Designed for the Park Ridge Civic Orchestra, posters celebrating composer John Alden Carpenter mirror his lofty, buoyant energy. Hailed by longtime New York Symphony Orchestra conductor Walter Damrosch as “the most American of our composers,” Carpenter was a Park Ridge native; son of the municipality’s first mayor, George Carpenter; and related to the Aldens of Early American fame.
Carpenter’s whimsical suite, Adventures in a Perambulator was on the docket for Walt Disney’s planned sequel to Fantasia. His innovative ballet, Skyscrapers, which enjoyed success in New York and Munich, was the only American work commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes.
When Park Ridge Civic Orchestra launched in 1994, it performed these pieces by its native son at the Pickwick Theatre, built during Carpenter’s jazz-age era. These posters are part of the “Legends of the Pickwick Theatre” series—a modern Art Deco masterpiece.
Buy the Skyscrapers poster here and the Adventures in A Perambulator poster here.