The Score | Des Moines Symphony and Grant Wood’s Iowa

Probably no other artwork so instantly evokes rural Iowa as Grant Wood’s American Gothic. That was the title for a program this spring by the Des Moines Symphony, featuring Michael Daugherty’s three-movement American Gothic, accompanied by a new film by John Richard featuring Wood’s depictions of Iowa’s farms and landscapes. Music Director Joseph Giunta led the May 13 and 14 concerts of Daugherty’s piece, originally commissioned and premiered by Orchestra Iowa in Cedar Rapids in 2013. Each of Daugherty’s three movements was inspired by Wood’s paintings. In his program notes, Daugherty, an Iowa native, writes that his father was a fan of Grant Wood’s regionalist art, a tour guide at the Grant Wood Studio, and displayed reproductions of American Gothic and Stone City at his home.