2026/27 Concert I
Happy Birthday, America!
About the performance
Rounding out SPM’s year-long musical commemoration of America’s 250 th is a program full of delightful and varied works. We open with the world premiere of an SPM-commissioned work by our resident composer, Arson Fahim. He has written a 10-minute work paying tribute to his last five years studying music in the US. It’s titled “An Afghan in Boston” and features a solo cello, performed by our conductor, Mark Churchill, with the composer on the podium. Any references to last May’s “An American in Paris” are coincidental! The spirited Symphony No. 2 by American musical pioneer Charles Ives follows with dozens of patriotic and hymn tunes woven into its fabric of Brahmsian textures. The program’s second half includes favorite patriotic works and features the acclaimed Middlesex County Volunteers Fifes and Drums in full regalia. With SPM they’ll perform Evan Meier’s “Liberty: From the Ashes of Tyranny,” a work written for them which they recently performed with the Boston Pops on July 4!
Free admission for all students and U.S. veterans.
Arson Fahim. An Afghan in Boston. World Premiere. Mark Churchill, cello.
Ives. Symphony No. 2
Samuel A. Ward/arr. Alfred Reed. America the Beautiful
Victor Herbert. American Fantasie
Leroy Anderson. Buglers’ Holiday
Evan Meier. Liberty: From the Ashes of Tyranny
Sousa. Stars and Stripes Forever
Featuring
Composer Arson Fahim & Middlesex County Volunteers Fifes and Drums
Arson Fahim is a pianist, composer, and conductor from Afghanistan. A fierce believer in the power of music to make the world a better place by being a catalyst for activism and social change, Arson’s music is often inspired by the tragedies and injustices of war. To Arson, music is a form of protest and an act of rebellion. He strives for his art to be a symbol of freedom and perseverance, as well as a source of solace and hope even in the darkest of times.
In 2021, just weeks before the Taliban took control of Kabul and once again banned music, Arson graduated from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music and moved to the United States to pursue his studies at the Longy School of Music (UD ’24) and the New England Conservatory (BM ’26). He now lives in New York, where he is pursuing a master’s degree at the Mannes School of Music.
The Middlesex County Volunteers Fifes & Drums (MCV) was established in 1982 toward the close of the Bicentennial by Boston-area musicians who wished to further explore the traditional repertoires of the regimental fife and drum corps associated with the European or American armies during the American War for Independence, 1775-1783. Today they have evolved into a repertory ensemble performing martial, dance, and folk music drawn from 17th, 18th, and early 19th century sources in America and Europe as well as contemporary compositions. Ultimately, MCV is about history and music, education and entertainment. Members range in age and vocation from 16 up, students to engineers, school teachers to veterinarians. All participate on an avocational basis, balancing “real life” with weekly rehearsals and over thirty performances yearly, and share a common love for music and performance.
