The New York Philharmonic’s music and artistic director designate Gustavo Dudamel returns with two programs imbued with the spirit of 1776. The first showcases Frederic Rzewski’s pianistic tour de force The People United Will Never Be Defeated, which premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts amid celebrations of America’s Bicentennial. From March 12 to 17, it returns for the Semiquincentennial in freshly commissioned orchestral guise. Like J. S. Bach’s 30 Goldberg and Beethoven’s 33 Diabelli variations, Rzewski’s 36 People United permutations sweep a listener from delight in the composer’s sheer formal invention to spiritual revelation. But unlike Bach and Beethoven’s themes (that meditative original “aria” in Bach’s case; a dippy waltz by the Viennese publisher Anton Diabelli in Beethoven’s), Rzewski’s isn’t “just music.” It’s a Chilean protest anthem whose pounding rhythm and blunt lyric (just a slogan, really) bristle with righteous Leftist defiance that never completely disappears. The New York Phil’s symphonic metamorphosis honors Rzewski’s ethos of solidarity in that it’s the handiwork of a whole rainbow coalition. A partial list includes Kati Agócs, Anthony Cheung, Tania León, Maria Schneider, Nina Shekhar, Roberto Sierra, Conrad Tao, Jerod Impichcha̱achaaha’ Tate, Wang Lu, and Nina C. Young. E pluribus unum. —Matthew Gurewitsch