Are We Dreaming the Same Dream

Akropolis Reed Quintet brings Are We Dreaming the Same Dream to the Cullen Theater at the Wortham Center on Saturday, November 21, at 7:30 PM. The Detroit-based ensemble is joined by pianist and composer Pascal Le Boeuf and drummer Christian Euman, turning the quintet into a larger group with a rhythm section.

Are We Dreaming the Same Dream won the 2025 Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition, and it's the center of the evening. Le Boeuf took Ralph Ellison's idea of "the unity of American experience" as a starting point, and he spent the piece tracing the strands of his own musical DNA — Geri Allen, Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus, and Leonard Bernstein. The result is music that moves between classical, jazz, and neither, and the ensemble describes the whole thing as a genre-bending contemporary classical experience that blurs the lines between classical, jazz, and contemporary music.

Critics have called the performance a "tour-de-force," and Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdon praised it as "brilliant writing, exquisitely performed, and ingeniously conceived." On stage, the Akropolis Reed Quintet provides the core, with Le Boeuf and Euman adding the piano and drums that push the sound toward jazz territory. It's a single work that draws from several different traditions at once, so you'll hear the influence of those names Le Boeuf listed — Brubeck, Mingus, and Bernstein — working their way through the piece.

Tickets start at $29, and the show runs at 7:30 PM on Saturday, November 21, at the Wortham Center's Cullen Theater.