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    An estimated 100,000 people filled the lawn around the Long Center and on Vic Mathias Shores (formerly Auditorium Shores) for the Austin Symphony’s 39th Fourth of July Concert and Fireworks.
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    The ASO brought the crowd to its feet with its first selection, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
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    Maestro Peter Bay was dressed a little less formally than when he leads the ASO indoors at the Long Center, but his control of the baton was no less meticulous.
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    A percussionist’s eye view of the Symphony’s Fourth of July concert
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    The concert opened with a jaunt out West through music from Alfred Newman’s score for the film How the West Was Won, Bruce Broughton’s “Themes from Silverado,” and Sunset and Cloudburst from Ferde Grofé’s classic Grand Canyon Suite.
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    You can’t say the ASO musicians don’t get into the spirit of this concert.
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    Even their instruments treat the Fourth of July as a special occasion.
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    Maestro Bay included on the program a piece by 16 year old local composer Jacob Wohleb. His lovely and sophisticated work Luminescence was one of the winning entries in ASO’s Fifth Annual Texas Young Composers Competition.
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    Winding up the pre-fireworks section of the evening was the perennialy crowd-pleasing Overture 1812 by Pytor Tchaikovsky.
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    And here’s part of the crowd showing just how pleased they were.
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    Eventually, the sky filled with color and explosions, all to a series of splendid marches by – who else? – John Philip Sousa.
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    More fireworks, more Sousa.
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    More fireworks, more Sousa.
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    More fireworks, more Sousa.

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