital to swoop in and finish the show. He was only 40 minutes late.

Lowe saw Nakahara sneaking up beside him in the dark as the movie and the symphony played on.

“He came and he absolutely nailed it from beginning to end,” Lowe told The Spokesman-Review at the time. “I don’t know how to describe him. What a hero and a trooper.”

Nakahara joked that he looked like a bad cosplay of “Star Wars” villain Kylo Ren with the scars on the wrong side of his face.

“I knew I was going to be late, but it was never, like, in my mind to miss it,” Nakahara said.

Buechner is excited to surprise the Japanese conductor with a greeting in his native language when she arrives in Spokane for Masterworks 3. She has frequently visited Japan and is enrolled in a Japanese language class.

While Buechner has never been to Spokane, she is familiar with the Pacific Northwest.

“Spokane was on my radar because I’m a baseball fan,” she said.

Specifically, Buechner would’ve loved to see the Spokane Indians face the Tri-City Dust Devils.

“I really wanted to see what that uniform looks like, but I never made it there,” Buechner said, especially curious about the Devils’ logo.

As for Masterworks 3, Nakahara said it is the perfect concert to enjoy before the election.

“To celebrate the riches of American music and how entertaining and how fun it is, and I think maybe that was the intent of doing this concert in this particular point in time – thinking more about celebrating differences, not arguing over it, but thinking about what has brought people, including myself, to America.

“How we are all unique, but there’s so much that we have in common, and it’s probably a good time to be reminded of that, coming on the heels of obviously a very intense election cycle.”

As for Buechner, she says the creative arts have a lot to do with integrity, sincerity and morality – all the makings of a patriot.

“It’s patriotic to vote, patriotic to believe in the importance of what you’re doing when you’re voting, and certainly when I play that piece of George Gershwin, I feel very patriotic doing so,” Buechner said, “because it was Gershwin’s intention to write a music that could speak to every American, and he succeeded magnificently. I guess I only wish that our politics could do the same, but that’s why art is a lot greater than politics.”