A sitting district attorney will step away from the courtroom this weekend to narrate one of the most famous pieces of patriotic American music ever written. Third Judicial District Attorney Fernando Macias is set to serve as narrator for Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait when the newly formed Festival Orchestra de Las Cruces presents its Red, White, and Blue All-American Concert on Sunday, September 6, at 3 p.m. at Atkinson Recital Hall.
The concert, which commemorates the 250th anniversary year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, is the work of conductor Lonnie Klein and the orchestra he organized, according to KRWG Public Media. Klein spent 22 years as conductor and music director of the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra and was honored with the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2012, according to the Festival Orchestra de Las Cruces. He co-founded the new ensemble with local businesswoman Wanda Bowman in January, and it gave its debut performance, Baroque Concerti Classics, on March 10 at St. Paul's Methodist Church.
Klein selected Macias for the narrator role, describing him as dedicated and excited to perform with the Festival Orchestra, per the station's report. Macias brings a résumé built almost entirely in Doña Ana County government: he served as county manager until April 2024, was chief judge of the Third Judicial District Court, chaired the Doña Ana County Commission, and served as a New Mexico state senator, according to the Las Cruces Bulletin. He was elected Third Judicial District Attorney in November 2024 with 45,089 votes, campaigning on reforming prosecutor recruitment and tackling case backlogs under state case management rules.
An 80-Minute Program Built Around American Voices
The concert runs roughly 80 minutes and will be performed by a 68-to-72-piece orchestra that Klein and his musicians prepared across just three rehearsals, per Las Cruces Community Radio 101.5 FM. The program includes music by John Williams, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein, along with Calvin H. Custer's arrangement of several traditional American folk songs, the same report notes. Concertmaster Bridget McCarthy will take the violin spotlight for a movement drawn from Williams's score for Schindler's List.
Guest pianist Ilya Yakushev, who selected Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue for the program, has performed chamber music concerts in the local area and appeared twice with the Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra during Klein's tenure, per KRWG. Yakushev's résumé carries international weight: he won First Prize at the 2005 World Piano Competition in Cincinnati, made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas in 2007, and studied under pianist Vladimir Feltsman at the Mannes College of Music, according to Yamaha Music.
Two Pieces With Roots in Earlier American Crises
Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue premiered on February 12, 1924, at Aeolian Hall in New York City as part of Paul Whiteman's An Experiment in Modern Music concert, featuring Ferde Grofé's iconic original jazz-band arrangement, according to the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra. Copland's Lincoln Portrait, the piece Macias will narrate, has a wartime origin: the composer wrote it in 1942 after conductor André Kostelanetz commissioned a musical portrait of an American figure, and it premiered with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on May 14, 1942, per the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The work incorporates excerpts from Abraham Lincoln's writings, including the Gettysburg Address, per KRWG's report.
The Sunday performance arrives as New Mexico formally marks the nation's Semiquincentennial. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed Senate Bill 106 in March 2024, establishing the New Mexico Semiquincentennial Commission to plan official statewide observances for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, according to America250. The concert's framing around Copland and Gershwin ties the Las Cruces performance directly to that broader statewide commemoration.
A Refurbished Hall for a New Orchestra
Atkinson Recital Hall, inside the New Mexico State University Music Center, recently received a boost of its own. The venue was allocated $550,000 in state capital outlay funds under New Mexico House Bill 450 in 2025 for facility improvements and equipment upgrades, according to BillTrack50. For the fledgling Festival Orchestra de Las Cruces, the venue offers a freshly modernized stage as it builds its concert calendar beyond its March debut.
Macias's appearance on stage marks a departure from his recent public appearances, which have largely centered on the Third Judicial District's criminal docket. He has previously commented on local sentencing outcomes and petitioned to have teenage co-defendants tried as adults in separate cases covered by Hoodline. Sunday's concert offers a different kind of civic spotlight, casting the district attorney as the voice behind Lincoln's own words rather than the courtroom's.
