Porgy and Bess Was Born Here (Maybe): NWS Brings Gershwin Home

In the winter of 1934, George Gershwin rented a house on North Bay Road in Miami Beach. He was working on Porgy and Bess — the opera he had been developing for years, based on DuBose Heyward's novel about life in the Gullah community of Charleston, South Carolina. He swam in the bay, played tennis, and composed. The opera premiered on Broadway in October 1935. Whether the specific notes of Catfish Row were written on North Bay Road or in New York or somewhere else entirely is a matter of some historical debate. But the connection between Gershwin and Miami Beach is real, and it is the kind of local history that tends to get forgotten.

On May 1 and 2, 2027, New World Symphony performs Catfish Row: Suite from Porgy and Bess — Gershwin's own orchestral arrangement of the opera's most memorable themes — just blocks from where he may have written it. Artistic director Stéphane Denève conducts. The program note acknowledges the connection explicitly: history comes full circle when Stéphane conducts the suite from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess just blocks from the opera's rumored Miami Beach birthplace.

The full program for the evening is a study in American musical identity across the 20th and 21st centuries. Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231 — a 1923 tone poem that captures the mechanical power of a locomotive — opens the concert, paired with Jean Mitry's Palme d'Or-winning short film of the same name. John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine follows, a four-minute adrenaline rush that has become one of the most performed American orchestral works of the past 40 years. Saxophonist Steven Banks then performs Guillaume Connesson's A Kind of Trane Concerto — a 24-minute work that draws on the harmonic language of John Coltrane. After the intermission, Carlos Simon's Four Black American Dances (Ring Shout, Waltz, Tap!, Holy Dance) precedes the Gershwin.

The WALLCAST broadcast of this concert — free, outdoors, at SoundScape Park — means that the Catfish Row suite will be heard in the open air of Miami Beach on the same night it is performed inside the hall. There is something fitting about that. Gershwin wrote music that was always meant to be heard by everyone.

Gershwin, Adams & Connesson: Saturday, May 1, 2027 at 8:00 PM and Sunday, May 2, 2027 at 2:00 PM at New World Center, 500 17th Street, Miami Beach. WALLCAST broadcast free at SoundScape Park, May 1. Tickets at nws.edu.