Carnegie Hall

Louisiana-born composer, musician, bandleader, and cultural ambassador Jon Batiste’s relationship with Carnegie Hall began to take shape nearly two decades before the 2022 premiere of his American Symphony. In 2005, Batiste—then a 19-year-old Juilliard student in jazz studies—performed as a finalist in a competition sponsored by the Netherlands American Community Trust.

Batiste made his Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage debut in 2009, and four years later made his headlining debut in Zankel Hall with his award-winning band, Stay Human. In 2019, he performed on Carnegie Hall’s main stage three times.

It was during this period that Batiste started having conversations with the Hall’s artistic staff about what would become his American Symphony. The ambitious project was unique even among Batiste’s diverse catalog. The former bandleader of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert had never composed a symphony, but even with his debut in the form, he aspired to take it into unchartered territory.

Batiste started the composition process with a few questions in mind: What would a reimagined and redefined symphonic composition and concert experience be in the 21st century? What if the symphony was invented today in America? Who would participate in the modern American orchestra? What would it sound like?

These ideas coalesced into one fundamental question: What does it actually mean to be American?

This question carried a distinct meaning to Batiste, who was born and raised in the New Orleans area—a renowned cultural crossroad. For his composition, he drew upon a wide range of influences, including pioneering jazz musicians Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. He added an eclectic variety of sounds rare for a symphony: fiddle, Afro-Latin percussion, drum machine, and Native American vocals.

When not filming The Late Show, Batiste often spent time in a rehearsal room in Carnegie Hall’s Resnick Education Wing, composing his new symphony and preparing for upcoming performances. With the encouragement of legendary jazz impresario and Carnegie Hall Trustee George Wein, Batiste was also tapped to curate a three-concert Perspectives series during the 2021–2022 season—a chance to celebrate what he called “social music” after the Hall’s long closure during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Making of American Symphony

The Netflix documentary American Symphony traces Batiste’s journey as he developed his symphony through to its world premiere at Carnegie Hall. Even before any music was noted on the page, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Matthew Heineman captured Batiste and orchestrator Matt Wong brainstorming what the symphony might begin to look like written out.

“There’s some parts that might not even look like a score,” Wong suggested. “There might be some that’s just a list of directions.” The two sketched out an iterative process for how to proceed with the composition, intending to follow each rehearsal with a lengthening and refinement of the score.

At Batiste’s first large rehearsal for the symphony, he arrived with 40 minutes of music in four movements. “This is gonna be a work in progress,” he told the ensemble. “This is gonna sound how it sounds until it sounds how it sounds.”

He was right; by the end, the symphony extended to 90 minutes. The documentary shows Batiste making some of these additions. “Man, what is that?” he asked trombonist Coleman Hughes after playing a pensive piano melody. “It sounds like something,” Hughes responded, as the two improvised a section that eventually made its way into the work.

At times, the process was tenuous; in the documentary, Batiste acknowledged his history of panic attacks and openly shared his insecurities and self-imposed pressure, saying, “I thrive on creating an atmosphere where it’s all on the line.” While lying on a bed, face down, he said to a therapist, “Some days, I just want to stop the train.”

The emotional journey was heightened as his wife, Suleika Jaouad, contended with lymphoma after a long period of remission and a second bone marrow transplant. Batiste’s biggest highs came with his biggest lows; the day he received 11 Grammy nominations, Jaouad learned that her cancer had returned. Shortly before the premiere of his American Symphony, the couple learned that she would be on an indefinite regimen of chemotherapy.

A Once-in-a-Lifetime World Premiere

What actually took place on the evening of September 22, 2022? Batiste arrived at Carnegie Hall on the night of his debut alongside Jaouad. “This is my first time out in almost a year,” she whispered, just before Batiste made his way through the sold-out orchestra-level crowd in a glimmering cerulean suit, smiling and laughing to the warm applause. “Have some fun with it,” he whispered into a microphone as the piece began—a driving percussion beat and trombone solo leading into a piano line played by Batiste.

Even a temporary onstage power outage barely fazed him. As stand lights, microphones, and a synthesizer shut off, Batiste did what he does best: kept going. In front of the 63-piece ensemble, he began an improvised piano solo. An arpeggiated passage emerged quietly at first, then built in intensity, becoming louder and more dissonant. Batiste descended into a tremolo in the piano’s lowest register and then let his fingers dance up the keyboard, ending acrobatic runs with a major chord. And with that, the lights turned back on. Batiste smiled.

In a way, the interruption reflected Batiste’s symphonic theme. He wasn’t looking to communicate perfection, but rather a more realistic vision of America’s triumphs and failures. In four movements—titled “Capitalism,” “Integrity,” “Globalism,” and “Majesty”—Batiste helped guide the orchestra through music that weaved between traditional African and European approaches with a rhythm section that encompassed the African diaspora traditions found in the Caribbean, New Orleans, and Brazil.

The orchestra shifted from patriotic anthems like “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” to classics of the African American tradition like “We Shall Overcome.” Never did the piece settle into one lane for too long. “The symphonic experience has become something ripe for reinvention,” Batiste wrote in the concert program, “and classical music is ready for its reckoning.”

A Powerful Work Makes a Lasting Impression

The symphony ended with a standing ovation—the third of the performance. With the crowd on its feet, Batiste returned to the piano to perform a Mardi Gras–style performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It was the kind of interpretation few try and even fewer pull off.

For a multifaceted, kaleidoscopic piece, the reception was consistent. Variety praised the performance for its “rapturous melodies, scintillating percussive pulses and angular string, reed, and brass arrangements dedicated to all that makes America great, and hateful, and great again,” before highlighting the unique talent of Batiste. “When he wasn’t singing, scatting, and screaming wordlessly and winding his vocals through his symphony’s winnowing passages and rising rhythms,” the review said, he was “playing piano with incendiary ire and godly grace.”

Grammy.com said the performance had the power to “rewire your thinking and sharpen your gaze as a citizen.” This feeling, widely shared, reflected Batiste’s ability to turn a mountain of influences into a singularly powerful work—one that continues to resonate well beyond the walls of Carnegie Hall.

Photography by Stephanie Berger.