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CHICAGO SINFONIETTA Ends Season with two new concertos
Featuring the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band and
Chinese GuzHeng Virtuoso Su Chang
Daring program juxtaposes Chinese and Eastern-European Jewish cultures via the Silk Road; Wentz Concert Hall, Naperville, May 11; Symphony Center, Chicago, May 12
(CHICAGO April 18, 2014) – The final concert of the Chicago Sinfonietta’s 2013-14 season offers a musical juxtaposition between the Silk Road-connected cultures of Eastern European Jews and the Chinese, featuring the premiere of two new concertos: one for Klezmer Band and one for guzheng, a Chinese folk instrument.
Conducted by music director Mei-Ann Chen featuring the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band and guzheng virtuoso Su Chang, Identities is presented in two performances only, Sunday, May 11 at 3 pm at Wentz Concert Hall of North Central College in Naperville (171 E. Chicago Avenue) and Monday, May 12 at 7:30 pm at Orchestra Hall of Symphony Center in downtown Chicago (220 S. Michigan Avenue).
“The opportunity to collaborate with such talented and diverse musicians on such contrasting works is a great opportunity for our orchestra to shine and for our audience to get a taste of these very different, but connected, cultures,” explained Chen.
This performance features work by award-winning Russian-born composer Ilya Levinson, including the world premiere of his Klezmer Rhapsody for Klezmer Band and Orchestra, featuring the Chicago Sinfonietta and Maxwell Street Klezmer Band.
“In writing Klezmer Rhapsody, I wanted to bring klezmer idioms of 19th and 20th centuries into the form and convention of the mainstream violin concerto,” Levinson said. “It seemed to me that the genre of Rhapsody would ideally fit my intentions; it gives the composer the ability to present a string of exciting musical episodes, like Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody.”
The program also features a performance of Shtetl Scenes, written by Levinson in 2005. Originally composed for piano, but for this performance arranged for orchestra, Levinson describes it as a “nostalgia cycle” reflecting a world that is “lost and not coming back.”
Levinson, Ph.D., teaches at Columbia College Chicago and is music director and co-founder of the New Budapest Orpheum Society, an ensemble-in-residence at The University of Chicago specializing in music of the Jewish Cabaret.
The program counter-balances Levinson’s gypsy-tinged klezmer works, with Identity: Zhongshan Zhuang, a concerto for the guzheng, a 3,800-year-old Chinese zither –or harp-like instrument—and orchestra, featuring internationally-renowned guzheng soloist Su Chang.
Commissioned in 2009 by Hanyi Inc. and co-composed by American composer Michael Gordon Shapiro and Chinese producer-composer Victor Cheng, the work combines the musical traditions of Western and Chinese culture in a piece accessible to global audiences.
A romantic orchestral concerto setting provides the backdrop to showcase the guzheng’s mesmerizing timbre and lightning agility in a unique blend of the familiar and the exotic. Identity is programmatic, evoking a fictional but all-too real story of a family separated by the Chinese civil war. The three movements correspond to the outbreak of war, the desolation of a former military officer, and the triumphant reunion generations later.
The program closes with a performance of George Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, an appropriate accompaniment to Levinson’s Klezmer Rhapsody.
Tickets
Single tickets range from $42-$54 for the concert at Wentz Concert Hall and $15-$54 for the concert at Symphony Center, with special $10 pricing available for students at both locations. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Chicago Sinfonietta at 312-236-3681 ext. 2 or online at ChicagoSinfonietta.org.
About the Artists
Su Chang 蘇 暢, guzheng, an internationally-renowned guzheng virtuoso Su Chang began her study of the instrument at age six, and has performed both solo and in accompaniment to orchestras worldwide. The guzheng is a Chinese zither that is an ancestor to instruments such as the Japanese koto, Korean gayagaeum and Vietnamese đàn tranh. Su Chang’s notable engagements around the globe include being a featured soloist in the YouTube Symphony orchestra’s 2010 concert in Sydney under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas, and a personal invitation from Oscar-winning composer Tan Dun to perform in the 2012 Zurich premiere of a new work. She has also performed with Grammy-winning artist Kitaro, and tours internationally with the pop/Chinese folk ensemble The VIVA Girls. Ms. Chang premiered Identity concerto in 2010 with the New York Philharmonic, and has been the soloist at every subsequent performance.
Victor Cheng, a Chinese composer and producer joined forces with American composer Michael Gordon Shapiro, to create a striking Identity that bears the musical signature of both Eastern and Western musical traditions. While Cheng composed the core themes and established the direction of the piece, the Los Angeles-based Shapiro; a graduate of the film scoring program at the University of Southern California with a graduate degree in music composition from New York University and a background in writing music for video games. Both of these fields demand a high degree of story and character-related musical skill. He took Cheng’s themes (and detailed story line) and scored them for orchestra and, of course, the guzheng.
Alex Koffman, violinist, arranger, and Musical Director for Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, was born in Minsk, Byelorus and received his Master’s Degree from the Conservatory of Minsk. His musical positions included Concertmaster of the Byelorussian Pops Orchestra. In 1989, after immigrating to America, Alex became Maxwell Street’s first pianist and eventually its violinist and Musical Director. Koffman is co-director of the David Rothstein Orchestra and he plays in classical and pops orchestras. Koffman was featured soloist in the world premiere of Klezmer Rhapsody in Preston Bradley Hall at the Chicago Cultural Center. Alex has recorded five CDs with Maxwell Street and toured with the band in Germany, Austria, England and the Netherlands.
Russian-born Ilya Levinson is Assistant Professor at the Music Department of Columbia College Chicago. His Klezmer Rhapsody, recorded by the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band and was released on the Shanachie label. Levinson is Music Director and Co-Founder of the New Budapest Orpheum Society, an ensemble-in-residence at The University of Chicago, specializes in performing music of the Jewish Cabaret. Levinson graduated from the Moscow State Conservatory as a composer and immigrated to the United States in 1988, where he completed a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of Chicago.
The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, named for Chicago’s old Sunday morning Jewish marketplace, has been one of the Midwest’s premiere Klezmer Bands for over 25 years.
In the years since, Maxwell Street has become the Midwest’s most popular klezmer band, touring seven times in Europe and performing throughout the U.S., including Carnegie Hall.
Performing both for public concerts in the U.S. and worldwide, and for weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and other private parties, Maxwell Street has been central to the revival of traditional Jewish music in the Midwest.
The Chicago Sinfonietta is a professional orchestra that forms unique cultural connections through the universal language of symphonic music. For over 25 years, the Sinfonietta has pushed artistic and social boundaries to provide an alternative way of hearing, seeing and thinking about a symphony orchestra. Each concert experience fuses inventive new works with classical masterworks from a diverse array of voices to entertain, transform and inspire. The Sinfonietta has a proud history of having enriched the cultural, educational and social quality of life in Chicago under the guidance of Founding Music Director Paul Freeman.
Mei-Ann Chen succeeded Paul Freeman as the Chicago Sinfonietta’s Music Director beginning with the 2011-12 season. In 2012 the Sinfonietta was honored with two national awards for excellence from the League of American Orchestras, one for adventurous programming and one recognizing Maestro Chen with the Helen M. Thompson Award for an Emerging Music Director.
Mei-Ann Chen, also Music Director of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, has appeared with symphonies all over the country and the world, include the symphonies of Alabama, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Colorado, Columbus, Edmonton (Canada), Florida, Fort Worth, Honolulu, National (Washington, D.C.), Oregon, Pacific, Phoenix, Princeton, Seattle, Toronto, and the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra. The first woman to win the Malko Competition (2005), Chen has served as Assistant Conductor of the Oregon Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony. Born in Taiwan, Chen has lived in the United States since 1989. She was the first student in New England Conservatory’s history to receive master’s degrees simultaneously in both violin and conducting.
The Chicago Sinfonietta thanks its season sponsors including BP, Naperville’s SECA fund, the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Magazine, Southwest Airlines, the Hotel Arista, the Fairmont Hotel, and WBEZ 91.5 FM. Event sponsors include U.S. Bank Private Client Reserve, Red Bull Flying Bach, ABC7, and the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership.
IDENTITIES
Sunday, May 11, 3:00 pm, Wentz Concert Hall, Naperville
Monday, May 12, 7:30 pm, Symphony Center, Chicago
Chicago Sinfonietta
Mei-Ann Chen, Music Director and Conductor
Paul Freeman, Founder and Music Director Emeritus
Maxwell Street Klezmer Band
Alex Koffman, violin
Su Chang 蘇 暢, guzheng
LEVINSON Selections from Shtetl Scenes & Klezmer Rhapsody
SHAPIRO / CHENG Identity: Zhongshan Zhuang
ENESCU Romanian Rhapsody No. 1
Tickets: $42–$54 (Wentz Concert Hall); $15–$54 (Symphony Center)
For more information on the Chicago Sinfonietta, please visit www.chicagosinfonietta.org.
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Su Chang 蘇 暢
Maxwell Street Klezmer Band
Alex Koffman
Chicago Sinfonietta (Photo by Chris Ocken)
Maestro Mei-Ann Chen (Photo by Chris Ocken)