Music by American composers Scott Joplin, Ferde Grofe, and Charles Ives is immediately evocative of times and places unique to this country. At the Red Cedar Symphony’s spring concerts you’ll hear a sunrise and the sound of donkey train in the American southwest, ragtime music from Mississippi delta piano bars of a century ago, and a half dozen different ways of playing “My Country ‘tis of Thee,” as if a small-town band was practicing for the Fourth of July parade, and having a lot of fun improvising.  

And that’s just for openers. Featured soloist Dr. Namji Kim will perform Bach’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, a spectacularly difficult and dramatic work that at times moves so fast it’s hard to follow her fingers on the keyboard. Then the two winners of the RCS 2020 Concerto Competition will perform: Kristiina Thums of Poplar on bassoon playing Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto, and Shawn Muench of Chippewa Falls on vibraphone playing French composer Sejourne’s Concerto for Vibraphone.

Tickets are $15, with those 21 and under admitted free.