Published: 2024

Publisher: Print Music Source

Duration: 7:42

Grade: 3

Difficulty: Medium

Composed By George Gershwin / Arranged by Charles Booker  

​An American in Paris is a jazz-influenced symphonic poem (or tone poem) originally written for orchestra by American composer George Gershwin and first performed in 1928. It was inspired by the time that Gershwin had spent in Paris and evokes the sights and energy of the French capital during the Années folles. 

Gershwin scored the piece for the standard instruments of the symphony orchestra plus celesta, saxophones, and automobile horns. He brought back four Parisian taxi horns for the New York premiere of the composition, which took place on December 13, 1928, in Carnegie Hall, with Walter Damrosch conducting the New York Philharmonic.  Gershwin completed the orchestration on November 18, less than four weeks before the work's original premiere.

This setting for symphonic band has been skillfully arranged and orchestrated to capture the original Gershwin creation and make it performable by today’s symphonic bands.