Reviews

• As its offering in New Orleans to the celebration of the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra presented Robert Kapilow's '03: THIS NEW, IMMENSE, UNBOUNDED WORLD. The new symphony was the culmination of two years of collaborative effort between a noted composer and the people of Louisiana, and the music was as dynamic, passionate and heartfelt as the people of Louisiana in the early years of the 19th century. It was an evening worth the wait.
  
  The music grew naturally from Kapilow's research into the Louisiana Purchase and poetry by New Orleans writer Dalt Wonk. Kapilow's style throughout the five-movement piece was an eclectic mix of modern and traditional harmonies, especially when he was attempting to evoke the similarities between the present time and that of the Louisiana Purchase. Particularly memorable were the sections dealing with the plight of American Indians and Creoles, whose lives were changed forever by the Purchase, and those of Napoleon and Jefferson. The final movement restates the title of the work and introduces the theme of water flowing round and round. It is a vision of the Mississippi River as the link between the two ages.
  Keith Marshall, Times Picayune (New Orleans)