Gershwin‘s An American in Paris, was completed and given its premier in 1928 in New York.  Gershwin was very attracted to the music of Maurice Ravel and went to Paris to visit Ravel in 1926. Gershwin later arranged for Ravel to come to America in 1928.  Gershwin and Ravel were colleagues and greatly admired each other. Gershwin’s trips to Paris solidified his intentions to create an orchestral work based on the idea of an American tourist spending time in Paris,, experiencing all of the sights and sounds of this cosmopolitan city     

Gershwin’s work was novel for its strong influence of Jazz and use of a real Parisian taxi horns, which he purchased himself and brought back from Paris for the first performances.

The work was instantly popular and lead to many different versions, what could be described as orchestral “arrangements” of the piece being created. Interestingly, it was not until 2017 that the work was presented in its original form with Gershwin’s original orchestration.  This complete unabridged version is just now becoming the standard performing version and it is this authentic edition that the Fort Smith Symphony is playing this evening.   This includes over 100 measures of music that have only reemerged recently, as well as Gershwin‘s original orchestration, which is somewhat different from the versions audiences have experienced for almost 100 years.