CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Andrew Megill, Ollie Watts Davis, the Jupiter String Quartet and Chip McNeill are among the musicians scheduled to perform at the eighth annual Allerton Music Barn Festival.
Tickets go on sale Thursday (June 19) for the popular concert series held in the beautifully restored century-old Dutch hay barn at the Allerton Park and Retreat Center near Monticello, Illinois. This year's festival runs Sept. 18-21 (Thursday-Sunday).
The schedule cements some new festival traditions and revives some old ones. Originally conceived as a Labor Day weekend event, the festival was moved last year to mid-September, to avoid the worst of the summer heat. Jeffrey Magee, the director of the School of Music, has decided to make the barn fest more of an autumnal event.
"We're delighted to hold the festival later in September, just on the cusp of fall," he said. "Allerton has always been a cool event, and this makes it even cooler, at least we hope so."
Another new tradition is the opening-night appearance of the winners of the chamber music competition instituted in 2013 by the Jupiter String Quartet, the artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois School of Music. This year, in a concert titled Jupiter Plus, the quartet will be joined by students who won the Jupiters' second annual chamber music competition - violist Kim Uwate and cellist Seungwon Chun - for Brahms' Sextet No. 2 in G major, Op. 36. The Jupiters also will play the Dvorak String Quartet in F major, Op. 96 ("American"), which many music scholars believe was influenced by Native American drumming and African American spirituals. The Jupiter Quartet also invited Davis, a U. of I. music professor and the director of the U. of I. Black Chorus, to collaborate in the performance of several spirituals arranged by Margaret Bonds, Harry Thacker Burleigh, Francis Hall Johnson and William Grant Still.
On Friday night (Sept. 19), the faculty of the Illinois jazz studies division will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Jazz Messengers, the ensemble that popularized the aggressive, driving swing style known as hard bop in the 1950s. Charles "Chip" McNeill, the chair of the jazz studies department, said he won't finalize the set list until September, but he promised that it will include "Free for All," "Moanin', " "Pensativa" and Messengers charts "from all eras."
On Saturday (Sept. 20), members of the Illinois voice faculty, along with Illinois theater and music students, will perform a concert version of "On the Twentieth Century" - a musical with elements of operetta and farce, set on a luxury train traveling from Chicago to New York City. Yvonne Gonzales Redman, a main stage soprano at the Metropolitan Opera for 15 years before joining the Illinois faculty, will star as movie diva Lily Garland - a temperamental actress stuck on a train with an egomaniacal and bankrupt impresario (professor Ricardo Herrera), and a religious lunatic (professor Dawn Harris). The two performances - 2 and 7:30 p.m. - are presented by arrangement with Samuel French Inc.
The festival this year returns to the tradition of a Sunday morning choral concert, this time led by Megill, the newly appointed director of choral activities at Illinois. The Allerton Bach Choir, Orchestra and Illinois voice faculty soloists will perform "O Ewiges Feuer, O Ursprung der Liebe" and "Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht," cantatas written for Pentecost and Trinity. The Rev. Roger Digges will deliver a nondenominational homily.
All evening performances begin at 7:30. The Sunday morning Bach concert begins at 10. Tickets are $30 for adults, $25 for students and senior citizens, and are available online at allertonmusicbarn.com; at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts box office, 500 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana; or by phone at 217-333-6280.
For more information, contact Ruth Stoltzfus, stoltzfu@illinois.edu.