Program Book - CSO Brass Quintet Plays Bach & More

ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THIRD SEASON

Tuesday, May 14, 2024, at 6:30

CSO Chamber Music Series

CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA BRASS QUINTET

Esteban Batallán Trumpet

John Hagstrom Trumpet

David Griffin Horn

Michael Mulcahy Trombone

Gene Pokorny Tuba

REYNOLDS

J.S. BACH

GENGEMBRE

BRUCKNER

INTERMISSION

MENDELSSOHN

March from Suite for Brass Quintet

Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564 (arr. Mills)

Souffle de ciel sur l’acier

U.S. premiere

Christus factus est (arr. Griffin)

GERSHWIN

KOMPANEK

Centone No. 3 (arr. Reynolds)

Allegro maestoso et vivace from Organ Sonata No. 4, Op. 65

Lento from Kirchenmusik, Op. 23

Allegro moderato e serioso from Organ Sonata No. 1, Op. 65

Con moto from Fugue No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 37

Three Preludes (arr. Holcombe)

Allegro ben ritmato e deciso

Andante con moto e poco rubato

Allegro ben ritmato e deciso

Killer Tango

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.

COMMENTS

by Richard E. Rodda

VERNE REYNOLDS

Born July 18, 1926; Lyons, Kansas

Died June 28, 2011; Rochester, New York

March from Suite for Brass Quintet

COMPOSED 1970

Verne Reynolds, born into a musical family in Lyons, Kansas, learned violin and the rudiments of composition from his father at an early age. He took up french horn while in high school and served for two years with the U.S. Navy Band in Washington (D.C.), following his graduation. After leaving the military, Reynolds majored in composition at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music while performing in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. In 1950 he went to the University of Wisconsin for graduate work, receiving his master’s degree in composition in 1951. He then taught horn and music theory and conducted the university brass ensemble at the school for the next two years. In 1953 he was awarded a Fulbright grant to study composition with Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music in London and played with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham. Upon his return to the United States,

Reynolds joined the faculty of Indiana University as instructor of horn and a member of the American Woodwind Quintet, a resident ensemble at the school. He was appointed to the Eastman School of Music faculty in 1959, where he taught horn and occasionally served as department chairman until his retirement in 1995; he was also principal horn of the Rochester Philharmonic from 1959 to 1968. Among Reynolds’s works are a violin concerto, several scores for orchestra, a wealth of music for brass instruments, and many transcriptions for winds. His awards and commissions included those from the Louisville Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, Lawrence College, Baylor University, Doc Severinsen, Eastman School of Music, and ASCAP.

Reynolds’s Suite for Brass Quintet of 1970 comprises five pieces modeled on traditional genres realized in a contemporary idiom, with special attention to the characteristics of the individual instruments. The suite closes with a rousing march.

this page: Verne Reynolds | opposite page: Johann Sebastian Bach, holding a copy of the Six-Part Canon, BWV 1076. Portrait in oil by Elias Gottlob Haussmann (1695–1774), 1748. Bach-Archiv, Leipzig, Germany

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Born March 21, 1685; Eisenach, Germany

Died July 28, 1750; Leipzig, Germany

Toccata,

Adagio,

and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564

(Arranged by Fred Mills)

COMPOSED around 1705

The magnificent Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C major, probably written while Bach was serving as organist at the Neukirche in Arnstadt from 1703 to 1707, is framed by two of baroque music’s least-related forms. The genre of the toccata was essentially a written-down improvisation whose history traces back to Italy almost two centuries before Bach. Its title is one of those beguilingly slippery seventeenth-century terms whose meaning is often elusive but seems to have come from the Italian word toccare (to touch). The toccata indicated a “touching” with the fingers on the keyboard to create great roulades of sound—sweeping scales, colossal harmonic progressions, dazzling figurations, and so forth—usually presented as unconnected episodes. The fugue, on the other hand, is music’s most tightly

integrated structure, growing from a single theme that threads through each voice and dominates the seamless piece from beginning to end. Bach brought to this marriage of musical antitheses a flying virtuosity (this work is probably similar to the test pieces he used when trying out new organs) and an unerring sense of impassioned drama. Separating the Toccata and Fugue in this tripartite composition is a deeply felt Adagio, perhaps influenced by the form and expressive idiom of the three-movement Italian concertos, which Bach began studying at that time. The arrangement for brass is by Fred Mills, a Juilliard graduate who was a founding member of the American Symphony Orchestra in New York, principal trumpet of the New York City Opera, member of Canada’s National Art Centre Orchestra and New York City Ballet Orchestra, University of Georgia faculty member, and a long-time trumpeter with the Canadian Brass.

JEAN-CLAUDE GENGEMBRE

Born March 4, 1975; Bauvín, France

Souffle de ciel sur l’acier

COMPOSED

2018

Jean-Claude Gengembre began studying music at nine at the conservatory in nearby Lille and continued his musical education at the Paris Conservatory, where he graduated in 1997 with a first prize in percussion. He served as timpanist of the Lille National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Berlin Radio Orchestra. Gengembre has also appeared with the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National d’Île de France, and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and led master classes in France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain, and Korea; he is now on the faculties of the Paris and Lille conservatories. In addition to his performance career, Gengembre is also an active composer. His creative catalog includes works for schools, festivals, soloists, and ensembles.

Gengembre on Souffle de ciel sur l’acier

Souffle de ciel sur l’acier (Breath of Heaven on Steel) is the first in a cycle of studies for brass quintet. Regarding the seemingly referential title, I often start with an idea that only suggests a “climate,” an atmosphere, so this piece is not necessarily program music. The medium of the brass quintet offers infinite sound possibilities, especially through the use of different mutes. Souffle de ciel sur l’acier is an exploration for me, a work that tries out the intervals, sounds, characters, technical possibilities of each instrument. Everything is exactly notated, but since I like the idea of improvised music, I gave each performer a certain freedom in a solo passage that highlights their musical qualities, allowing all the musicians a chance to share some of the same “breath.”

this page: Jean-Claude Gengembre | opposite page, from top: Anton Bruckner, as painted by Hermann von Kaulbach (1846–1909) in 1885 | St. Florian Monastery, where Bruckner served as organist over many years and where he is buried. Postcard published by Joseph Riederer, ca. 1900

ANTON BRUCKNER

Born September 4, 1824; Ansfelden, near Linz, Austria

Died October 11, 1896; Vienna, Austria

Christus factus est (Arranged by David Griffin)

COMPOSED 1884

Though Bruckner is principally remembered as the architect of some of the nineteenth century’s grandest symphonic edifices, his reputation as an orchestral composer was not firmly established until the success of his Fourth Symphony in 1881, when he was fifty-seven. Until then, he was largely known as a teacher and church musician who held positions at St. Florian and Linz before being appointed professor at the Vienna Conservatory and organist to the Habsburg court. To fulfill his duties and to express his profound Catholic faith, Bruckner wrote sacred vocal compositions throughout his life—perhaps the most significant body of service music by any major romantic composer—which include six masses, a requiem, a magnificat, and a Te Deum, as well as some thirty smaller works for a cappella and accompanied chorus. Several streams of stylistic influence

flow into these compositions—the sacred music of Mozart and Michael and Joseph Haydn in which Bruckner had immersed himself since childhood; his exhaustive study of harmony and counterpoint in traditional idioms, which he continued well into his thirties; the revived archaism of Palestrina and Renaissance polyphony; the massed sonorities and block harmonies produced by the nineteenth-century organ; and the imposed simplicities of the Cecilian Movement.

Bruckner wrote Christus factus est, a setting of the Holy Week gradual (Christ for us became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name that is above every name), during the busy year of 1884, which also saw the composition of the Te Deum, visits to Prague, Bayreuth, and Munich, the

COMMENTS

successful premiere of the Seventh Symphony, the first sketches for the Eighth Symphony, and his sixtieth birthday. The motet, his third setting of the text (he also used it in his choral mass for Maundy Thursday of 1844 and as

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Born February 3, 1809; Hamburg, Germany

Died November 4, 1847; Leipzig, Germany

an independent piece for chorus, three trombones, and two violins in 1879), was dedicated to his friend Fr. Otto Loidol of the Benedictine Monastery of Kremsmünster, whose organ and library Bruckner frequented.

Centone No. 3 (Arranged by Verne Reynolds)

COMPOSED 1830, 1833, and 1844–45

A centone, according to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, is “a composition in literature or music formed by piecing together excerpts from different authors or pre-existing works.” The Italian term derives from the Latin cento (patchwork) and dates at least as far back as Pope Gregory, who, sometime before his death in 604 C.E., ordered the compilation from various existing sources of an antiphonarius cento of texts for the sung portions of the mass. The technique was practiced in Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and England and revived in the dozen works that Verne Reynolds derived from music by Boyce,

Scheidt, Mendelssohn, Hellendaal, J.C. Bach, Weelkes, Sweelinck, Isaac Posch, and others. Reynolds’s Centone no. 3 is based on organ and choral works by Felix Mendelssohn.

Felix Mendelssohn was born into one of the most prominent Jewish families in northern Europe—his grandfather Moses was a celebrated philosopher who advocated the assimilation of Jews into the culture of their country and made German adaptations of the Pentateuch, Song of Songs, and a number of psalms—but his father, Abraham, had him baptized into Christianity in 1816 and then added the Christian surname Bartholdy to his ancestral one to indicate the change of faith. (Abraham himself, however, waited six more years before becoming a Lutheran.) Felix was certainly proud of his ancestry (he did not care for the appended Bartholdy

this page: Felix Mendelssohn, portrait in oil by Eduard Magnus (1799–1872), 1846 | opposite page: Cécile Mendelssohn, portrait in oil by Eduard Magnus (1799–1872), 1846

and chose not to use it whenever he thought his father would not object) and was himself occasionally the subject of anti-Semitism (which he fended off by pretending that it was just a joke), but he had little interest in any organized religion, not attending services or praying or extolling one faith above another. The most important result of Mendelssohn’s conversion was the ease with which it allowed him to become immersed in the music of the Christian church, especially the incomparable choral and instrumental masterworks of Johann Sebastian Bach: his revival of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829 brought him to international prominence; many of his sacred compositions—motets, oratorios, psalms, hymns, anthems—found their inspiration and models in Bach’s music; he incorporated the contrapuntal techniques he learned from Bach in works throughout his life. Mendelssohn also possessed an excellent skill as an organist (which equaled his skills as composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist), and the music of Bach was, quite naturally, the principal vehicle for his organ study and performance. Though his three-dozen works for the instrument comprise mostly fugues and shorter pieces, the set of six substantial organ sonatas published by Coventry & Hollier in London in 1845 has assured him a place as one of the

most significant organ composers of the nineteenth century.

The opening movement of the Centone no. 3 is based on the finale of the Organ Sonata no. 4 in B-flat major from op. 65. It frames a long imitative passage based on a vigorous theme between an introduction and coda in chordal style.

The Lento derives from a setting of the old chorale “Aus tiefer Not schrei’ ich zu dir” (In deepest distress I cry to Thee) that Mendelssohn composed for chorus in 1830 and published as his Kirchenmusik, op. 23 two years later. The Centone no. 3 includes the cantata’s opening chordal setting of the hymn and the fourth of its five movements, which embeds the melody in a contrapuntal background.

The Allegro moderato e serioso, an arrangement of the opening movement of the Organ Sonata no. 1 in F minor, op. 65, is an impressive display of Mendelssohn’s ability to integrate baroque counterpoint into his own distinctive idiom that weaves the chorale tune “Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit” (What my God wills, will be done eternally) into a carefully worked fugue on a chromatic subject. Mendelssohn’s first works for organ—the Three Preludes and Fugues, op. 37—are associated with his wedding to Cécile Jeanrenaud, the daughter of a minister

at the French Reformed Church in Frankfurt. They were married (in French) at the church on March 28, 1837, and made a honeymoon procession along the Rhine through Mainz, Worms, and Speyer, where Felix entertained his new bride by improvising on the organ at the Protestant Trinity Church. Though Cécile dismissed the instrument as “a wretched box of whistles,”

GEORGE GERSHWIN

Felix found inspiration in the situation, and during the following week, he composed three preludes to pair with three fugues he had written a few years before. The Fugue no. 1 in C minor that closes the centone is based on a jaunty subject Mendelssohn had improvised at St. Paul’s during a visit to London in 1833.

Born September 26, 1898; Brooklyn, New York

Died July 11, 1937; Hollywood, California

Three Preludes (Arranged by Bill Holcombe)

Born November 9, 1924; Trenton, New Jersey

Died April 25, 2010; Trenton, New Jersey

COMPOSED 1926

Though the 1924 Rhapsody in Blue is usually cited as Gershwin’s initial foray into the concert world, he had been dabbling with more serious modes of musical expression for at least a half-dozen years by that time. He started composing piano miniatures—novelettes, he called them— as early as 1917 and wrote a charming lullaby for strings two years later. In January 1925 he headed a new notebook

“Preludes” and started to sketch out some ideas for what he planned to be a set of twenty-four short piano pieces collectively titled The Melting Pot. Late the following year, the British-born (of Peruvian parents) contralto Marguerite d’Alvarez enlisted Gershwin to play in her New York recital, which was to include a set of popular numbers as a foil to her usual repertory of Spanish and French songs. Gershwin agreed to act as accompanist for the popular songs on the program and also to play three of his new preludes, which he titled “Prelude no. 1,” “Blue Lullaby,” and “Spanish Prelude.” The recital on

this page: George Gershwin, ca. 1920s–early 1930s. Bain News Service, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. | opposite page: Sonny Kompanek

December 4, 1926, at the fashionable Hotel Roosevelt was a success, and Gershwin and d’Alvarez performed the same program in Buffalo and Boston early the following year. Shortly thereafter, Gershwin published the three preludes, which have since come to be regarded as his most important concert works for solo piano.

Gershwin’s Three Preludes, arranged in the classical ordering of fast–slow–fast, were spawned from the familiar popular idioms of the 1920s. The first is a blend of Charleston and tango; the second is a deeply nostalgic blues; and

SONNY KOMPANEK

Born September 29, 1943

Killer Tango

Sonny Kompanek earned his bachelor’s degree in music at West Virginia University and his master’s at the Eastman School of Music, where he studied composition with Thomas Canning and Samuel Adler and piano with Brooks Smith, Jascha Heifetz’s long-time accompanist. Kompanek has orchestrated over seventy feature films, including The Big Lebowski, The Look of Love, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn–parts

the third is jazzy with a strong Spanish inflection. The preludes have been transcribed for orchestra (several times), for piano trio, for trumpet, and saxophone, but the best-known arrangement is the one Jascha Heifetz made for violin and piano, which he recorded and frequently used as an encore.

The arrangement of the preludes for brass is by Bill Holcombe, who studied at the University of Pennsylvania and played saxophone and arranged for the Tommy Dorsey Band, Peter Nero, and the Philly Pops, among many other popular and classical artists.

1 and 2, Won’t Back Down, Too Big to Fail, Beastly, True Grit, The Perfect Age of Rock ’n’ Roll, Dan in Real Life, The Nanny Diaries, The Good Shepherd, Hollywoodland, Casanova, The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, The Alamo, The Rookie, A Knight’s Tale, and Picture Perfect. His compositions have been performed by major orchestras across the country, and he has written for a wide variety of popular artists, including Wynton Marsalis, the Canadian Brass, Soul Asylum, and Boyz II Men. After settling in New York in 1977, Kompanek began arranging and orchestrating for film composer Michael Small and later for Carter Burwell. He

also worked extensively with many top composers, such as Howard Shore, Michael Kamen, John Powell, Elliot Goldenthal, Wyclef Jean, and Cy Coleman. As a pianist, in addition to his own trio, Kompanek worked with Mel Tormé, Diahann Carroll, Joe Williams, Shirley MacLaine, Chuck Mangione, and Buddy DeFranco. He taught at the New York University, Mannes/New School, and Brooklyn University and authored a highly acclaimed book on

motion picture scoring, From Score to Screen, published by Schirmer Books. His “Killer Tango,” composed in 1984 for the Canadian Brass, combines the mood of the sultry Latin dance with a bit of Hollywood dazzle.

Richard E. Rodda, a former faculty member at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, provides program notes for many American orchestras, concert series, and festivals.

CSO Chamber Music

6/2 Guadagnini String Quartet at South Shore Cultural Center 6/18 Trillium Ensemble Plays Brahms

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PROFILES

Esteban Batallán Trumpet

Esteban Batallán was appointed principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2019 by Riccardo Muti. Previously, he was principal trumpet of the Hong Kong Philharmonic during the 2018–19 season and for the Orchestra of the City of Granada from 2002 to 2018. He also served as guest principal trumpet with the Royal Orchestra of Seville from 2010 to 2014 and with the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala and the Filarmonica della Scala from 2015 to 2018.

Batallán has also appeared with distinguished orchestras around the world, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and has worked under esteemed conductors, including Jaap van Zweden, Zubin Mehta, Bernard Haitink, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Riccardo Chailly, among others. He has appeared as soloist with the Orchestral Ensemble of Paris, Spanish Radio-Television Orchestra, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Geneva Camerata, and Symphony Orchestra of India, among others.

Batallán is the winner of several prestigious competitions, including the Jeunesses Musicales of Spain Competition (2001), Yamaha Xeno National Competition (2002), Jeunesses Musicales of Europe Competition (2003), and the Yamaha International

Competition (2003). He was also a prizewinner at the 2006 Maurice André International Trumpet Competition. A native of Barro in Galicia, Spain, Batallán began his musical studies at the age of seven. He continued his training at the Conservatory of Music in Pontevedra, the Conservatory of Music of Vigo, and the Galicia School of Musical Studies. Batallán served as coach with the Young Academy of the Granada City Orchestra for sixteen years and has led master classes at Colburn School, New England Conservatory, Conservatory of Paris, and groups from the National Youth Orchestra of Spain, Youth Orchestra of Andalusia, and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, as well as other brass festivals around the world.

John Hagstrom Trumpet

John Hagstrom joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as fourth trumpet in 1996. A year later, he won the Orchestra’s second trumpet position, carrying on the tradition of brass section teamwork for which the CSO is famous. Previously, he was principal trumpet of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra in Kansas and served as assistant professor of trumpet at Wichita State University. Hagstrom is the host of Intermission at the CSO, a podcast produced by the CSOA, showcasing the voices of

numerous CSO musicians through individual features or within topical episodes that discuss the dedication of the Orchestra to its mission and listeners. Originally conceived as a way for supporters and students to stay connected to the Orchestra during the COVID-19 pandemic, the podcast additionally features selected moments from many CSO recordings.

A passionate supporter of music education, in 2006, Hagstrom helped initiate Dream Out Loud, a music-education advocacy partnership between the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association and the Yamaha Corporation of America. The initiative developed a variety of resources for elementary through high school students, their teachers, and parents to support students’ music education and provide encouragement in times of challenge.

A native Chicagoan, Hagstrom grew up listening to the CSO. He studied at the Eastman School of Music and for six years was a member of the President’s Own United States Marine Band in Washington (D.C.), where he spent three of those years as principal trumpet.

David Griffin Horn

David Griffin was appointed to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1995. Upon graduating from Northwestern University in 1987, he began his career with the Rochester Philharmonic and followed with positions in the orchestras of Montreal and Houston. He has served as guest principal horn of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Shanghai Radio Orchestra. In September 2017, Griffin traveled to Japan for a solo tour, giving recitals in Tokyo, Nagasaki, and Osaka.

With the wind quintet Prairie Winds, he has performed in more than twentyfive states and has released two CDs. With the CSO Brass Quintet, Griffin has toured Japan, China, Taiwan, and Mexico. In June 2012, Griffin soloed with the National Orchestra of Brazil. He debuted as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony in Schumann’s Konzertstück, op. 86, at the Ravinia Festival in 2010. He has released the solo album For You, featuring the worldpremiere recording of the sonata for horn by Bruce Broughton.

Griffin is a faculty member at Roosevelt University and previously taught at McGill and Northwestern universities. He has given master classes at the Colburn School in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Conservatory. Summer festival engagements have

included Sun Valley, Grand Teton, Tanglewood, Manchester (VT), and Madeline Island. Griffin has also been a featured artist and clinician at the annual symposium of the International Horn Society.

Griffin, his wife, Susan Warner, and their children, Henry and Pearl, live in Oak Park, Illinois.

Michael Mulcahy Trombone

Chicago Symphony Orchestra trombonist

Michael Mulcahy appears worldwide as a soloist, conductor, and teacher. He was appointed to the CSO by Sir Georg Solti in 1989, having been principal trombonist of the Tasmanian and Melbourne symphony orchestras and solo trombonist of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Mulcahy made his solo debut with the Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim in 2000 and subsequently performed as soloist under Pierre Boulez. In October 2016, he gave the world premiere of Carl Vine’s Five Hallucinations for Trombone and Orchestra, and in February 2018, he performed in the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s Low Brass Concerto.

Mulcahy is the winner of several international competitions, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Instrumental Competition, the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, the Viotti International

Competition in Italy, and the International Instrumental Competition in former East Germany.

He has been principal trombonist of Chicago’s Music of the Baroque and the Grand Teton Music Festival since 1992.

Mulcahy is also principal trombonist of the Australian World Orchestra, having performed under conductors Alexander Briger, Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle, and Riccardo Muti. He was a founding member of the National Brass Ensemble in 2014.

An invitation to direct the West German Radio Orchestra sparked Michael Mulcahy’s interest in conducting. He serves as director of the CSO Brass, conducts annually for the Grand Teton Musical Festival, and makes guest appearances with the Sydney Symphony, Tasmanian Symphony, New World Symphony, and the Royal Danish Orchestra.

Currently, Mulcahy leads the trombone studio at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music and is a visiting artist at the Australian National Academy of Music.

Born in Sydney, Australia, Michael Mulcahy began studying trombone with his father, Jack Mulcahy, and completed his studies with Baden McCarron of the Sydney Symphony and Geoffrey Bailey at the State Conservatorium of New South Wales.

Gene Pokorny Tuba

Gene Pokorny has been principal tuba of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1989. He also held principal tuba positions in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Utah Symphony, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. While in Los Angeles, he played on the soundtracks to Jurassic Park, The Fugitive, and other motion pictures.

Pokorny grew up in Downey, California, about a mile from the building site of the Apollo command modules that first took humans to the moon. He studied tuba in the Los Angeles area with Jeffrey Reynolds, Larry Johansen, Tommy Johnson, and Roger Bobo.

When Pokorny isn’t counting rests in the back row of Orchestra Hall, he can be found teaching at music festivals and performing solo recitals worldwide. He has recorded several solo and educational discs and assisted Rolling Stones trombonist Michael Davis in

recording several educational workbook CDs. Pokorny received an Outstanding Alumnus Award from the University of Southern California and an honorary doctorate from the University of Redlands. He currently lectures and teaches at Roosevelt and Northwestern universities and the Pokorny Low Brass Seminar.

A member of the Union Pacific (Railroad) Historical Society, Gene Pokorny spends time as a “foamer,” watching and chasing trains. He is a card-carrying member of the Three Stooges Fan Club and an avid devotee of his good friend David “Red” Lehr, the greatest Dixieland sousaphonist in the known universe, who passed away in January 2021. Pokorny finds guidance in the overview of life through Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, passion in the music of composers Gerald Finzi and Giacomo Puccini, humility in Carl Sagan’s threeand-a-half minute video Pale Blue Dot, inspiration in listening to his fabulous colleagues onstage, and perspective in all things through the basset hounds with whom he lives; they are always appreciative of a hug.

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Brian Nelson Manager, Endowment Gifts & Planned Giving

Victoria Barbarji Manager, Strategic Giving

Institutional Advancement

Susan Green Director, Foundation & Government Relations

Nick Magnone Director, Corporate Development

Mary Grace Corrigan Manager, Grants & Institutional Giving

Donor Engagement and Development Operations

Liz Heinitz Senior Director, Development Operations & Annual Giving

Lisa McDaniel Director, Donor Engagement

Alyssa Hagen Associate Director, Donor & Development Services

Kimberly Duffy Associate Director, Donor Engagement

Jocelyn Weberg Senior Manager, Annual Giving

Jamie Forssander, Brent Taghap Managers, Donor Engagement

John Heffernan Coordinator, Donor Engagement

Hope Oester Prospect & Donor

Research Specialist

Bri Baiza, Victoria Menendez Coordinators, Donor Services

A NEW SEASON AWAITS

CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

BEETHOVEN Eroica

R. STRAUSS Don Juan and Don Quixote

TCHAIKOVSKY Swan Lake

BARTÓK Bluebeard’s Castle

BERLIOZ The Damnation of Faust

SYMPHONY CENTER PRESENTS A journey through musical stories

Extraordinary talent. Thrilling collaborations. Unforgettable moments.

Anne-Sophie Mutter

Evgeny Kissin

Julia Fischer

Leonidas Kavakos

Mao Fujita

Daniil Trifonov, CSO Artist-inResidence

Klaus Mäkelä, Zell Music Director Designate