CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The 2014-15 season of Sinfonia da Camera – the professional chamber orchestra affiliated with Krannert Center for the Performing Arts – will feature legendary pianist Menahem Pressler; Canadian Brass horn player Bernhard Scully; Sinfonia’s own music director, the internationally-known pianist Ian Hobson; and a rarely heard arrangement of Handel’s “Messiah.”
Shin-Young Park, college winner of Sinfonia da Camera’s first concerto competition for students, will perform Ravel’s “Piano Concerto in G Major” with the orchestra on Sept. 30.
The season opens Sept. 30 (Tuesday) with “Youthful Impressions,” a Rush Hour concert showcasing the high school and college winners of Sinfonia’s first Student Concerto Competition. Daniel and Joshua Meling will play the Vivace movement of Bach’s “Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor”; James Vaughen will play the Andante and Allegro movements of Haydn’s “Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major”; and Shin-Young Park will play Ravel’s “Piano Concerto in G Major”. The chamber orchestra will bookend the program with Ravel’s “Alborada del Gracioso” and Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture.” Immediately following the concert, pizza will be served in the lobby, compliments of Garcia’s Pizza in a Pan.
On Oct. 17 (Friday), Sinfonia will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss with a 7:30 p.m. concert featuring oboe professor John Dee, who will perform Strauss’ “Concerto in D Major,” and horn professor Scully, who will perform the Concerto No. 1, which Strauss wrote for his father. The evening will begin with “Metamorphosen,” Strauss’s dark study for 23 solo strings, written in 1944 immediately after the destruction of the Vienna State Opera House, and will end with his witty 1894 tone poem “Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche.”
Pressler, co-founder of the famed Beaux Arts Trio and an internationally known concert pianist, will be featured Nov. 8 (Saturday) in a concert titled “Menahem and Mozart.” Described by the Los Angeles Times as “a national treasure,” Pressler has received numerous awards including highest honors from Germany and France, a lifetime achievement award from Gramophone magazine, and six Grammy nominations. He will perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 and, with Hobson, the Concerto No. 10 for Two Pianos. Sinfonia da Camera will begin this all-Mozart program with “Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro” and end it with Mozart’s “Jupiter” symphony.
On Dec. 5 (Friday), Sinfonia da Camera will perform Mendelssohn’s “Reformation” symphony before being joined by U. of I.’s director of choral activities Andrew Megill, the U. of I. Chorale and the U. of I. Oratorio Society for a rarely performed version of the Christmas portion of Handel’s “Messiah.” Hobson has chosen to use an arrangement of “Messiah” created in 1788 by Mozart, at the request of a Viennese diplomat. Mozart added more wind and percussion instruments, beefed up the string parts, remixed some of the arias and trimmed a chorus.
Sinfonia da Camera will set the mood for Valentine’s Day with a concert titled “El Fuego del Amor” (The Fire of Love) on Feb. 13 (Friday). This program includes Albert Ginastera’s “Variaciones Concertantes,” Manuel de Falla’s “El Amor Brujo,” known for its “Ritual Fire Dance” section, and Ravel’s “Rapsodie Espagnol,” and will feature cellist Amy Clair Catron performing the world premiere of a concerto by Carlos Carrillo, a professor of composition and theory at Illinois.
Tenor Justin Vickers, a Benjamin Britten specialist, will be featured in the March 13 (Friday) concert, “A Chamber Music Potpourri,” on a program that includes Britten’s Nocturne, Op. 60, Poulenc’s “Suite Française,” and Respighi’s “Trittico Botticelliano.” The evening concludes with Elgar’s “Enigma Variations,” arranged for brass choir and percussion by trombone professor James Pugh.
The Sinfonia season concludes on April 17 with “Romanticism and Beyond,” with repertoire spanning more than 100 years. Hobson will perform and conduct from the piano Brahms’ Seranade No. 1 and Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, before leading Sinfonia in Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances.”
All concerts take place in the Foellinger Great Hall at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and begin at 7:30 p.m., except the Sept. 30 Rush Hour concert, which starts at 5:30 p.m. Individual tickets range from $5 for children to $40 for adults, and are available through Krannert Center ticket office, 217-333-6280, or through the center’s website. Season tickets for all seven Sinfonia concerts are available at Krannert for $210 ($203 for senior citizens, $70 for students).
For more information, call 217-244 -4350; email sinfonia@illinois.edu; visit www.sinfonia.illinois.edu
