Link to the Show / Show NotesWhat was it like to be one of the millions of immigrants coming to America through Ellis Island early in the 20th century? Peter Boyer's Ellis Island: The Dream of America brings that experience to life in a unique and powerful way. This work combines elements of symphonic music, theatre and history to celebrate the American immigrant experience. Boyer chose stories from the Ellis Island Oral History Project, wove them together into a narrative describing the hopes, dreams and struggles of these individuals, and composed dramatic and evocative symphonic music which frames and amplifies these stories. A cast of renowned stage and screen actors joins with symphony orchestra in bringing to life the actual words of these real American immigrants. The work closes with a stirring reading of Emma Lazarus's The New Colossus ("Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"), the classic poem inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty.
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