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Billy Childs’s yearning sax sings of oppression and freedom. And a mythical Chinese monster somehow contains the spirit of jazz legend Ray Charles, in Du Yun’s Hundred Heads.

John Adams’s Harmonielehre is both a tribute to Schoenberg and a glittering celebration of West Coast counterculture. For Du Yun and Billy Childs, meanwhile, tales of Africa and China, the poetry of Maya Angelou and the deathless sound of Soul come together to create something powerful, personal and utterly new.

Every nation has a million stories: in America’s 250th year, the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Symphony Orchestra, conductor Elena Schwarz and saxophonist Steven Banks share some of the boldest.