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Don't miss the magic of the season:
Christmas classics come to Sangamon
By Gabrielle Wiegand
The month of December is not only
a time for Christmas shopping, finals and a month off of class.
December is also when the Sangamon Auditorium will showcase a
variety of performances.
The Springfield Ballet Company
will perform Tchaikovsky’s timeless classic “The Nutcracker” on
December 4 and 5. This will be the SBC’s 30th
Anniversary performance of “The Nutcracker,” a ballet that was
first performed in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1892. Over a
hundred years later, it is still a holiday favorite.
This famous ballet is based on
“The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” a tale written by E.T.A.
Hoffman. No matter how many different versions of “The
Nutcracker” are created, the story remains basically the same.
It centers on a young girl who, after a Christmas party, dreams
of a Nutcracker Prince and a fierce battle with a Mouse King.
The Springfield Ballet Company’s
performance will be accompanied by the Illinois Symphony
Orchestra.
 “The
Nutcracker” will be at the Auditorium Saturday, December 4 at
2p.m. and 8p.m. and Sunday, December 5 at 2p.m. Tickets are
$25/$23 for adults and $15/$13 for children.
On Thursday, December 9 at
7:30p.m. will be the Jim Brickman and Friends Holiday Concert at
the Sangamon Auditorium. Brickman is a romantic piano
virtuoso. He has released ten CDs, the most recent in May
2004. He has been nominated for a Grammy and has also won a
Canadian Country Music Award.
Brickman has appeared on PBS
specials and “The Today Show.” He has a weekly syndicated radio
show entitled “Your Weekend with Jim Brickman” and has authored
a book of essays entitled “Simple Things.”
Jim Brickman and Friends Holiday
Concert tickets are $40.50/$35.50/$30.50 respectively.
The Illinois Symphony Orchestra
will perform its annual Home for the Holidays Concert as part of
their Pops series Saturday, December 18 at 8p.m. The
performance will include special guests Laurice Lanier, Hip
Pocket, the Celebration Children's Chorus, the Illinois Symphony
Chorus and St. Andrew's Pipes and Drums.
Tickets for Home for the Holidays
are $29/$27/$25.
For more information or to
purchase tickets for any of these performances, contact the
Sangamon Auditorium Box Office at 217.206.6160 or
www.sangamonauditorium.org.
Ringing in the Holiday Season
By Brian
Mackey
The Illinois Symphony Orchestra
will present two holiday concerts this December.
On Friday, December 10, the
Illinois Chamber Orchestra will perform Georg Frideric Handel’s
“Messiah.”
In a program billed as a
“Candlelight Concert,” the Illinois Chamber Orchestra, the
Illinois Symphony Chorus and four soloists will perform six
scenes from the Biblical, baroque oratorio.
The work was composed in the
span of three weeks in late summer, 1741.
According to the ISO’s program
notes, written by Arrand Parsons, Handel was in such a hurry
that errors were crossed out or blotted over with ink.
It is thought that there is no
definitive version of the “Messiah,” because Handel reworked the
piece to suit different audiences.
Indeed, even the first
performance in Dublin on April 13, 1742 differed from the
original score.
This performance will take place
in the relatively intimate setting of the First Christian Church
in downtown Springfield. A church is a more traditional setting
for the “Messiah,” and should serve the piece well.
Parsons notes a warning issued
by the Dublin Journal in 1742 that seems just as relevant today:
“Many Ladies and Gentlemen who are well-wishers to this Noble
and Grand Charity for which this Oratorio was composed, request
it as a Favour, that the Ladies who honour this Performance
would be pleased to come without Hoops, as it will greatly
encrease the Charity, by making Room for more company … The
Gentlemen are desired to come without their Swords.”
* * *
Eight days later, on Saturday,
December 18, the ISO will perform their pops mega-concert, “Home
for the Holidays.”
In addition to the orchestra,
the concert bills 25-year-old Mezzo-Soprano Laurice Lanier,
Celebration Children’s Chorus, the Illinois Symphony Chorus and
St. Andrew’s Pipes & Drums.
The program is scheduled to
include a mix of pop and classical music, with Anderson’s
“Sleigh Ride,” Kabalevsky’s “Concerto in C Major” and a scene
from Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker.” There is even a nod to
Chanukah, with Aharon Harlap’s “Mi Yemanuel” from “A Festival of
Lights.”
Sleigh bells, ballet and
bagpipes — what says “holiday spirit” better than that?
If you are staying in town this
holiday, take in a concert. Just remember to leave your sword
at home.
On the Net:
www.ilsymphony.org
A Tale of Two Orchestras
By Brian
Mackey
Two orchestras performed at
Sangamon Auditorium on November 23.
Both shared the same musicians;
both shared the same name.
 But
the Illinois Symphony Orchestra delivered vastly different
performances before and after intermission that Saturday night.
The concert began with “Slavonic
Dance, op. 46, No. 8” by Czech composer Antonín Dvorák. The
piece was ably guest-conducted by Richard Haglund and passed by
in only a few minutes.
Haglund left the stage and
violin soloist Julieta Mihai entered with ISO music director
Karen Lynne Deal.
The Romanian-born Mihai has been
concertmaster of the ISO since August 2001. She wore a
floor-length, strapless, brilliantly red dress and energetically
dug into Jean Sibelius’ “Concerto for Violin, op. 47 in D
minor.”
Sibelius’ only violin concerto
is acrobatic, with slurs and glissandos and a fair amount of
multiple stopping — playing two or more notes at the same time.
This is particularly difficult on string instruments, requiring
precise technique and intense focus.
When she was not playing, Mihai
stood with her eyes closed, gently swaying to the sound of the
orchestra.
Mihai’s solos were interesting,
and the orchestra did a good job of playing quietly enough to
stay out of her way. But at times it sounded as though she and
the orchestra were struggling for control.
Mihai, Deal and the orchestra’s
interactions had the feel of one of those scoreboard games in
which differently-colored football helmets race each other.
Sometimes Mihai would seem to
pull ahead, but then the orchestra would surge back. In the
end, however, the helmets — make that musicians — came in for a
tie.
This made for an exciting
performance precisely because it felt as though it could go
horribly awry at any moment. It was exciting like watching
someone juggle chainsaws: every near miss makes you sit just a
little bit straighter in your seat.
After an intermission long
enough to permit an impromptu screening of “Gone with the Wind,”
the orchestra clocked in for the second half and another work by
Dvorák.
“Symphony No. 7” was finished in
March 1885, according to the ISO program notes written by
Phillip Huscher.
It was originally “Symphony No.
2,” because it was the second of his symphonies to be
published. Later, after four earlier symphonies were published,
Dvorák himself changed the title to “Symphony No. 6.” Finally,
after his first symphony was discovered posthumously — it was
previously presumed lost — the title was adjusted to its current
variation: “Symphony No. 7.”
Huscher’s notes call this
“arguably Dvorák’s finest symphony,” but the orchestra did not
sell it.
They did a decent enough job,
but that is the problem. It was decent — but just decent.
Missing were the passion and
playfulness that made the Sibelius piece so much fun to listen
to.
* * *
Finally, in my previous review
of an ISO concert, I noted that the showing of a video in the
auditorium before the concert was an unwelcome distraction.
Turns out the video was just a warm-up.
Before the concert, violist
Sharon Chung spent five minutes talking about herself — her
background and how she came to be a member of the ISO.
Presumably this was some sort of “meet the orchestra” bit, but
no explanation was given.
Then, Springfield Mayor Tim
Davlin spent ten minutes presenting Deal and Carl Volkmann,
former director of the Lincoln Library, with their individual
2004 Studs Terkel Humanities Service Awards.
Next came the first Dvorák
piece, followed by at least five more minutes of talking about
the painted violins the ISO was raffling for charity.
After intermission, Deal drew
names to award the winners of the violins.
There were more than 20 minutes
of extraneous, non-music program. Coupled with the excessively
long intermission, that is approximately one-third of the
concert, and an unwelcome addition.
WUIS hosts youth music
competition
By Brian
Mackey
The future of classical music in
central Illinois sounds bright, especially if your taste in
music favors the flute.
WUIS, the University of Illinois
at Springfield’s public radio station, hosted a competition for
young musicians at the First Presbyterian Church in downtown
Springfield last Friday.
The concert featured 31
classical musicians, ranging in age from 10 to 17. There were
two violinists, three pianists, and — improbably — 26 flutists.
WUIS music director Karl
Scroggin organized the event and served as master of
ceremonies. The evening began with six flute ensembles: two
quintets, two quartets and two duets. Next came the junior
soloist competition, for the musicians not yet in high school,
and finally the senior competition, for high school aged
performers.
Ashley Quick and Nini Zhang,
both 16-year-old students of Glenwood High School in Chatham,
gave the standout performance of the ensemble competition. They
played the most modern of the selections: Franz Doppler’s
“Concerto in d.” The 19th-century opera and flute composer’s
divergent parts left the musicians exposed, but Quick and Zhang
glided through the piece with aplomb. The duet won the award
for best ensemble.
The instrumentation diversified
with the junior solo competition. J. Colin Crowley, the first
of only three male musicians, performed “Fantasy: Loss of Me,”
by Nobuo Uematsu. This contemporary Japanese composer is known
mostly for his video-game soundtracks, including the popular
“Final Fantasy” series.
But it was the late 19th
century composer Johannes Donjon who seemed to capture the
judges’ good graces. Lydeah Negro, an eighth grader at St.
Agnes in Springfield, earned runner-up honors with “Offertoire.”
Chatham yielded another winner
in Molly LaCamera, in grade eight at Glenwood Middle School.
She performed Donjon’s “Pastorale: ‘Pan.’”
The evening ended with the
senior soloists. The performers in this category demonstrated a
greater depth of that ethereal quality known as musicianship.
Nini Zhang, one-half of the
winning ensemble, earned second place with “Orientale” by R. de
Boisdeffre. Zhang, who also plays violin and piano, performed
with a musical maturity beyond most of her peers.
Her depth and talent were
matched only by violinist Gustavo Cabrera, who earned first
place with the final performance of the concert: Dmitri
Kabalevsky’s “Concerto No. 1.” A 15-year-old student of
MacArthur High School in Decatur, Cabrera also plays piano,
guitar, and saxophone.
After his performance, the
audience burst into a sustained applause, the first of the
evening. While holding applause to the end may have quickened
the pace of the concert, it could not have been very pleasant
for the majority of the students, most of whose performances
were rewarded with silence.
The winners of this biannual
competition will be invited to perform at “First Night
Springfield 2005,” the family-centered arts program that takes
place on New Year’s Eve in downtown Springfield.
WUIS recorded the competition
and will air selections interspersed with its normal classical
music programming on Dec. 31 this year. |
