Delights & Dances
Michael Abels (b. 1962)

THE STORY

Delights and Dances showcases American composer Michael Abels’ mastery of numerous musical forms and genres and his background growing up on a farm in South Dakota. An Emmy- and Grammy- nominated artist, he is perhaps best-known for his work in film with director Jordan Peele, composing the award-winning scores for Get Out, Us, and Nope. His concert works have been performed by orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Abels shared the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Music with Rhiannon Giddens for the opera Omar; an excerpt from that work will be performed by the North Carolina Symphony February 21 and 22.

Composed in 2007. Delights and Dances was commissioned by the Sphinx Organization, which supports Black and Latino musicians in classical music. The work features sounds from across the United States and beyond, including bluegrass, jazz, gospel, and Latin dance. The premiere took place at Carnegie Hall with the Harlem Quartet, an ensemble of first-place laureates of the Sphinx Competition; the work was recorded in 2013 with the Harlem Quartet and the Chicago Sinfonietta. In a program note, Abels wrote “It’s a piece that celebrates musicians playing together. I hope it fills you with joy.”

LISTEN FOR

• The string quartet which accompanies and interacts with the rest of the string orchestra
• The blues-influenced middle section marked by the entrance of plucked strings
• The quartet trading riffs in the final fast section, which the composer called “a rousing bluegrass hoedown”

INSTRUMENTATION

Strings