Classical Peoria

Upcoming Events

2011-11-20T13:38:00.001-08:00

February 14 - Peoria Symphony Orchestra
8:00 p. Valentine's Day - The Romantic Gershwins, with Richard Kogan, piano
Peoria Civic Center

February 18 - Peoria Symphony Orchestra
8:00 p.m. with Jeffrey Holbrook, trumpet, and the Central Illinois Youth Symphony
Peoria Civic Center

February 21 - Bradley Jazz Festival
guest artist concert featuring Wycliffe Gordon
7:30 p.m.

February 22 - Bankers Hour Concert
12 Noon and 2 p.m. Cinderhood!
Chicago Opera Play House

February 23
Grandview Hotel Poets read their work, 6-8 p.m.
I Know You Like a Book Bookstore, Peoria Heights

February 25, Junior cello recital, Britney Whiting
7:30 p.m. Dingeldine Music Center

March 1 - Mark Liebenow, Yosemite book reading
Visiting Writers Series, Bradley University
Wyckoff Room, Bradley Library, 7:30 p.m.

March 2, Bradley University Choir, Dr. John Jost
Trinity Concert Series, 7:30 p.m.

March 3, Junior violin recital, Jenna Ferdon
7:30 p.m. Dingeldine Music Center

March 4, Bradley Symphony Orchestra
Concerto Aria Concert, 3:00 p.m. Dingeldine Music Center

March 6, PSO special event - Ancient voices, traditional Korean music
7:30 p.m. Eureka College.

March 12 - Peoria Symphony Guild
9:30 a.m. St. Paul Baptist Church, featuring Manpreet Bedi, tabla

March 13 - Peoria Symphony Orchestra
8:00 p.m. with Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin, Manpreet Bedi, tabla,
also Qi Xu, piano, Peoria Civic Center

March 14, PSO special event - Contemporary Indian Music
7:30 p.m. WTVP studios.

March 19, PSO special event - Contemporary Latin Composers
7:30 p.m, Eureka College.
Peoria Symphony Chamber Players
Lopez Schoenberg no ha muerto, Moya Rayuela Preludes, Lavista Cuaderno de Viaje, Villa-Lobos Assoblo a Jato, Zyman Sonata for Flute and Piano.

March 23, Trinity Concert Series
Harp and Flute by Candlelight
7:30 p.m. Linda Warren, harp, Kyle Dzapo, flute, Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin, Carol Wessler, cello.
Trinity Lutheran Church

March 24, Senior violin recital, Kelsey Klopfenstein
7:30 p.m. Dingeldine Music Center

March 25, Bradley Chorale and Chamber Singers
3:00 p.m. Dingeldine Music Center

March 26 - Peoria Symphony Orchestra
7:00 p.m. with the Bradley University Jazz Ensemble
Five Points, Washington

March 28 - Mark Liebenow, Yosemite book reading
I Know You Like a Book Bookstore, Peoria Heights, 6-8 p.m.

April 6 - Trinity Concert Series
12:00 p.m. St. Matthew Passion by Bach
Peoria Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra

April 11-15 Bradley BFA Show
Theresa Stoodley, Hillary Ray, Jacob Weise

April 13 - Peoria Symphony Orchestra
7:00 p.m. with New York Polyphony
Cathedral of St. Mary

April 15, Central Illinois Youth Symphony Small Ensemble Concert
2:00 p.m. ICC Lecture Recital Hall, East Peoria

April 18, Peoria Lunaire New Music Concert
7:30 p.m. Dingeldine Music Center

April 18, PSO Chamber Playerst - The Genius of Beethoven
7:30 p.m., Trinity Lutheran Church
Sonata #3 for Cello and Piano, Trio in D Major (Ghost), Piano Sonata in D minor (Tempest)
John Orfe, piano, Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin, Adriana Ransom, cello

April 19, PSO special event - The Genius of Beethoven
7:30 p.m. Eureka College

Peoria Symphony Chamber Players

Sonata #3 for Cello and Piano, Trio in D Major (Ghost), Piano Sonata in D minor (Tempest)

April 19-22 - Bradley BFA Show
Damon Taylor, Theresa Moir, Vasi Tsagarakis

April 21, Peoria Symphony Orchestra
8:00 Beethoven Missa Solemnis in D Major
with the Bradley University Chorale and Community Chorus and the MIllikin University Singers
Grace Presbyterian Church

April 22, Central Illinois Youth Symphony Concert,
2:00 p.m. Metamora High School

April 26-May 2 - Bradley BFA Show
Amber Cancino, Marty Gniech, Christine Montgomery

April 27, 7:30 p.m.
The Quartet New Generation
Trinity Concert Series

April 30, Bradley String Chamber Music
7:30 p.m. Dingeldine Music Center

May 7-12 - Bradley BFA Show
Rachel Sylvan, Sarah Scott, Melissa Ritchey

Poetry Reading - Grandview Hotel Poets

2011-11-20T13:16:00.001-08:00

October 30, 2011, Prairie Center of the Arts

Large gathering for a poetry reading by the Grandview Hotel Poets (Barbara Clevenger, Michelle Cusack, Jannett Highfill, Mark Liebenow, Janeil Page, Thomas Palakeel, Burt Raabe, and Elizabeth Klise von Zerneck).

With music performed by Marcia Henry Liebenow, Concertmaster of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra, and art work by Kelly Krainak, painter, and Lisa Nelson Raabe, fiber artist and installation.

Eureka College - PSO Chamber Players featuring Marcia Henry Liebenow

2011-11-20T13:13:00.000-08:00

October 9, 2011

Performance by the Peoria Symphony Chamber Players, with Marcia Henry Liebenow, Concertmaster. Eureka College, Eureka, Illinois, featuring Marcia Henry Liebenow performing the solo on Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #4.

Program included: Corelli Concerto Grosso in G Minor, Mozart Serenade No. 13 for Strings in G Major, Villa-Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras #9, and Copland Appalachian Spring with the original orchestration.

Morton Fine Arts - PSO Chamber Players featuring Marcia Henry Liebenow

2011-11-20T13:11:00.000-08:00

October 3, 2011

Inaugural performance of the Peoria Symphony Chamber Players, featuring Marcia Henry Liebenow performing the solo for Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #4. Morton Fine Arts Association, Bertha Frank Performing Arts Center, Morton, Illinois.

Program included: Corelli Concerto Grosso in G Minor, Mozart Serenade No. 13 for Strings in G Major, Villa-Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras #9, and Copland Appalachian Spring with the original orchestration.

Peoria Symphony Does Broadway

2011-09-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

September 23,

The Peoria Symphony Orchestra took A Historic Walk Down Broadway - From Sousa to Sondheim. Stars of the Chicago and Peoria stages - Linden Christ, soprano, Barbara Couri, alto, Ryan Lanning, tenor, Michael Reams, tenor, Thomas Mindock, baritone, and Michael Dentino as the Master of Ceremonies. Music from the first 75 years of Broadway.

Bankers Hour Concert - Marcia Henry Liebenow

2011-09-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

September 21

Good and appreciative audience for the inaugural Bankers Hour Concert.

PSO Concertmaster Marcia Henry Liebenow, with Young Artist Competition winners violinists Stevan Lukich and Courtney Silver, performed at the GAR Hall in downtown Peoria.

Sponsored by the Peoria Symphony Orchestra.

Illinois New Music Festival

2011-05-29T12:35:00.000-07:00

The Peoria Symphony Orchestra presented 100 years of music in four days, from May 25-28, at several venues around Peoria. George Stelluto and John Orfe, Artistic Directors.

The works performed ranged from Charles Ives’ Violin Sonata #2 (written in 1911) to John Orfe's Leviathan and Stephen Heinemann's Duo (both written in 2011) and spanned time, continents, and cultures. With styles influenced by Jazz and popular idioms to intellectual compositional schools and the mystical inspirations of Olivier Messiaen, icons of the 20th century teamed up with the music of twelve living composers in the 21st. Elliot Carter was alive when the Ives was writing and is still writing major works today at 102. There was an evening of American Art Song, as well as discussions with the performers and composers during and after the concerts.

May 25, Wednesday - Ivory Towers!
GAR Hall, 416 Hamilton Blvd. Peoria

Program: John Adams, Road Movies; Ryan Francis Wind Up Bird Preludes; Olivier Messiaen Le moqueure polyglotte; Charles Ives The Things Our Father Loved; Maurice Ravel Violin Sonata No. 2.

Performers: Conor Llewellyn Hanick, piano, Tricia Park, violin

May 26, Thursday - Inspirations!
GAR Hall, 416 Hamilton Blvd, Peoria

Program: Lee Hoiby Lady of the Harbor, The Lamb; Aaron Copland, Why Do They Shut Me Out of Heaven, At the River, Zion's Walls; Wailliam Grant Still Weeping Angel; Mark Fax Love; Samuel Barber Sure On This Shining Night, The Crucifixion, Sea Snatch, The Desiere for Hermitage; Ned Rorem A Birthday, I Am a Rose, Far, Far Away, Eaarly in the Morning; Morten Lauridson Be Still, My Soul; Dominic Argento, From the Diary of Virginia Woolf.

Performers Kerry Walters, Shirley Salazar, Annette Oh, voice, John Orfe, piano, Carol Wessler, cello, Stephen Heinemann, clarinet

May 27, Friday - Visions!
Trinity Lutheran Church, 135 NE Randolph, Peoria

Program: Karel Husa Three Studies for Solo Clarinet; Olivier Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time; Elliot Carter Hiyoku, Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petraissi; and world premiere of Stephen Heinemann's Duo

Performers: Marcia Henry Liebenow, Francesca Anderegg, violin, Carol Wessler, Adriana Ransom, cello, Stephen Heinemann, David Gresham, clarinet, Conor Llewellyn Hanick, piano

May 28, Saturday - Contrasts!
St. Joseph's Catholic Church, 103 S. Richard Pryor Place, Peoria

Program: Bela Bartok Contrasts; Kurtag Signs, Games and Messages; Shulamit Ran Fantasy Variations; Sebastien Currier Verge; and world premiere of John Orfe Leviathan

Performers: John Orfe, piano, Marcia Henry Liebenow, Francesca Anderegg, violin, Adriana Ransom, cello, Stephen Heinemann, David Gresham, clarinet

Mendelssohn and the Trinity Concert Series

2011-05-03T06:58:00.000-07:00

May 5

Peoria Plays Mendelssohn, Trinity Concert Series, Trinity Lutheran Church, Peoria.

The evening began with John Orfe, piano, playing Mendelssohn's Fantasy in F-sharp Minor. He then accompanied Kerry Walters, soprano, as she sang four songs by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. Sherry Seckler, organ, played Mendelssohn's Organ Sonata No. 2 in C Minor and Organ Sonata No. 3 in A Major. Anna Price, piano, finished up the first half of the concert playing Three Songs Without Words.

Mendelssohn's Piano Trio in D Minor was the second half of the program. Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin, Carol Wessler, cello, and John Orfe, piano.

A great evening highlighting the creative genius of Felix Mendelssohn, and wonderfully performed by the musicians.

Bradley String Chamber Recital

2011-05-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

May 2, Peoria, Illinois

The recital featured thirteen of the students in the chamber music program at Bradley University. They performed in three string quartets and two trios. Works performed were quartets by Franz Schubert, Sergei Taneyev, Bedrich Smetana, Dream Dances for trio by Peter Schickele, and works by Hellmesberger and Moussorgsky.

Performing were violinists Jenna Ferdon, Tai Fraction, Kelsey Klopfenstein, Kate Lesniak, Caleb Mackinder, Heidi Schick, and Brianna Smith; violists Alyssa Przygoda and Hannah Salazar; cellists Kim Foster, Carmen Klopfenstein, and Britney Whiting, and flutist Stephanie Castongia.

The chamber music ensembles are coached by Marcia Henry Liebenow, professor of violin, viola, and chamber music at Bradley and Concertmaster of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra.

Jazz at Bradley University

2011-05-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

April 30

If you want to hear jazz in Peoria, one of the finest examples is the Bradley Jazz Ensemble directed by Dr. Todd Kelly. They gave a great performance last night at the Dingeldine Music Center.

Talented musicians were in every section - Jacob Berendzen, piano, and Emily Racette, drums, played with a wonderful sense of touch, Andrew Durham, tenor sax, Mike Archer, Trombone, Chris Pennant, trombone, Steve Sefton, guitar, Russell Zehr, tenor sax, Kyle Mills, trumpet, Cheryl Rodey, trumpet, Parker Kuehn, trombone, Downtown Sara Brown, alto sax, Bridget Bourke, alto sax, and Ian Brown, bass were the other soloists.

Dr. Kelly knows jazz and knows how to teach students to play jazz well. For example, the opening group, the Jazz Lab Band, learned to play jazz by listening rather than reading music, and the creativity was evident.

John Orfe and Potemkin

2011-04-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

April 17

The Peoria Symphony sponsored the viewing of a classic silent movie, Battleship Potemkin, at the Apollo Theater in downtown Peoria. John Orfe provided the piano accompaniment to the film with music composed by Prokofiev and other Russian composers. He did an amazing job, playing through the entire film and matching the music to the emotions and drama happening on screen.

After the movie, a panel of people led a discussion about the film. What was historical about the film? What was cultural, what was propaganda, what emotions were stirred up, how were we being influenced and manipulated by what was on the screen, and what about it made it art?

The consensus was that art is a powerful force that can be used for good or evil. I thought of all the commercials we see on TV that promote something and yet have little to do with the actual product. Commercials are not balanced presentations. They are trying to sell you something. Politicians also try to sell you on their cause, but rarely do they speak of what is good about their opponents' proposals, or what is bad about their own.

George Stelluto told a story about newly-elected Winston Churchill during World War Two when he was asked if money for the arts should be cut to further the war effort. Churchill said, 'Then what are we fighting for?'

Phillipe Quint and the Peoria Symphony

2011-04-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

April 16

On a day that had brief snow showers, the evening program began with a montage of Richard Whiting’s music arranged by Armand Ranjbaran. Whiting grew up in Peoria, moved to Hollywood, and wrote a number of famous music scores. Phillipe Quint, violin, was next on the program with Korngold’s Concerto for Violin in D Major, and absolutely played the stuffing out of it. Amazing playing!

After intermission, a selection from Justice, a work created by Ranjabaran, featured John Brancy and Tobias Greenhalgh, baritones, as comic book heroes who affirm that all people have special abilities that make them powerful. Unfortunately the hall’s mic system was not balanced and their words could not be heard. The program ended with selections from the powerful, passionate, and thrilling Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet.

A delightful evening of music.

Peoria Lunaire

2011-04-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

April 13

Peoria Lunaire, the Bradley University Ensemble for New Music, gave its spring concert on Wednesday in the Dingeldine Music Center.   

The concert was highlighted by the performance of the Bradley Chorale, under the direction of Dr. John Jost. The Chorale performed the premiere of the beautiful Mirage for choir and soprano saxophone by Bradley professor Stephen Heinemann, setting verse by Peoria poet Mark Liebenow to music. Heinemann played the soprano saxophone. Fire!, composed by Bradley professor Dr. John Orfe, dramatically set verse by Langston Hughes to music, with Tommy Carreras, tenor soloist, and Stephanie Meyer, soprano soloist. On William Averitt’s Afro-American Fragments, John Orfe and Joshua Russell were the pianists, and Stephanie Meyer and Emily Volz were the soprano soloists.

The Bradley Chamber Singers performed Three English Madrigals by 2009 Bradley graduate Jeremy Bell, who is completing a master’s degree in music composition at Arizona State University. Marian Borkowski’s Toccata was performed with zest by Darby Fitch on the piano, and Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Schwantner’s Black Anemones was performed by Alison Robuck, oboe, and John Orfe, piano.

As part of Peoria Lunaire’s mission to present works by undergraduates along side those of established composers, and in observance of national Undergraduate Research Week, premieres included compositions by Nick Daniel, a senior from Morton; Michael T. Harris, a senior from Farmer City; and Ryan Moore, a sophomore from Mt. Zion.   Daniel’s Derivative Shift was performed by Stephen Heinemann, sopranino clarinet, and Joshua Huff, bass clarinet. Harris’s Fanfare for Trombones was performed by eight trombonists from Illinois State University, and Moore’s False Dilemmas was performed by Jenna Ferdon, violin, and Britney Whiting, cello.

This collaboration between composers, singers, and instrumental performance majors is unusual at many universities, but at Bradley it has become one of the Music Department’s strengths. Dr. Stephen Heinemann is the music director of Peoria Lunaire.

John Orfe, Bradley pianist

2011-04-11T17:02:00.000-07:00

April 7

Splendid recital by Bradley pianist and composer, Dr. John Orfe, at the Dingeldine Music Center in Peoria.

Orfe explored a variety of expressions of Romantic music. Louis Moreau Gottschalk blended American, Caribbean and Hispanic idioms into his Union piece set during the Civil War. Amy Beach came next with her Dreaming work that bring in the yearning of romance. Then came Maurice Ravel’s Jeux d’eau with elegance and formality, and Sergei Rachmaninoff brought in the passion of romance with his Etude in Eb minor. The second half of the concert featured Robert Schumann’s Sonata No. 3 in F minor, written to express his emotions for the great love of his life, Clara Wieck.

Bradley music faculty members came to the concert and showed their appreciation of his talent—Kyle Dzapo, Stephen Heinemann, Marcia Henry Liebenow, John Jost, Todd Kelly, Molly Sloter, and Kerry Walters.

Heidi Schick, violin

2011-04-06T13:51:00.002-07:00

April 2

This was the senior violin recital of Heidi Schick at Bradley University. Her playing was expressive, precise, and beautiful.

The program consisted of Mozart’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, Hellmesberger’s Serenade for Three Violins and Piano, and Mussorgsky’s Hopak. Joining her on stage were Andrea Molina, piano, Kelsey Klopfenstein and Jenna Ferdon, violin, and Britney Whiting, piano.

The talent of Ms. Schick was evident on the Mozart and Bruch, and her humor came out while playing Mussorgky barefooted with Ms. Klopfenstein and Ms. Ferdon.

Bradley Chorale - Heinemann and Liebenow

2011-04-06T13:51:00.001-07:00

March 27, 2011

The Bradley Chorale and Chamber Singers performed a solid concert, and premiered "Mirage," an enchanting new work for voice and soprano saxophone composed by Stephen Heinemann to lyrics by Mark Liebenow. Dingeldine Music Center, Peoria, Illinois.

April 2, 2011

Shirley Salazar is at home on the stage, able to aptly portray sorrow as well as comedy. Her voice and her face conveyed the wide variety of themes held within the songs. Ms. Salazar is on the voice faculty at Bradley University.

The program was entitled “Of War and Windmills” and dealt with love, war, and Salazar’s Dutch heritage. She sang several of Franz Schubert’s songs, Barber’s Hermit Songs and Sure on this Shining Night, Lauridsen’s Be Still, My Soul, Be Still, Cohen’s I Remember, a moving tribute to Anne Frank, and three Dutch folk songs that were arranged by Lowell Koons.

Joining Ms. Salazar on stage were Stephen Heinemann, clarinet, Leslie and Lowell Koons, violin, Andrea Molina, John Orfe and Molly Sloter, piano, Hannah Salazar, viola, Carol Wessler, cello, and Steve Snyder, dramatic artist.

Michael Gilbert, Saeka Matsuyama, Marcia Henry Liebenow

2011-03-27T07:55:00.001-07:00

March 26

The Peoria Symphony Orchestra played a splendid concert under the direction of guest conductor Michael Gilbert Saturday night.

The evening began with Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin, and Andrea Molina, keyboard, playing the first movement of Handel’s D Major Violin Sonata. This lead into the Zwillich Concerto Grosso that is based on that sonata, and translates it into contemporary classical sounds. I wasn’t sure about this piece until the fifth movement when everything came together. Wow.

Saeka Matsuyama, violin, sparkled in the Mendelssohn Concerto for Violin in E Minor, her bright sound matched her technical clarity. Her performance was stunning and brought the audience to its feet.

Marcia Henry Liebenow returned to the spotlight in the Strauss Le Bourgeois Gentihomme. The nine movement piece is a wild ride of lush sounds and dance rhythms, with the presence of Henry Liebenow's beautiful solo work in movement after movement. Adriana Ransom played a lyrical melody on the cello, a melody that expanded in depth and power through the rest of the cellos and into the violas. Afterwards, Conductor Gilbert had Henry Liebenow stand with him for acknowledgement, and the musicians showed their own appreciation for her playing with their applause.

Todd Kelly Quintet

2011-03-26T10:49:00.001-07:00

March 22

Wonderful evening of jazz at Dingeldine Music Center in Peoria—blended sounds with each musician showing his chops on his solos. A spirited performance with a few slower numbers woven in. The Quintet played a number of pieces composed by Heinemann, one by Marko, and a world concert premier of Evening at Home by Kelly. Heinemann and Kelly teach at Bradley University.

Performers: Todd Kelly, trumpet and flugelhorn, Steve Heinemann, saxophones, Michael Stryker, piano, Andy Crawford, bass, and Tom Marko, drums.

Reviews

2011-03-26T10:48:00.001-07:00

March 13

Reviews of live performances are generally like looking into an empty barn. The value of a live performance is to hear it, to feel the sound surround you and see the performers embody the music. A review is not live, it does not replace the performance, and when it notes who performed well and who messed up, it speaks of useless trinkets because if you weren’t there, this information doesn’t help you experience the event. And if you were there, you heard it and don’t need to be told.

If someone consistently stands out as a performer in concert after concert, then this is worthy of being noted in a review because it alerts readers to get off their butts and get to the next performance. And if an unknown or unusual piece is played that is interesting, the reviewer should call attention to that and let people know that they should be watch to see when it is next performed.

So my reviews aren’t standard reviews. I will probably tell you what pieces were played. I will also say what affected me, because if music doesn’t move you, it’s a dalliance. Music is supposed to be a life-changing, life-confronting, and life-affirming encounter. For the most part, composers are not trying to entertain you. They are trying to convey something, to have you feel what they felt. If I’m not moved by a piece of music, I’m not going to write about it. Technical brilliance by itself counts for nothing. Schmaltz that is full of feeling but has no structure is an exercise in self promotion. If the performer doesn’t fully enter the music, chances are that I won’t either.

Bradley Symphony Orchestra with Concerto Winners

2011-03-26T10:47:00.001-07:00

March 6

Cheryl Rodey, trumpet, played Alexandra Pakhmutova’s Concerto for Trumpet.
Sarah Casey, flute, played Georges Hue’s Fantasie.
Jenna Ferdon, violin, played Henri Wieniawski’s Concerto No. 2 in D Minor.

Each soloist gave an accomplished preformance. After the intermission, the orchestra played Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, and the strings again showed that they are the strength of the orchestra.

Kelsey Klopfenstein, violin

2011-03-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

March 4

This was the junior violin recital of Kelsey Klopfenstein at Bradley University. Her playing showed impressive technique and sound, and her memorization of several works was outstanding, especially on the Bach.

The program consisted of Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor for Solo Violin, Beethoven’s Sonata No. 8 in G Major, Dvorak’s Romance in F Minor, and Eugene Ysaye’s Sonata for Solo Violin in D Minor, Op. 27, No. 3. She was joined on stage by Molly Sloter, piano.

Dvorak’s Romance is one of my favorite works. For my tastes, the piece was taken a bit too fast. I like there to be passion in romance.

Concordia String Trio with guest oboist Alison Robuck

2011-03-26T10:44:00.001-07:00

February 27

The trio performed Manuel Ponce’s Petite Suite Dans Le Style Ancien, and Beethoven’s Serenade in D Major, Op. 8. Robuck joined the trio to perform Benjamin Britten’s Phantasy Quartet, Op. 2, an oddly delightful work.

All the works were different from each other, and more tonal than what the trio usually performs. What really grabbed me was the melancholy of the fourth movement of the Serenade, and reminiscent of the work of Gideon Klein. The interludes of circus music were strange, though.

This program was performed at the University of Missouri-Columbia and at Bradley University.

Peoria Symphony and Joseph Johnson, cellist

2011-02-22T10:29:00.000-08:00

February 19

Joseph Johnson was the marquee performer Saturday night at the Civic Center, playing Schumann’s Concerto for Cello. Johnson is a very fine cellist and played the Schumann with elegance. After a rousing and standing ovation, Johnson played an encore, Pablo Casal’s arrangement of “The Song of the Birds,” and that was exquisite with another ovation from the audience and the musicians stamping their approval.

On the second half of the program, the orchestra played a strong Schumann’s Symphony No. 3. The symphony is a wonderful work full of melodies, power and presence. For me, it was too much Schumann on one program.

The evening began with Huang Ruo’s Path of Echoes. It’s a contemporary piece with many cool and unusual sounds coming from the percussion section, from pitch gongs to conch shells to brake drums. I especially liked the section where the tympani and the brake drums dialogue with each other through a series of riffs and cascades. Ruo says his inspiration came from hiking through the mountains and listening to the sounds of nature echo and play off each other. Listeners will have their own favorite places where they have listened to the sounds of nature. My reaction is that it sounded less like hiking in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and more like walking through Marina Park in San Francisco with a modern city on one side and the serenity of the Golden Gate and the Marin hills on the other, complete with the sounds of the ocean and large container ships flowing by, the cry of seagulls, and the clanging of street cars and church bells from North Beach.

Yet it’s irrelevant what the composer intended in terms of theme, how the music was technically constructed, or even how the sounds were made, because unless it’s an academic exercise, the importance of a performed piece lies in what is evoked in the listeners. To me it was highly reflective. I hadn’t thought of being in the Marina for years and it was nice to be back. Sometimes my own thoughts and feelings arose, and I let them develop. Sometimes outside sounds intruded and took me elsewhere, reminding me of something I’d forgotten, or perhaps never realized. I liked this work because it was different and because it provided space for me to enter and grow.

John Orfe, Composer

2011-02-14T07:17:00.000-08:00

February 13

John Orfe threw a composition recital at Dingeldine Music Center on Sunday, and invited Bradley’s faculty and area musicians to join him. Nine of Orfe’s compositions were performed, ranging from a percussion work composed in 1995 to a 2009 composition for four trombones. Other instrumentation included an English horn, flute, piano, piccolo, clarinet, viola, violin and cello.

There was much to be admired in every piece, from the rhythmic undulations of “Barcarolle” performed on clarinet, violin and cello, to the melancholy of “Album Leaf” on the English horn, to “Waxwing” performed on solo piano which takes its inspiration from Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire.

The percussion work, “Dragon,” was a rhythmic, driving delight performed by three musicians on a dozen different instruments, invoking world music sounds like Taiko drumming and Caribbean rhythms. The Cristillino movement of “Two Meditations on What Wondrous Love is This” utilized six hands on a piano with a tinkling Asian undercurrent to a fluid flute flowing like water.

Performers included Michael Archer, Lex Boll, Eun Joo Chung, Kyle Dzapo, Stephen Heinemann, Marcia Henry Liebenow, James Marck, Ryan Miller, John Orfe, Chris Pennant, Alison Robuck, Brian Spicklemire, Brendan Thompson, Carol Wessler, Josh Williamson, and Diane Wuthrich.

Classical Violinist Plays in Unusual Venue

2011-01-09T15:05:00.001-08:00

January 8

Emmy Holmes-Hicks, a professionally-trained classical violinist, turned around and played the fiddle for a square dance at the Shore Acres Club House. The club house was packed with dancers of all abilities as the Rusty Pickup String Band provided the music. Callers were Gail Hintze andJim Hicks. The gathering was one of the “New Harmonies” events going on in and around Chillicothe that celebrate American roots music. The events are supported by the Smithsonian Institution, the Illinois Humanities Council and the Chillicothe Public Library.

Stevan Lukich, violinist

2010-12-09T19:29:00.001-08:00

December 12

A splendid recital was performed by Stevan Lukich on Sunday at the First Federated Church. Lukich is a teenage violinist from Chillicothe, Illinois. Andrea Molina, of the Peoria Symphony, accompanied him on piano.

His Kreisler Tempo di Minuetto was elegant, and the Melodie by Gluck/Kreisler was rich with melancholy. The Bach Sonata No. 1 in G Minor for solo violin was played at a pace that allowed enough space between notes to give the piece breath, depth and precision. Marcia Henry Liebenow, Concertmaster of the Peoria Symphony, joined Lukich for the beautiful, melodic Three Duets for Violin and Piano by Shostakovich. The program ended with a strong performance of the majestic Bruch Concerto No. 1 in G Minor.

Lukich is Concertmaster of the Central Illinois Youth Symphony, a member of the CIYS Honors String Quartet, and a founding member of the Sygnet String Quartet. He was the 2010 winner of the Peoria Symphony’s Young Artist Competition and the featured soloist in three performances with the orchestra in April. He also won the Birch Creek Concerto Competition and was soloist with the Birch Creek Symphony in June. Marty Lash, of the North American Music Critics Association, wrote of Steven’s performance at Birch Creek, “His playing had warmth and lyricism, and demonstrated maturity well beyond his years.”

Baroque Music

2010-12-05T19:14:00.000-08:00

December 6

Collegium Musicum, the baroque music ensemble of Bradley University, performed at the Dingeldine Music Center in Peoria.

Chamber Music at Bradley

2010-12-05T05:55:00.000-08:00

December 4

A splendid program was presented on a snowy Saturday at the Dingeldine Music Center. Fourteen students from the String Chamber Music Program at Bradley University performed, including two freshmen—Caleb Mackinder, violinist from Dexter, Michigan, and Maxx Glick, cellist, from Fullerton, California. The coordinator of the program is Marcia Henry Liebenow, professor of violin and viola at Bradley.

They performed Glazunov String Quartet No. 5 in G Minor, Op. 70, Handel Psssacaille, Haydn String Quartet No. 59 in G Minor, Op. 74, No. 3, “The Rider,” Beethoven String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4, Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 13, and Walckiers Grand Trio for Flute, Violin and Cello, Op. 35.

Performing in the recital were violinists Jenna Ferdon, Tai Fraction, Kelsey Klopfenstein, Kate Lesniak, Caleb Mackinder, Heidi Schick, and Brianna Smith; violists Alyssa Przygoda and Hannah Salazar; cellists Kim Foster, Maxx Glick, Carmen Klopfenstein, and Britney Whiting, and flutist Stephanie Castongia.

The large, appreciative audience was delighted.

Mozart Requiem

2010-11-20T09:45:00.000-08:00

November 21

The Mozart Requiem was performed with the 100-voice Bradley Community Chorus, conducted by John Jost, and the Bradley Symphony Orchestra at St. Mary's Cathedral, Peoria. Soloist were Kerry Walters, soprano, Denise Gamez, alto, Jeffrey Brich, tenor, and John Hines, bass. The orchestra also performed Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G Minor, conducted by Brian Dollinger.

Area String Students Shine

2010-11-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

November 20

Violinists Jenna Ferdon, sophomore performance major, won Bradley University’s Concerto competition, and Kelsey Klopfenstein, junior performance major, won Honorable Mention in the Music Teachers National Association at Northern Illinois University.

On the high school level, Stevan Lukich, sophomore, won the Concertmaster chair at District Orchestra. Courtney Silver, junior violin student at Richwoods High School, won the ISMTA State String Competition in DeKalb, Illinois.

Marcia Henry Liebenow Sparkles

2010-11-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

November 19

Guest violinist, Marcia Henry Liebenow, absolutely sparkled as she played Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Central Illinois Youth Symphony on Friday night. The sparkle refers both to her red top and earrings as well as to her playing. From fast passages to pure high notes to the low, resonant strings, Henry Liebenow filled the Metamora theater with the gusty, romantic sounds of Bruch.

The Symphony orchestra, under the direction of Brian Dollinger, also played Mahler’s Adagietto from Symphony No. 5, Bartok’s Roumanian Folk Dances, and Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture. The program began with the Cadet Orchestra performing works by Offenbach, Rossini, Moss and Gruselle. The Prep Orchestra then took the stage and performed works by Corelli, Mozart, Hall, and a delightful Meyer piece called Bio Rhythms that involved finger snaps, clapping, foot stamping and mouth noises. Both orchestras were under the direction of Betsy Jones. They were followed by the Concert Orchestra, conducted by Philip Rudd, and performed Grieg’s Lyric Suite, and the fourth movement of Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique.

Kim Addonizio, poet

2010-11-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

November 17

The poet Kim Addonizio was on the Bradley University campus Wednesday night where she read from several of her books and performed blues on the harmonica. She’s a mind and body poet, not afraid to try out life’s experiences and then write about them in clear and forceful language for readers who are too chicken to take risks themselves. Many of her poems are written in form, yet the lyricism of her lines is not boxed in by doing so. Rather, the forms created a cadence for her lines, and hearing her read the poems aloud brought out the hidden rhymes.

Among the topics she addressed were politics, religion, the fears of a mother for her daughter, war, sexuality, the relationships between men and women, and society’s struggles. She talked about music and performed one poem with harmonica interludes. She’s a very good player.

Wise in many ways, Addonizio also had a sense of weariness, perhaps from knowing all too well how the world works and how we only have this moment to live, because after this … who knows what will happen.

Her collection of poems, Tell Me, was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Erich Yetter

2010-11-16T07:37:00.001-08:00

November 15

Former Peorian Erich Yetter choreographed a dance for the Akron Symphony’s celebration of Broadway’s Richard Rodgers. This is what the news media said about it: “One of the evening’s most delightful moments was a soft shoe dance between Helen Welch and melodious baritone Jared Leal in Manhattan, with sprightly choreography by Erich Yetter of the University of Akron.”

Jacqueline Schwab

2010-11-16T05:54:00.001-08:00

November 14

Pianist Jacqueline Schwab played a variety of songs from American history this Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Peoria. She came into public notice because she plays on a number of Ken Burns’ television documentaries. It was the opening concert for New Harmonies, a celebration of American roots music that is going on mostly in Chillicothe with events that run through January. Gail Hintze is the local coordinator who is working with the Smithsonian, the Illinois Humanities Council, and the Chillicothe Park District. The receptive audience of over 200 people was delighted.

What Schwab played is the kind of music that makes us nostalgic about the American past and hopeful for our future. She talked between songs, providing historical context and musical origins. She also said that working with Burns was a personal learning experience. With much of the prior recording work she has done with film, she had to match her music exactly to what was going on in the film. This was technically demanding. Burns, she said, worked the other way. Since he works with still shots, Burns encouraged her to open the music up, to improvise and let her heart lengthen passages and deepen the emotional connections. Moving beyond the notes and giving more space to the emotions of the music, she said, has helped her grow as a musician.

She studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, yet she plays a variety of styles besides American folk music—tango and rag, for example, and she played a hoe-down number with fiddler/violinist Emmy Holmes Hicks.

Peoria Symphony and Mozart

2010-11-13T06:56:00.000-08:00

November 13

The largest audience in years came to the Peoria Civic Center on Saturday to hear outstanding opera singers, two choruses, and a violin soloist do all things Mozart with the Peoria Symphony Orchestra.

The orchestra, with its smaller size set for Mozart’s instrumentation, provided a solid base for the soloists. The violins, in particular, basically played nonstop through the entire evening. Listening just to the orchestra would have been a delight.

The opera singers, Heidi Grant Murphy, soprano, Nina Yoshida Nelsen, mezzo-soprano, Kevin Murphy, tenor, and Jordan Bisch, bass, were excellent as they sang arias from Mozart’s operas and then sang the Mass in C Major with the Bradley University Chorale and the Western Illinois University Singers.

Anna Lee, the violin soloist, played Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 straight, with both precision and intonation. During the concerto, the conducting was a tag-team effort between the soloist and the concertmaster, as Maestro Stelluto watched from the audience. Lee began conducting the opening of the concerto with graceful gestures. When Lee was playing, Marcia Henry Liebenow became the conductor from her concertmaster chair, interpreting what Lee was doing and communicating this to the rest of the orchestra.

Earlier in the week, in coordination with the Peoria Symphony, Lee performed for patients at Children's Hospital, visited two schools and the Central Illinois Youth Symphony, although I did not see any coverage of this in the local newspaper. The newspaper has covered such things for other organizations.

Steve Heinemann and John Orfe Mesmerize

2010-11-12T07:26:00.001-08:00

November 11

The concert tonight of Peoria Lunaire, Bradley University’s New Music Ensemble, interspersed student compositions with works by established composers. The large and enthusiastic audience loved every one.

The program began with James Marck’s Lyric for Strings, designed to mimic a cappella voices. The work and the Bradley string students created a beautiful sound, down to the last drawn note.

The WOW piece on the program for me was John Adams’ Gnarly Buttons, performed by Steve Heinemann on clarinet and John Orfe on piano. Adams drew inspiration from a piece by Igor Stravinsky. This work was a delight with lyricism, jauntiness, depth of feeling, and equilibrium of voices. The complex interaction of clarinet and piano was breathtaking and the audience rose to its feet with a standing ovation, and this was before intermission.

Now, what did the piece mean? This is assuming that music should do more than just entertain. Sometimes I don’t read the program notes that tell me how to interpret what I’m going to hear. I just listen and let the music evoke images and feelings. The feeling I had with the first movement was of two people sprinting through the streets of a large city, dodging pedestrians, jumping over trash and rats, and skirting cars and buses when darting across the street, with all of the accompanying squeaks, thumps and car horns of the city. Once in a while, one of the runners seems to stop for a quick espresso before darting off again. The second movement slows down and, to continue the image, seems like the two people have reached a park where they decide to dance and enjoy the moment. Familiar phrases float through like balloons and are gone.

The third, and last, movement starts out lovely and lyrical before turning melancholy, which led me to rethink the meaning of the first two movements and the overall theme of the piece. The third movement then becomes the fullness of life together and the inevitable decline. I admit that this is a free interpretation, but I’m encouraged to do so by Adams saying later that he made up his explanation for the origins of the first movement.

Now for the program notes. There it says that the third movement was an elegy to Adams’ father who died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. Reworking my images, the whole piece then becomes a three-part elegy for his father, from the enthusiasm and energy of his youth, the bucolic enjoyment of middle life (hence the cow moo), and then the inevitable decline of old age with one of the physical complications that too often comes. As to the title, the buttons could refer to the stages of life, and the gnarly to how these stages are not completely easy or beautiful. In the beginning we button up; at the end we undo.

The other student piece, The Five Ages of Man by Daniel Viggers, began the second half of the program and was quite enjoyable. Again the Bradley string students rose to the task. Viggers based his work on a Greek myth of creation.

Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was the final work on the program and was performed on two pianos by John Orfe and Joshua Russell, who chose to play with their backs to the audience rather face each other, perhaps as a contest to have the audience decide whose coattails were longer. Orfe said he wanted the keyboards to be lateral so that they could see each other’s hands and coordinate better, be a democratic presentation of the pianists, and to balance the sound in the hall. Situated this way, the audience could also see their hands and fingers fly over the keys. The work was demanding and the two pianists pulled it off.

It seems a longer piece when played by two pianos rather than by an orchestra, and while it misses some of the color that a full orchestra would add, the intensity and interaction of the pianists was worth it. The piece is complex and at times seems chaotic, but I could tell that Stravinsky knew what he was doing because phrases kept coming back at unexpected times that ended up being right where I’d want them. Orfe and Russell received the concert’s second standing ovation.

Trinity Concert Series

2010-11-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

November 5

The Four B's-Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Barbershop at Trinity Lutheran Church in Peoria.

The evening opened with Kyle Dzapo, flute, and Carol Wessler, harpsichord, playing Bach’s meditative Sonata in B Minor. John Orfe followed with Beethoven’s Thirty-Two Variations in C Minor, an intellectual presentation of variations on an eight-measure theme that inspired listeners to anticipate what each new variation might be. Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin, then joined Orfe for Brahms’ elegant Sonata No. 2 in A Major. The barbershop group, The AfterHours Quartet--Tim Beutel, Ben Harding, Dan Wessler, and Kevin McClelland performed the second half of the program to a full and appreciative audience.

Violin and Organ Recital

2010-11-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

November 4

Jenna Ferdon, sophomore violinist at Bradley University, and James Marck, organist, presented a violin and organ recital at Sacred Heart Church, Peoria, Illinois. Ferdon performed Massenet’s Meditation, Vitali’s Ciaccona in G Minor, Barber’s Violin Concerto, and Schubert’s Ave Maria. Marck premiered his Prelude and Fugue, and arranged Schwartz’ Veni Redemptor Gentium, with Emily Volz singing the soprano part.

Viola Recital, Bradley University

2010-11-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

October 31

Katherine Lewis, violist, presented a recital at Bradley University, with Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin, Joshua Russell, piano, and Lowell Koons, Mary Heinemann, Diane Wuthrich, and Sharon Chung, violas. The program consisted of Biber’s Passacaglia in C Minor, Hindemith’s Sonata # 5 for Solo Viola, Handel-Halvorsen’s Passacaglia for Violin and Viola, urcell's Dido's Lament, Daugherty's Viola Zombie, and Clarke’s Passacaglia on an Old English Tune.

Central Illinois Youth Symphony

2010-10-26T16:24:00.001-07:00

October 24

The Connected Italian Restaurant was packed with people for the 5th Annual Wine Tasting and Silent Auction. Twenty-one member of the Youth Symphony performed throughout the evening in various small groups, there were a dozen wines to sample, Italian food to eat, George Stelluto, Music Director of the Peoria Symphony spoke, and there were dozens of donated auction items to bid on. Proceeds will benefit the forty-five-year-old organization that has helped train more than 3000 young classical musicians throughout central Illinois.

Two Sergeis and One Elena

2010-10-26T10:32:00.001-07:00

October 23

The Peoria Symphony Orchestra concert on Saturday, conducted by George Stelluto, was a delight.

The Festival Celebration Music in a Russian Style by Elena Roussanova Lucas began the evening. The brass and percussion piece was nicely played and received a warm response. It was the piece’s Illinois premiere, following up the world premiere of John Orfe’s piece last concert. And it featured the brass, after Schuman’s symphony last time featured the strings.

Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 7 was a powerhouse, and at the last note the knowledgeable audience was on its feet with raucous applause.

The second half of the program was Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 for Piano, with Terrence Wilson on the piano. The second movement not only had a beautiful melody, it also had context and subtext. The flute, clarinet and piano traded off the main theme, and the strings soared. Sustained applause again greeted the last notes.

Listening to a forty-minute classical piece not only touches on core emotions, it delves into the depth and breath of those emotions. It’s an experience that leaves the listener feeling there’s nothing more that could be said. It’s the difference between a short story and a novel, or reading one poem instead of a book of poems. And to hear it live, surrounded by music and a community of people, is simply a treat.

Marcia Henry Liebenow and Robert Satterlee

2010-10-05T08:33:00.001-07:00

October 2

Splendid concert last Saturday night at Bradley University. Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin, and Richard Satterlee, piano, presented a varied and exciting program of Mozart, Suk and Faure. Henry Liebenow and Satterlee have played together before, most recently in the Great Hall of the Toledo Museum of Art last November.

The evening began with Mozart’s Sonata No. 26 in B-flat Major. The music was elegant, and the second movement, in particular, flowed with emotion. Mozart composed over thirty sonatas for violin and piano, basically in four groups over his lifetime, and this work was written during the third group of six sonatas from 1779-1781. While his early sonatas used the violin as accompaniment to the piano, this sonata gives the violin breath and life in equal partnership.

Joseph Suk’s Four Pieces, Op. 17, finished the first half of the program, with two of the four pieces being played. It wasn't a familiar work for most people in the audience and they responded to the energy and dynamic progressions. Suk was a Czech composer and violinist who studied with Dvorak at the Prague Conservatory, and later married his eldest daughter, Otilie. Unlike many of his countrymen, Suk did not incorporate Czech folk music into his compositions. And while his early work shows the influence of Dvorak and Brahms, Suk became increasingly interested in creating extended harmonies. His work would lead the way into more complex tonal movements that approach atonal sound.

Faure’s Sonata No. 1 in A Major for Violin and Piano, Op. 13 filled the second half of the evening with passage after passage of lush romantic sounds that left the audience breathless. Three curtain calls showed its appreciation for the artistry of the pair. This sonata was the first in a line of exquisite French violin sonatas that would be written by Faure, Franck, Saint-Saens, Debussy and Ravel. Each movement has several lyrical themes that simply capture the heart.

John Orfe and Schumann

2010-09-28T12:19:00.001-07:00

September 26

At the Unitarian Church in Peoria, John Orfe played a program of solo piano works by Robert Schumann, in celebration of Schumann’s 200th birthday. Orfe teaches at Bradley University, is the core pianist with the internationally-renowned group, Alarm Will Sound, and was recently appointed as the first Composer in Residence for the Peoria Symphony Orchestra.

The program primarily consisted of Schumann’s Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 14 and his Etudes in the Form of Variations, Op. 13. Orfe played them powerfully and fast, handling both the dynamic passages and the tender moments with ease, as in Variation V of Five Posthumous Etudes, and with a delicate touch, on the ending chords of the third movement of Sonata No. 3, Quasi Variasioni.

The Beatles and the Peoria Symphony

2010-09-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

September 24

A Beatles tribute band played with the Peoria Symphony at what was supposed to be O’Brien baseball field, but which was switched to the Civic Center because of the weather. Much of the Beatles music lends itself to including a symphony orchestra, and pairing was magical.

Perhaps more important than how close the band came to sounding and looking like the original Beatles, for many in the audience it was the reconnecting with that music and the past when their dreams were young and they believed that something wonderful would happen in life. Hearing that music, the sources of inspiration began to flow again. Also in the audience were younger people who weren’t familiar with the music, and its affect on them was evident.

The environment was casual. People dressed in whatever was comfortable, they wandered in and out getting refreshments, and the band talked to them between numbers. People were singing and clapping along, the entire audience waved its arms back and forth over their heads to one song, there was dancing, especially in the box seats, and many held up their cell phones with the lights glowing.

It was a great community experience of good feelings.

Peoria Symphony Feast

2010-09-28T12:12:00.001-07:00

September 18

A bang, a sizzle, a romance, and a romp. That is what the Peoria Symphony pulled off for its opening concert of the year. The well-knit program was made up of works that were composed in 1867, 1893, 1942 and 2010, covering the last 150 years of classical music. Something for everyone.

Wagner’s Die Meistersinger started the evening off with a bang. Then came the world premiere of John Orfe’s The Journeyman Progressions, a wonderful fanfare that emphasized the sounds of different parts of the orchestra. This was followed by William Schuman’s Symphony No. 5 and the strings resonated with elegance and melancholy, especially in the second movement. Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 (From the New World) roared out of the gates, with Music Director George Stelluto and the orchestra nailing the piece. David Collier on the timpani was excellent.

John Orfe was announced as the PSO’s first ever resident composer, and the concert was dedicated to Dr. Sam Fan, one of the orchestra’s cellists, who died this summer.

After the final notes, the audience was cheering, stomping its feet, and three standing ovations repeated brought Stelluto back on stage where he directed the applause towards the talented musicians.

Esther Kim, violin

2010-09-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

September 1, Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois

Wednesday evening, violinist Esther Kim presented a full recital—Bach Adagio and Fuga, Elgar Salut d’Amour, Paganini Caprice No. 5 and Caprice No. 24, Mozart Sonata in G Major, Beethoven Sonata No. 5, Debussy, Sonata No. 3, and Sarasate Carmen Fantasy. Kim has won prizes in international competitions and frequently plays concerts in Europe and Asia.

This performance was a dress rehearsal for competitions she will be entering this fall. She was solid technically and precise. Her sound was bright, and she took a fast pace through the pieces, dazzling and exciting the audience. This is the style that is needed to win competitions. I can’t fault Kim for wanting to fine-tune her presentation, and Bradley was happy to have her. Yet playing at the slower pace indicated by the composers would have moved people in their hearts, and perhaps Kim does slow down when playing the same music in regular performances.

When I come to a concert, I am listening for music that hooks into what I’m feeling and takes me further, offering a vision or a resolution that enables me to step back into life with new strength and hope. The piece where this happened the most was Debussy’s Sonata. Here Kim’s pace was a better fit with the music. Her fast pace clicked with the fast sections, and her slower sections allowed me space to feel and breathe. I also think the pace was closer to what Debussy had in mind.

A thought for people who are swept up by musicians who fast and furious. Speed is only one skill in a musician’s toolbox. The notes on a page of music can be compared to the words in a Shakespeare play. The greatest skill is not in seeing how fast you can deliver the words with perfect enunciation, but in making those words come alive, creating moods, characters, and layers of emotions. Something crucial is lost if actors speak too fast and without pacing. It’s like speed-dating—all excitement but not enough passion behind the kiss.

The Peoria Symphony is Creative

2010-08-31T14:30:00.000-07:00

August 31

This last year, Peoria Symphony musicians played in a wide variety of unusual venues and different kinds of music, places like a hockey arena, a winery, in local schools, in the woods at Starved Rock, at a baseball stadium, in the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A., in Lincoln Center, and on the street in Peoria Heights. They played classical music, show tunes, contemporary classical, pop songs and Led Zeppelin music. They played solos, in duets, quartets and in symphonies in states like Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, California, Wisconsin, Ohio, Vermont, Alaska, as well as to London and Haiti. They’ve also spoken throughout central Illinois and in New York. In Haiti they worked with youth devastated by the earthquake. They’ve also written new music and performed the world premiers of other contemporary composers. How many kinds of music will they play this year in the neighborhoods and the world around you?

String Quartet and Baseball

2010-08-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

August 19

A string quartet from the Peoria Symphony played in an unlikely venue today—the O’Brien baseball stadium in downtown Peoria. And they played unusual music—Beatles’ songs.

It was part of a gathering sponsored by the Heartland Partnership and PNC Bank to celebrate the treasures we have in Central Illinois and to announce the September 24th evening concert when the full Peoria Symphony Orchestra will play on the baseball field with a Beatles tribute band.

This pairing of the Beatles with classical musicians is a natural one because the Beatles often used symphony orchestras. The lush, full sounds of the quartet today showed just how melodic and resonant this combination is.

Over the last year, you have probably seen people on local TV standing on blue boxes and sharing what they were doing to improve life in our region. This is part of a community effort called “I’m Stepping Up” to support the good things we have going on.

Come out on Sept. 24th and pack the place for what promises to be a delightful evening, either remembering why you loved the Beatles so much, or discovering their music for the first time.

Learning to Django

2010-08-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

August 15

I’ve heard John Miller and the Romaniacs play twice, once at the Rhythm Kitchen earlier in August and tonight at the Central Illinois Jazz Society. Both times my feet were tapping, knees bouncing, and my head moving to the beat.

They call it Gypsy Jazz to distinguish it from other forms of jazz, but also to acknowledge the influence of gypsy music on Django Reinhardt, the person most responsible for creating the style. It’s a blend of many cultures, and opens you up and encourages you to interact with those around you. The music is filled with joy, celebration and upbeat melodies with a hint of melancholy. The tunes make you want to get up and dance, sometimes slow and sometimes fast. Or lean back on a warm summer evening and listen with a cool drink in your hand, talking to friends between numbers.

This style of jazz is based on Reinhardt’s work in the 1930s and 1940s, and it’s very melodic. Miller says gypsy jazz has a European flavor, influenced by swing and American jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong. There are ballads and love songs, and along the way some Spanish slips in.

Joe Park was the rhythm section on one guitar, Tim Brickner handled the bass, Miller played the melody on the other guitar, and Larry Harms played clarinet and the melodica. Miller and his group have released a CD, and they maintain a website (theromaniacs.com) where you can hear six of their songs and learn what the excitement is about.

Emmy Holmes Hicks

2010-07-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

July 8

Emmy Holmes Hicks, violinist from Chillicothe, is playing in the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan this month. After touring the country with the orchestra, she will return to the States in early August. She recently earned her Doctorate from Stony Brook University in New York, and has played at Carnegie Hall with her quartet.

Todd Kelly Quintet

2010-07-08T09:44:00.001-07:00

July 7

Last night at the Rhythm Kitchen on the riverfront in Peoria, the Todd Kelly Quintet played two hours of sublime jazz. Talented on all the instruments, they played favorites and well as some of their own compositions, with long stretches where each musician could show his creativity. The Quintet plays every third Wednesday night.

The Rhythm Kitchen serves eclectic food and brews from around the world. The décor is a mixture of funky kitsch (items like Japanese lanterns and some kind of George Jetson red disco ball with light tubes sticking out of it) as well as many paintings by artists like Modigliani and works like George Rodrigue’s Blue Dogs.

John Orfe, pianist

2010-06-30T10:17:00.001-07:00

June 30

In case you missed it, John Orfe performed in the new Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in February on the same concert with the L.A. Philharmonic. One reviewer wrote that while all four works on the first program were exquisite, the most striking were the two Ligeti piano pieces played by John Orfe: The etudes were a tangle of notes that seemed designed for a player with 44 fingers, but he glided seamlessly down Etude #13, subtitled “The Devil’s Staircase,” like he was an Olympic bobsledder.

Peoria-based Orfe is also a composer and continues to have his work performed by orchestras and chamber groups around the country. Recent performances has been at the Barbican and at Wilton’s Music Hall in London, and at Lincoln Center.

Marcia Henry Liebenow

2010-06-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

June 28

Marcia Henry Liebenow, Concertmaster of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra and professor of violin, viola, and chamber music at Bradley University, is peforming across the United States this summer.

In mid-June, she was in Montana as a Faculty Artist at the Red Lodge Music Festival. During the 9-day festival, she performed the world premiere of a string quartet entitled Potpourri by Wisconsin composer John Harmon, as well as Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-Flat, Op. 44 in celebration of his 200th birthday, and works by Mendelssohn and Charles Stanford.

Currently she is a faculty artist at the Birch Creek Music Performance Center in Door County, Wisconsin, for two weeks. She was the featured soloist with the Birch Creek Festival Symphony on June 25-26, performing the Charles Stanford Irish Rhapsody No. 6, Op. 191 to a full recital hall and rave reviews. Her performance will be broadcast on Wisconsin Public Radio.

In July, Marcia and her Concordia String Trio will travel to northern Vermont to be in residence at Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival. During the weeklong festival, they will work with musicians participating in the festival Institute as well as present public concerts. Marcia will perform in the world premiere of Quintet for Clarinet, String Trio, and Piano by William Pfaff, as well as the world premiere of a work by festival director Sara Doncaster. She will also perform fellow Bradley faculty member John Orfe’s Barcarolle for clarinet, violin, and cello, and trio works by David Colson and Walter Piston.

George Stelluto, new Peoria Symphony Music Director

2010-06-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

June 24

After a year of watching the stars, one strong conductor after another shining in one wonderful concert after another, speaking of new possibilities and ideas of outreach, and after a season when the orchestra played with renewed passion, excellence and commitment, the sun now rises over the horizon for the Peoria Symphony Orchestra. You can feel the creativity beginning to spark.

At the packed news conference of a hundred people on the Spirit of Peoria riverboat docked on the Illinois River, Stelluto said that the arts are not just entertainment. They are about finding ourselves, challenging ourselves to reach further, and about growing. He sees the Music Director as needing to be involved in the community, the schools, and helping the orchestra take the next step. It’s about the music, he said. It’s not about me because we’re in this together. The Spotted Cow people provided samples of its new ice cream creation, Moosic Director, and PNC Bank pledged its continued support in the coming symphony season.

Afterwards, as I walked back to my car, a song of celebration by Huey Lewis and the News was playing from a nearby restaurant and filled the riverfront. Yes, the long awaited day has come.

The Music's the Thing

2010-06-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

I was watching a great documentary on the life and music of Beethoven and enjoying various musicians play and talk about what they felt he was trying to do with each piece. It was informative and educational. Then Helene Grimaud played a slow passage from Piano Concerto No. 5 (The Emperor) and I was mesmerized. She looked as if she had lost herself to the music and the notes were expressing themselves through her. This wasn’t someone simply playing what was written on the page. This wasn’t a highly skilled musician showing off in front of people, with grand gestures that called attention to herself. Grimaud was in service to the music, letting herself embody every nuance of emotion that the composer wanted to convey. The musician became the vessel of expression for the music.

When I go to hear a live performance, I want the music to come alive by moving through the performers. I want them to be so invested in it, so in the moment that the music becomes them. I don’t want a showoff. Grimaud, the conductor, the orchestra and the music were one. Soloists do interpret the music differently, and this is one of the beauties of a live performance.

John Orfe, Pianist

2010-06-08T13:10:00.000-07:00

June 8

You know how exciting it is when a storm boils up out of nowhere and large trees start to sway in the wind, and sheets of rain sweep over the land, thunder booms and lightning flashes across the sky, and a chill sets in that opens your eyes and ears to what is happening? And then a period of calm settles that is pastoral and meditative. Then the storm returns with a power and a flurry of sounds and movement that builds to a climax of volume and tempo, building until your heart is jumping all around your ribcage, and in the tempest you hear the tune of what could be a great Reformation hymn of faith coming through the fray, and you feel in your bones the affirmation of life and hope that comes at the end of the storm when the heavy weight humidity has lifted, the winds have calmed, and there is a lightness of breath.

That was the experience of listening to John Orfe play Mendelssohn’s Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, Op. 35, No. 1 today at the noon concert of the Bach Festival in Peoria. The performance was mesmerizing and filled the sanctuary with the energy of life, both its struggles and affirmation. And then, just for good measure, the storm that was going on outside the church building ended and the sun came out.

Bach Young Artists' Concert and Jonathan Wessler

2010-06-06T07:14:00.000-07:00

June 4

A showcase of young talent today at noon opened a week of Bach concerts at Trinity Lutheran Church in Peoria. They played preludes, fugues, allemands, sarabandes, canons, gavottes, minuets, gigues, partitas and sonatas on seven instruments – violin, viola, cello, organ, piano, flute and clarinet. Performers were Rachel Keehner, Carmen Klopfenstein, Aaron Keehner, Natalie Kerr, James Nelson, Anna Keehner, Darby Fitch, Alexander Silver, Rebecca Keehner, Courtney Silver, Dana Sloter, and Stevan Lukich.

In the evening, Jonathan Wessler was masterful in playing Bach’s amazing Music from the Clavier-Ubung III on the Trinity organ. One illustration of the complexity of the work came in the concluding Fuga that was actually three fugues. After the first fugue is played, the second fugue begins, but then the first is woven through the second. In the third fugue, both the first and second fugues reappear, each following its own line. Wessler pulled it off beautifully.

Mary Ragna Yetter, harpsichord

2010-06-02T18:41:00.001-07:00

May 28

Last Friday was a night of harpsichord and flute at the Unitarian Church in Peoria. Mary Ragna Yetter was on the harpsichord, after beginning the evening playing Gilbert Martin’s “Toccata on Duke Street” on the organ, and Cindy Silver handled most of the flute pieces. Enjoyable performances, with Yetter pulling a strong sound out of her 17th century-designed instrument. Other musicians included Courtney Silver on the violin and Clara Yetter as the second flutist.

The music included works by Hand, Held, Corelli, Thompson, Martinu, Bach, Staeps, Handel, three salon pieces by Rameau, and a Piazzola guitar piece transcribed by Yetter for the harpsichord.

Emily Hoerdemann's Cabinet of Curiosities

2010-05-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

May 20

Art created by Emily Hoerdemann is on display at the One World Cafe in Peoria. The pieces appear simple, but I suspect they’re complex. Hoerdemann’s work is tough to categorize because they blend aspects of printmaking, Asian landscape painting, and ink on paper that is reminiscent of Ralph Steadman, although the colors are more subdued. Like Steadman, Hoerdemann also leaves much of the canvas blank in some of her work with a flurry of activity in one area and thin lines connecting the objects. They could also be regarded as visual haiku.

The works in the collection have titles like “The Lotus Eaters,” “Station VI – The Orchid,” and “Celestial Mechanics of Coordinate Systems” that are intriguing in themselves. Sometimes words appear in the artwork as in “You Theif,” where snippets of a narrative are written inside each of the three circles. In some of Hoerdemann’s other work, she uses collages of photographs and paintings.

As to the meaning of the paintings, artists generally won’t say but they will ask, “What do you see?” Often an important clue is in the title. For example, a statement about mortality might be Hoerdemann’s subject in “Costanoan Hummingbird” because there is a Native American myth that involves the coyote trying to get rid of the hummingbird by eating it, but the bird refuses to stay dead. The only way to know what a work means is to see it yourself.

Art has long been part of One World’s décor. Murals cover most of the walls of the main dining area, with images overlapping. Amelia Earhart is next to the five-foot-tall head of an Indian yogi in full meditation with mystic thoughts swirling around. They are next to a headless Greek sculpture that stands before the entrance of an underground walkway. On the opposite wall is an ocean, a lady in red in prayer, steps leading up somewhere and lotus pads. The identities of these figures are all conjecture because I didn’t spot any descriptions. It’s a funky environment with a bank of clocks showing the time around the world, a door fixed to the wall with a giant coffee cup painted on it, and aluminum heating tubes and ducts visible below the ceiling of dark brown, pressed tin decorations. There are also quotes by people like Gandhi and Bob Marley. The food is eclectic, uses a variety of tantalizing spices, and is good. The staff is friendly and observant.

Sylvia McNair and Preston Jackson

2010-05-11T06:31:00.000-07:00

May 8

In the evening, after the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Peoria, there was music. Preston Jackson and his Sextet began with an hour of rhythm and blues. Smooth transitions as the musicians traded off the melodies. Perfect music to kick back, delight in the artistry, and let go of the frenzy of the week.

Then Sylvia McNair came on stage and sang to the intimate gathering. This was a change for someone who is used to performing with the top symphonies and operas of the world. She sang classical arias and Broadway tunes, a little Bluegrass, and played the violin. She talked about being a breast cancer survivor, and how a community of people helped her get through the deathly bouts of chemotherapy and radiation. She was funny, personal, and she spoke of the hope that exists with this horrible disease. Many of the songs were chosen for their lyrics, and they were moving. But more than her music, her smile was a testament to the strength of the human spirit.

Todd Kelly Does Shakespeare

2010-04-30T11:00:00.001-07:00

April 25

Sometimes the Play's Not the Only Thing. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at Bradley University. Re-set in the 1950s, this production has some fine performances by quite a few of the student actors, singers and musicians.

What transforms the play into something special is the music, the songs and tunes composed by Todd Kelly, professor of Jazz Studies at Bradley. Sometimes moody but always lyrical, the music infuses the play with the presence of melancholy yearning for love that doesn’t arrive until the end of the play. Sometimes the play’s not the only thing going on. Directed by Steve Snyder.

April 25

Central Illinois Youth Symphony and Orchestras under the direction of Betsy Jones, Brian Dollinger and Philip Rudd. Music by Copland, Chabrier, Sibelius, Schuber and Holst. Winner of the Senior Soloist Competition, Ellen Shinogle, trumpet, played Aleksandr Arutiunian’s Concert for Trumpet and Orchestra.
Metamora High School. Shinogle studies with Todd Kelly.

Mitchell and Ivanov

2010-04-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

April 24

The Peoria Symphony Orchestra, with guest conductor Brett Mitchell and pianist Gleb Ivanov, performed Torke Javelin, Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26 and Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92. Ivanov was spectacular on the Prokofiev, played an encore, and was brought back on stage three times by the sustained applause. Mitchell conducted the Torke and Beethoven without scores, danced on the podium, and he also received a standing ovation. Steve Heinemann, Michael Ericson and Kyle Dzapo were recognized for their sharp performances.

In this blog, I don’t try to record who plays what in every piece or if every piece was technically perfect. What I try to say is what the pieces mean, because music is only important if it touches people, if it inspires, challenges or comforts them. Music needs to address the struggles and celebrations that people have going in their lives and lead them to see further and feel deeper. This is a subjective approach, of course. It also does not replace attending concerts live and being surrounded and enveloped by music.

In this concert, the piece that affect me the most was the piano encore, Alexander Siloti’s Prelude in B Minor that was arranged from Bach’s Prelude in E Minor. Ivanov played the gentle encore slower than I’ve heard it before as the notes quietly moved from melancholy to affirmation. Carol said that when the melody shifted to the left hand, Ivanov brought out colors she’s never heard in that piece before.

This was a splendid symphony season with seven talented conductors, from Butterman’s detailed work for the first concert through the up-tempo performance of Mitchell. The orchestra sounded great all year and the audience left buzzing with excitement.

Bradley String Chamber Music

2010-04-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

April 22

This well-performed concert of Bradley University students featured two string quartets, a trio, and two duos. Works performed included Mendelssohn String Quartet in D Major, Op. 44, Grieg String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 27, Kodaly Serenade, Op. 12, Makris Duet for Two Violins, and Telemann Sonata No. 1 in D Major.

Makris’ Duet for Two Violins, nicknamed “Little Milton on the Beach,” was composed in 1974 and is a work in three movements that begins in oddity and ends in delight. Named for Makris’ son, one can imagine the composer keeping notes as his son goes running down the beach in excitement discovering what the waves brought in, poking at things in the sand, and whomping at objects with a stick to see what they’re made of. Filled with the lush sounds of the sea, the power of the waves, and the movement of a day at the ocean, and performed by violinists Jenna Ferdon and Brianna Smith.

The concert was held at the Dingeldine Music Center on the campus of Bradley University in Peoria, and recognized graduating seniors Erin Rocke Price and Elizabeth Siegel.

April Concerts

2010-04-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

April 15 - Peoria Lunaire, New Music Ensemble. Music by composition students at Bradley University. “Leeloops” and “The Assembly Line” by Michael T. Harris, “four songs for tenor voice (and strings by Brian Spicklemire, “Cries and Drummings” by Joseph Scardetta, and “Chamber Sonata” by Daniel Viggers. Music Director is Stephen Heinemann. Dingeldine Music Center, Peoria.

April 17 – Bradley University Opera, directed by Kerry Walters with Molly Sloter on piano. Barber “A Hand of Bridge,” Barab “A Game of Chance,” and Menotti “The Telephone.”

April 18 - Bradley Symphony Orchestra, Dingeldine Music Center. Brian Dollinger, conductor, with Todd Kelly, trumpet, and Cody Fiedler, trumpet. Mozart “Overture to the Magic Flute,” Ellington “Concerto for Cootie,” Ellington “Boy Meets Horn,” Vivaldi “Concert for Two Trumpets in C Major, Op. 46,” and Dvorak “Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88.

April 18 - Central Illinois Youth Symphony, Metamora High School.

Peoria Symphony Youth Concerts

2010-04-14T12:38:00.001-07:00

April 13

On Tuesday, violinist soloist Stevan Lukich, a 15-year-old from Chillicothe, performed the last movement of Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole with the Peoria Symphony Orchestra. Lukich is this year’s winner of the Young Artist Competition sponsored by the Symphony Guild. Guest conductor Steven Larsen led the orchestra. The other pieces performed included Arnaud’s Bugler’s Dream and Olympic Fanfare, Fucik’s Entrance of the Gladiators, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Dance of the Tumblers.

This was the best youth concert in years. The music was energizing, Lukich was impressive, and Peter Schickele’s football-style commentary on the orchestra as it played Beethoven’s Fifth was funny. It was also educational, identifying the exposition, the coda, and when various themes came in. The play-by-play announcers of Wayne Heinemann and Dan Aspell even pointed out that Beethoven began the piece in one key, C Minor, but ended in a different key, C Major.

This was the 55th year of the Symphony providing Youth Concerts, begun to introduce school children to classical music. There were three performances and thousands of students attended.

Classical on the Street

2010-04-12T11:34:00.001-07:00

April 11

Sunday evening at sunset, a Peoria Symphony violinist gave an impromptu performance outdoors in the gazebo at Tower Park in Peoria Heights. Classical music on the street, free to those who stopped by and listened.

Earlier in the day, the Bradley Community Chorus performed Handel's Messiah with string students from Bradley University.

Led Zeppelin and the Peoria Symphony

2010-04-11T10:59:00.001-07:00

April 10

Music is not just about entertainment, about flash and glitz, although there was plenty of this on Saturday night. It was a rock concert, after all, and had the fog, moving spotlights and even a glitter dome. Music also interprets the events of life and expresses them in ways that allow others to share the experiences, be challenged and inspired.

We heard acoustic, folk, rock, symphonic, blues, heavy metal, even a ballad. There was the motorcycle grind of “Whole Lotta Love,” the amazing drum solo in “Moby Dick” where the drums were played with the hands like timbales, and several great guitar licks. We had electric guitar wailing, quiet, meditative passages, and the transcendent “Stairway to Heaven” on the 12-string guitar. Along with several other groups of the time like the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin was exploring the sounds of world music.

The good rock bands in the 1970s were searching for what was deeper in life, in relationships, what political events meant, and how what we did every day tied into the larger picture of community, philosophy and theology. Music can transcend. This concert wasn’t just a trip down nostalgia lane for nostalgia’s sake. It took many people back to the time when they were young and listened to this music live, listening to find answers they couldn’t figure out. It was a call to them to remember the ideals and dreams they once had and see how closely they have held to them, especially when listening to “Going to California.” And younger people, who were hearing the music for the first time, now began the journey.

The Symphony was trying something radically different. The stage was over a hockey rink, musicians wore simple black clothes, and they played rock music to a younger audience, many who had never seen the Peoria Symphony before and now were exited to go. And proceeds were set up to benefit the Boy and Girls Club of Peoria.

The crowd was dressed in blue jeans and t-shirts, basically what people wear for comfort on the street. There were screams during numbers from the audience, talking to the musicians between pieces, walking around to get nachos and beer, and applause when a favorite song began. I think this was how audiences acted at concerts of classical music two hundred years ago.

The lyrics also deserve attention because words have meaning. Besides the boy sees girl, gets girl, looses girl, wishes he-had-her-back focus that rock bands tend to have, the Zeppelin lyrics also reference Gollum, Modor and the Lord of the Rings, Valhalla and Nordic mythology, Eastern mysticism, the hangman of Appalachian folk songs, and some references that I haven’t been able to trace. The evening was a panorama of Zeppelin music, and in some ways seemed like Girodet’s painting “The Spirits of French Heroes Welcomed By Ossian into Odin’s Paradise” where everything gets tossed in, leaving the viewer/listener to pick out whatever image strikes them the most. And when was the last time you went to a symphony concert and sang words that you cared about enough to memorize?

Some of their lyrics are poetry. These are examples from different songs: Father of the four winds, fill my sails, with no provision but an open face; When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me; Keepers of the Gloom, wonder of devotion, mystery of the quotient; The cup is raised, the toast is made yet again.

My one criticism is that I could not always hear the symphony clearly alongside the rock musicians. I don’t know if this was because I was sitting on the side or if the soundboard people had the balance off.

It was a creative, exciting venture in a new place and brought classical music to a new group of people.

Stephen Frech

2010-04-01T06:32:00.001-07:00

Poet Stephen Frech was in town last week to give a reading at Bradley University, and brought with him some of his collection of broadsides, poems that appear on heavy paper stock with artwork. He likes to emphasize the visual aspect of poetry and pair artwork and poetry together. Not all poems work on broadsides, he says. They have to be of a length that will fit, but more than this, readers have to be able to understand at the first reading because they may not see it again. Broadsides also encourage community by placing poetry in public places where many people read the same poem and interact.

Frech’s own poems draw us to look under the surface for a fresh take on old stories, whether they’re our own or are centuries old. In one of his books he looks at his childhood growing up with a friend who died young, but does so in a way that enables us to plug in details from our own life. In the chapbook about Biblical stories, he focuses on the people who were standing on the sides of the events and draws us in to imagine how we would have responded if we had been there. In his book on Rembrandt, he fills in the backstory of the artist’s life and deepens our appreciation for his paintings.

Electric Paint

2010-03-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

That’s the title of the international exhibit of art at the Lakeview Museum in Peoria that explores what is being created on computers. The sophistication of this art form has expanded beyond the fractals based on mathematical formulas to include a wide variety of images. Sharp lines and vivid colors are still characteristic of many of the seventy works by twenty-two artists on display, but now there are also subtle shades.

Hans Dieter Grossman’s Untitled is a typical fractal, with multiple curves of bright green and purple united by a red line where the images double back. Amichai Shavit’s Untitled looks like Lucite objects that reflect light and scenes of city life. English artist Bev Hodson’s Retrospective series appears to be a set of drawings on old paper, and a couple of works reminded me of Picasso. Many of the pieces were created using several computer programs like Photoshop. One that I saw used four.

Images can be folded on the computer, as well as bent and elongated, and collages created using multiple photographs. Could the same work be done by hands using brushes, pens, scissors and glue, like Polish artist Bogdan Prystrom’s No. 26, where a lady in a red dress has several feet of white hair trailing behind her? Perhaps, but I think it would take a great deal longer and involve extensive experience of working in various physical mediums like metal and wood. Computers have become another tool for exploring what is visually possible, and new programs continue to be created. Although I haven’t seen any yet, I imagine that there are artists who are plugging their computers into machines to create three-dimensional sculptures.

Franz and La Rosa Ransom

2010-03-29T06:55:00.000-07:00

March 27

Saturday night, the Peoria Symphony Orchestra performed with guest conductor Robert Franz and cellist Adriana La Rosa Ransom. The program included the Daugherty Red Cape Tango, Saint-Saens Cello Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, and Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique. Franz spoke engagingly and humorously to the audience before the performance, spoke of many ideas for community interaction, the orchestra sounded tremendous, there were repeated standing ovations, and Daughterty’s theatrical Red Cape Tango, although not as technically complex as the other two works, proved that contemporary classical compositions can be tonal, full of energy, and entertaining.

Before the concert, while waiting in the atrium for the doors to the theater to open, I looked around and realized that I was standing inside an architectural work of art. I was on the third floor by the curved wall of burnt red brick, a half circle that walks left to a straight, tan wall. In front of me, jutting into the open space, were two curves of exposed staircases, and to the right the curve of the silo-shaped, brick elevator column, with a silver-and-glass column that people ride up and watch people in the lobby get smaller as they ascend. On my right, the curved brick wall turns into a wall of sectioned glass that bends into a canopy over the walkway, with a view of the ornate Sacred Heart Church, the massive Sonic Tide sculpture, and the buildings of downtown Peoria. Columns of light gray concrete are spaced around the atrium and rise to the roof.

Suspended over the atrium on wires was a large mobile of silkscreen wings that shimmered with iridescent colors of turquoise, gold, magenta, blues and browns, like a sunset in a J.M.W. Turner painting. “Seven Generations” was created by Nora Hutchinson Johnson. The mobile responded gently in balanced harmony as people walked underneath. Recessed lights on the ceiling created art deco patterns on the straight wall, and I stood on the strange swirling carpet beneath trying to figure out how they created this delicate effect.

A creative, theatrical celebration of the arts.

Led Zeppelin and the Peoria Symphony

2010-03-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

April 10 at 8 p.m. in the Arena at the Peoria Civic Center.

Creative. Different. Innovative.

Classical music does battle with the heavy rock of Led Zeppelin.
Mayhem. Mayhem. Mayhem.

Be there and knock your socks off!

Boston String Quartet

2010-03-14T09:36:00.001-07:00

March 13

Good quartet in town tonight at the Bertha Frank Performing Arts Center in Morton. In concert with the Morton High School Orchestra and Chorus, the Quartet is touring a select group of schools, and performed a wide variety of music from Led Zeppelin to Vivaldi to the second movement of the Shostakovich Quartet No. 8. Chris Adams-Wenger sang to two Beatles tunes.

Most of the Quartet’s solo playing was of music written by contemporary composer Mauricio Yazigi. Their catchy Latin American sound is reminiscent of the work of the Turtle Island Quartet and Quartet San Francisco, although not yet as precise. On “Who Do You Think You Are” by Tower of Power, the cellist had the train chugging, providing a steady, driving rhythm for the dancing melodies of the rest of the group. A creative and innovative performance to a sold-out audience.

Bradley Symphony Orchestra

2010-03-08T06:30:00.002-08:00

March 7

The performance of this year’s Concerto Aria winners. Conducted by Brian Dollinger, concertmaster was Heidi Shick. Vocalist Kathleen Meyer sang O luce di quest’anima from Donietti’s Linda di Chamounix, violinist Kelsey Klopfenstein performed the first movement to Saint-Saens’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in B Minor, and flutist Sarah Brown performed the Poem for Flute and Orchestra by Charles Griffes. After intermission the Orchestra performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4. Dingeldine Music Center, Peoria.

Erin Rocke Price

2010-03-08T06:30:00.001-08:00

March 6

Senior viola recital. The recital featured the Brahms Sonata in E Flat Major, Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, Bloch Suite Hebraique, Rapsodie, and two movements of Bruch’s Eight Pieces for Clarinet and Viola. Assisting in the performance were Ramona Carlyle on piano, Michael Harris on clarinet, and Hannah Salazar on viola. Dingeldine Music Center, Bradley University.

Bertha Frank Performing Arts Center

2010-03-02T08:21:00.000-08:00

March 1

Artwork, young musicians, Antonio Pompa-Baldi and the Concertmaster of the Peoria Symphony came together in a creative celebration of the arts in the away-from-the-Civic Center performance of chamber music.

Antonio Pompa-Baldi, piano, and Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin, performed before a full house at the Bertha Frank Performing Arts Center in Morton. Mr. Pompa-Baldi maintains a busy performance schedule and teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Ms. Henry Liebenow performs around the country, is Concertmaster of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra, and teaches at Bradley University. On display was artwork by Jeanine Abels who creates paintings by combining Asian papers with watercolors and acrylics.

The string quartet from the Central Illinois Youth Orchestra warmed the audience up with Corelli’s Menuetto and Joplin’s Country Club Rag. Mr. Pompa-Baldi played the episodic Schumann Carnaval, then Ms. Henry Liebenow came on stage for the Beethoven Sonata No. 4 in A Minor and the Schumann Sonata in A Minor. They play extremely well together, picking up on each other’s nuances without hesitation, and the results are electric. The audience members agreed, and their standing ovation led to an encore performance of Elgar’s Salut d’Amour. One of the best concerts of the year!

Antonio Pompa-Baldi and Marcia Henry Liebenow

2010-03-01T10:18:00.000-08:00

February 28

Magnificent chamber music was performed Sunday afternoon by Antonio Pompa-Baldi, pianist, and Marcia Henry Liebenow, violinist, at the River House of David and Betsy Jones in Peoria Heights. This was one of the Noteworthy Events of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra that occur throughout the year, and for the fourth year, it showed both the symphony’s support of chamber music and of taking classical music out of the concert hall and into creative venues.

Antonio and Marcia played with passion, precision and power, and in the quiet passages they played with delicate touch, especially on the moving, second movement of Schumann’s Sonata in A Minor. Both spoke eloquently to the packed house about the pieces they would be playing, and mingled with the audience afterwards for two hours of refreshments and desserts.

Their playing together is a rare treat for Peoria.

Stelluto and Moser

2010-02-14T08:24:00.000-08:00

February 13

Peoria Symphony Orchestra with George Stelluto, guest conductor, and Benjamin Moser, piano. Program of Behzad Ranjbaran’s Seven Passages, Frederic Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor, and Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 in G Major. Peoria Civic Center. Spirited performance by the orchestra that has sounded better this entire season. Ranjbaran’s piece, although written ten years ago, reminds of the good classical music from a century ago. Moser played Chopin with nuanced touch, and Dvorak’s Eighth wrapped the evening up with a flourish. Again, several standing ovations by an audience that loves what is going on. Maestro Stelluto showed off his wit, presence on the podium, and brought crispness to the music

French Impressionists by Candlelight

2010-02-09T07:44:00.001-08:00

This year’s Candlelight Concert at Trinity Lutheran Church in Peoria featured the music of French Impressionist composers. The first half featured the music of Claude Debussy including Claire de Lune, arranged for harp, flute and cello, as well as a set of dances entitled Danses for Harp and Strings. The second half included piano works by Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Faure, songs by Cecile Chaminade, and the “Pie Jesu” from the Faure Requiem.

The featured musicians included Linda Warren, harp; Kyle Dzapo, flute; Carol Wessler, cello and piano; John Orfe, piano; and Kerry Walters, soprano.

Concordia String Trio

2010-02-09T07:32:00.000-08:00

The Concordia String Trio, with guest pianist John Orfe, presented a concert of Romantic and contemporary classical music February 7th to an enthusiastic audience in the Dingeldine Music Center in Peoria.

The program included Johannes Brahms’ beloved Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 60, two compositions written for the CST by Leonard Mark Lewis (Mirror Scherzo) and David Colson (String Trio No. 1: Zazen), and Three Counterpoints for Violin, Viola, and Cello by Walter Piston. The Concordia String Trio also performed this program at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

The trio members are Marcia Henry Liebenow, violinist, Concertmaster of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra and faculty member at Bradley University; Leslie Perna, violist, and Darry Dolezal, cellist, both on the faculty at the University of Missouri – Columbia, and members of the Esterhazy Quartet. Pianist John Orfe is a Temporary Assistant Professor of Music at Bradley University where he teaches Theory and Ear Training classes. He is also an accomplished pianist and composer, and the core pianist of Alarm Will Sound, a contemporary music ensemble that performed his Chamber Symphony in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

This concert marked the 10th anniversary of the Concordia String Trio’s debut in Peoria, and the performers received a standing ovation. The Trio has performed recitals, educational programs, and given lecture/demonstrations throughout the Midwest, in Boston, Vermont, California, and Texas. It has also been a featured ensemble at the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival since 2002, recorded a Capstone CD entitled “90’s Timeflow – Chamber Music of Alan Schmitz,” and plans to record several Viennese string trios for the Centaur Record label.

Corn Stock Playwright Festival

2010-01-25T11:30:00.000-08:00

Corn Stock Theatre created a Playwriting Festival this year for short plays, picked ten of the submissions, and performed them this January in its intimate winter theater in Peoria.

Each of the one-act plays lasted around ten minutes and the plays covered a variety of subjects—grisly prison guard stories being told to five-year-olds in a career day scene, a political satire that says, Republican or Democrat, political operatives care only about manipulating the public to win elections, broad, religious humor about Noah finding what didn’t go so well with the Ark and the flood, two plays on male-female relationships that explore perceptions and expectations, a philosophical dilemma about losing one’s personal self to one’s famous, public image, and a dark comedy about selling one’s grandchildren for a better life.

Six local playwrights (Cary Daniels, Eric Gordon, Gary Hale, Patrick Mark Mullowney, Gordon Petry, and Neil Ryan Shaw) wrote the plays that were directed by three directors (Sean Howell, Dani Keil, and Tim Wyman). Each cast member appeared in several of the offerings which allowed the audience to see them perform different roles.

Most of the plays challenged the audience to see struggles in life from two different perspectives. Some plays left the audience wondering what the answers might be. These plays I would like to see expanded to full-length. I’m hoping Corn Stock runs another competition next year.

Dunner and Hoopes

2010-01-12T06:29:00.000-08:00

The Peoria Symphony's January 16th concert was splendid. The orchestra sounded very good under guest conductor Leslie Dunner, and violin soloist Chad Hoopes was impressive on the Mozart, especially with his cadenzas and intonation. Both received standing ovations. It’s also been good this season to hear the great repertoire again, after an absence of too many years. Maestro Dunner's program choices were inspired.

I’m not going to review the entire program but I do want to say that Arvo Part’s Cantus in Memorium, Benjamin Britten was moving. Rather than starting off with an energetic overture that gets the audience excited for what is about to happen, Part’s Cantus began the evening with quiet and spiritual music, and prepared the way for the Mozart piece that came next.

Even if you didn’t know what to expect from Cantus, simply by listening you could feel the scope of deep feelings being expressed. Being aware of the piece’s background would add to your appreciation. Knowing that Part was speaking of his feelings of loss over Britten’s death would set the context for listening. Being aware how the piece was musically constructed would help you appreciate Part’s skill, hearing how the different string sections intersect and descend through dissonance to a common resolution. And knowing about the rich, spiritual significance of bells in the Russian Orthodox Church, would change that instrument’s sound throughout the piece into something more, something that moves from the announcement of death, through grief, and to acceptance. When the strings sustain their last note, it’s as if a tower of Russian bells are resonating with the sum of life’s experiences. And when the last bell rings, there is clarity, as when the sky suddenly clears after a storm, and we feel the final affirmation of life.

When Conductor Dunner began the evening by asking the audience to remember the tragedy going on in Haiti, Part’s composition became the music behind the television images of destruction and despair playing in our heads. The music opened up our own emotional sense of loss.

Cantus in Memorium moved us deep into feelings we probably didn’t expect to feel when we came into the theater. That is one of classical music’s gifts—it’s ability to take us through a core experience of human life, and we come away changed.

Sufficiency of the Actual - Kevin Stein

2010-01-01T08:08:00.000-08:00

Poetry

Kevin Stein’s most recent book of poetry deals with our struggle to be who we think we should be, while trying to accept who we actually are. The door thereby opens for us to recognize the gap and do better the next time we come to a crossroads and have to decide what to do. Sufficiency of the Actual is a wonderful read, full of sounds, rhythms, and meaning. (University of Illinois Press, 2009).

An example of Stein’s skill in crafting poems is evident in a more recent work, the poem he wrote this fall for the state gathering of Gold Star mothers. Knowing that the audience could consist of people used to standard poetry, Stein made the structure of the poem as formal as possible so that the people listening would be comfortable. But he did without rhyming the ends of the lines because he felt that this would make the poem sound too pretty and take away from the serious nature of the gathering, of mothers grieving the military deaths of their sons and daughters. Instead, he rhymes words and uses sounds inside the lines (assonance and anaphoric phrases) to unite the wide range of emotions existing within the room into a whole. I counted nineteen words with similar sounds in the poem’s twenty-one lines.

In terms of organization, he repeats the images in the first two lines at the end of the poem to create the feeling of a prayer, and to remember that those who died are more than unknown names on tombstones. His stanzas alternate between quatrains and tercets. Stein says he did this to speak of the idyllic family of four, and then of the family minus one, the soldier who died. The resulting cadence conveys loss with the unexpected stop at the end of each tercet. In a short amount of space, Stein addresses the growing up of carefree children, the strength of mothers who taught them to be strong adults, and the grief of the mothers who remember all that has been and what now will never be.

December 2009

2009-12-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

December 5
Under the direction of Marcia Henry Liebenow, students of Bradley University’s String Chamber Music Program performed its Fall concert. The program consisted of Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Leclair Sonata for Two Violins in F Major, Schubert String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, and Beethoven String Quartet No. 1 in F Major. The Shostakovich was the highlight of the afternoon, with powerful, and often lyrical, music that flowed between struggle, terror, sorrow and hope. Performers included Brianna Smith, Jenna Ferdon, Elizabeth Siegel, Alyssa Przygoda, Britney Whiting, Kelsey Klopfenstein, Heidi Schick, Erin Rocke, Christopher Adams-Wenger, Kate Lesniak, Jennifer Primm, Hannah Salazar, and Kim Foster. Dingeldine Music Center, Peoria.

December 6
Bradley’s University Chorale and the Chamber Singers performed their Holiday Concert under the direction of John Jost, with Carol Wessler and John Orfe, piano. The beautiful, well-sung program consisted of Hassler, Gallus, Schutz, five choruses from Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Walton, Poulenc, Chilcott and Dove. Also performed was a dynamic piece by John Orfe, “A Hymn on the Nativity of My Savior,” that included the harshness and chaos of the original Christmas scene with the praise of the current. Authors of the lyrics included Ben Johnson, Richard Wilbur, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. Dingledine Music Center, Peoria.

Spirit of Hope Benefit Concert

2009-12-02T13:38:00.001-08:00

On November 21, 2009, the second Spirit of Hope Concert filled the Cathedral of St. Mary’s last Saturday afternoon, November 21st. Forty-five minutes of prelude music began things and featured twenty Peoria Symphony musicians, tenor John McDermott, and the Anima Children’s Choir of Greater Chicago. Musical selections were by Albinoni, Dell Joio, Bach, and Rutter. This led into a mass that included a moving violin reflection by Mark O’Connor during communion, improvising Amazing Grace and Appalachian tunes.

In the evening, the festivities moved to the St. Thomas the Apostle Church where McDermott and his band, Mark O’Connor, the Anima choir, and the Mistletones, an a cappella group, put on a two-and-a-half-hour concert to a wildly enthusiastic audience.

The gathering was a testament to the will of people to combat and overcome cancer. Spearheaded by Dr. Jim McGee, of the OSF Radiation Oncology program, the money raised will go to further cancer education in the community and to purchase needed treatment equipment.

November 2009

2009-12-02T13:36:00.002-08:00

November 7
Peoria Symphony Orchestra, Morihiko Nakahara, guest conductor, Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin soloist, Peoria Civic Center. Program of Liszt Mephisto Waltz No. 1, Kernis Air for Violin and Orchestra, Stanford Irish Rhapsody No. 6, Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 in B Minor. Two standing ovations for the wonderful performance by the soloist and for the conductor, and more people in the audience than there were a year ago. Maestro Nakahara showed great stick technique and intimate knowledge of the score.

November 8
Echoing Air, the music of Henry Purcell, Dingeldine Music Center, Bradley University, Peoria.

November 12
Peoria Lunaire, The Bradley University New Music Ensemble, directed by Stephen Heinemann, Dingeldine Music Center, Peoria. The program featured the works of student and faculty composers. Students: Michael Harris Romance for Clarinet, Joseph Scardetta Aurora, Daniel Viggers Two Roethke Songs, Brian Spicklemire Hidden Temple. Faculty: Stephen Heinemann Synapses and John Orfe Barcarolle. Other composers included Grazna Bacewicz Sonatina for Oboe and Piano, Caleb Burhans In Time of Desperation. Students, former students, and faculty performed the pieces.

My personal favorite was the work by Burhans, composed in memory of Luciano Berio and Burhans’ father, and played by John Orfe on the piano. The use of repeating, single notes, the phrasing, the dynamic range from tender to rage, the passages of confused notes, and the ending on an unfinished phrase superbly conveyed the chaotic landscape of grief.

Nov. 13
Faculty Piano Recital, Dr. John Orfe, Dingeldine Music Center, Peoria. Tremendous performance and a great audience.

November 20
Central Illinois Youth Symphony, Metamora High School. This year the youth organization has expanded to four orchestras– the Cadet and Prep Orchestras, under the direction of Betsy Jones, the Concert Orchestra, directed by Philip Rudd, and the Youth Symphony under the direction of its new conductor, Brian Dollinger. The Symphony played a program of Copland Fanfare for the Common Man, Strauss Die Fledermaus Overture, Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16, with Josh Russell, piano, and Dvorak Symphony No. 9.

November 22
Mendelssohn’s Elijah, St. Mary’s Cathedral, Peoria. 130 singers of the Bradley Chorale and the Bradley Community Chorus, along with the Bradley Symphony Orchestra, joined forces to fill the cathedral with elegant and evocative music. Soloists: Gerard Sundberg baritone, Kerry Walters, Denise Gamez, tenor Eric Ashcraft, Johnny Berlinger, boy soprano.

November 24
Student Cello Recital, Chris Adams-Wenger, with Ramona Carlyle, piano, Dingeldine Music Center, Peoria. Program of Bach Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008, Faure Elegy, Op. 24, Brahms Sonata No. 1 in E Minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 38.

October 2009

2009-12-02T13:36:00.001-08:00

October 2
Student Violin Recital, Kelsey Klopfenstein, Dingledine Music Center, Peoria. I was impressed by her unaccompanied Bach.

October 8
Peoria Symphony musicians played chamber music in the Zambezi River Lodge at the Peoria Zoo for Peoria’s Young Professionals Organization. Music included Hayden’s London Trio # 1 in C Major.

October 10
Peoria Symphony Orchestra, Sarah Hatsuko Hicks, guest conductor, Roger Garrett, clarinet soloist, Peoria Civic Center. Program of Dvorak In Nature’s Realm, von Weber Concertino for Clarinet, Smetana Vltava, Mendelssohn Hebrides Overture, Debussy La Mer. Standing ovation for the great sounding performance from an appreciative audience that was greater than a year ago.

October 17
Bradley Symphony Orchestra, Brian Dollinger, conductor, Terry Solomonson, tuba, Rei Hotada, piano. Dingeldine Music Center, Peoria. Program of Bloch Concerto Grosso for Strings and Piano, Beethoven Egmont Overture, Faure Pelleas und Melisande Suite, Strauss Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 11.

Oct. 20
Faculty Cello Recital, Amy Phelps, with Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin, Andrea Molina, piano. Pieces performed included Piazzolla Invierno Porteno Tango. Dingeldine Music Center, Peoria.

Haiti Benefit Concert

2009-12-02T13:34:00.001-08:00

On Sept. 26th, 2009, a concert was held in the Dingledine Music Center at Bradley University to raise money to help young musicians in Haiti. Coordinated by Dr. John Jost, who received a standing ovation for his decades of work in Haiti, the concert featured orchestral and chamber music by Haitian composers and musicians. A dozen Peoria Symphony musicians donated a day of rehearsals and an evening performance.

Butterman and Van Oeyen

2009-12-02T13:32:00.001-08:00

September 12
Peoria Symphony Orchestra, Michael Butterman, guest conductor, Andrew von Oeyen, piano soloist, Peoria Civic Center. Program of Ginastera Four Dances from Estancia, Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Elgar Enigma Variations. The orchestra sounded better than it has in a long time and the performance brought a standing ovation from the opening concert audience that was larger than last year. Maestro Butterman spoke to the audience at the start of the program with intelligence and warmth.

September 20
Faculty Flute Recital, Dr. Kyle Dzapo, with Marcia Henry Liebenow, violin, Katherine Lewis, viola, Carol Wessler, cello, Linda Warren, harp, Molly Sloter and John Orfe, piano. Dingeldine Music Center, Peoria. Program of Mozart Quartet in D Major, K. 285, Andersen Salonstucke, Op. 52, II Heft, Scarlatti Sonatina in A Major, K. 208, Respighi Siciliana, Orfe Romance, and Debussy Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp.