ELLIS ISLAND: Dream of America

March 14, 2026 7:30pm Mt. Hood Community College, Gresham

March 15, 2026 3:00 PM Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, Beaverton SOLD HERE

Artina McCain, Piano

A multimedia experience! Carlos Simon’s Hellfighter’s Blues and George Gershwin’s Concerto in F lead to Peter Boyer’s Ellis Island: Dream of America, performed with live actors and archival visuals drawn from the Ellis Island Oral History Project.

Program:

CARLOS SIMON    Hellfighter’s Blues
GEORGE GERSHWIN    Piano Concerto in F
PETER BOYER    Ellis Island: Dream of America

This extraordinary program presents a work of the powerful, contemporary voice of composer Carlos Simon, whose works resonate with history, hope, and heart. Pianist Artina McCain returns to perform George Gershwin’s brilliant Piano Concerto in F, a work that blends classical traditions with the bold rhythms of jazz and pulses with energy, romance, and the unmistakable spirit of the American Jazz Age. The program closes with Peter Boyer’s Ellis Island: Dream of America, a poignant and inspiring tribute to the immigrants who shaped the American story. Innovative in its format, the work brings elements of the theater and multimedia into the concert hall, employing actors and projected historical images from the Ellis Island archives. The spoken texts for the work come from the Ellis Island Oral History Project, an historic collection of interviews with actual immigrants about their experiences emigrating to America. This dynamic work reminds us of the hopes, struggles, and dreams that built a nation.