Description
In 2014, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra opened its season with a performance of George Antheil’s 1948 Overture “McKonkey’s Ferry,” inspired by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s famous painting of George Washington Crossing the Delaware River on December 25, 1776. Antheil was born and raised in Trenton, NJ, and spent summers near Washington’s Crossing. He became a celebrated avant-garde composer in Paris in the 1920s, then returned to American where he gained fame as a film composer in Hollywood.
Producer/director Eric Schultz tells the story of “McKonkey’s Ferry” in this video produced for State of the Arts. Joe Conlon was the videographer and Dan Gordon narrates. James Roe, the executive director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra at the time, is the primary interviewee.
