There it is, the skyline dotted with skyscrapers! Can you hear the subway rattling beneath your feet? Can you see the steam rising out of the sidewalk? Migrants arrived by land and by sea. People of all races – shopkeepers, cab drivers, gangsters. And they carried their own musical heritage with them.

New York City, a century ago: a humming, bustling metropolis, the centre of the modern world, and a cultural pressure cooker. What an exciting time that must have been! We can still hear echoes of that sound in the music of such Americans as Scott Joplin, Florence Price and Charles Ives, as well as Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos and Mexican Arturo Márquez Navarro. This Children’s Concert features the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Sander Teepen. The text is by Sophie Kassies, and the stage direction is by Mart van Berckel.

We invite you back to the New York City of the early 1900s. Put on your best clothes. Walk with us down the dark streets. A door swings open. Music streams out. Come on in!