The 2023–24 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by
Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation, which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program.
2
ONE H U NDR ED FI FT H SEAS ON
CIVIC ORCHESTRA OF CHICAGO KEN-DAVID MASUR Principal Conductor
The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair
Monday, February 12, 2024, at 7:30
Lina González-Granados Conductor Eighth Blackbird Christopher Whitley Violin Aaron Wolff Cello Lina Andonovska Flutes Zachary Good Clarinets Matthew Duvall Percussion Lisa Kaplan Piano CUONG
Vital Sines EIGHTH BL ACKBIRD
RAUTAVAARA
Cantus arcticus, Op. 61 The Bog Melancholy— Swans Migrating
INTERMISSION
BATES
Anthology of Fantastic Zoology Forest: Twilight— Sprite Dusk— The A Bao A Qu Nymphs Night— The Gryphon Midnight— Sirens— The Zaratan— Madrugada
The 2023–24 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation, which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program. The appearance of Eighth Blackbird with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago is generously sponsored by John and Dora Aalbregtse, Leslie and John Burns, Judy Feldman, Mirjana Martich and Zoran Lazarevic, Sandra and Earl Rusnak, Jr., and Carol S. Sonnenschein. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency. C SO.ORG/INSTITUTE
3
COMMENTS by Viet Cuong and Phillip Huscher VIET CUONG Born 1990; West Hills, California
Vital Sines The music of Vietnamese American composer Viet Cuong has been commissioned and performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Eighth Blackbird, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sō Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, Atlanta Symphony, Sandbox Percussion, Albany Symphony, PRISM Quartet, and Dallas Winds, among many others. In his music, Cuong enjoys exploring the unexpected and whimsical, and he is often drawn to projects where he can make peculiar combinations and sounds that feel enchanting or oddly satisfying. His notable works thus include concertos for tuba and dueling oboes, percussion quartets utilizing wine glasses and sandpaper, and pieces for double reed sextet, cello octet, and solo snare drum. This eclecticism extends to the variety of musical groups he writes for, and he has worked closely with ensembles ranging from middle school bands to Grammywinning orchestras and chamber ensembles. His wind ensemble works are widely performed, having been programmed by the world’s preeminent wind bands such as the Dallas Winds, United States Navy Band, “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own,” Army Field Band, Coast Guard Band, and Air Force Band. Cuong is the Pacific Symphony’s current composer-inresidence. He has held artist residencies at Copland House, Yaddo, Ucross, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Dumbarton Oaks. His music has been awarded the Barlow Prize, William D. Revelli Prize, Frederick Fennell Prize, Walter Beeler Memorial Prize, Barlow Endowment Commission, ASCAP Morton Gould Composers Award, Theodore Presser Foundation Award, Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composers Award, Cortona Prize, New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission, and Boston GuitarFest Composition Prize. Cuong serves as assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he teaches composition, orchestration, and music theory. He holds degrees in music composition from Princeton University, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Peabody Conservatory.
4
COMPOSED
2022
FIRST PERFORMANCE
April 9, 2022; Alexandria, Virginia I N S T R U M E N TAT I O N
three flutes with piccolo, two oboes with english horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet, two bassoons, four saxophones (soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone), three trumpets, four horns, two trombones, bass trombone, euphonium, tuba, timpani, percussions, solo sextet (violin, cello, flute, B-flat clarinet, percussions, piano) A P P R OX I M AT E PERFORMANCE TIME
16 minutes
t h i s pa g e : Viet Cuong, photo by Jay Young o p p o s i t e pa g e : Einojuhani Rautavaara, ca. 1950s
C OMME NTS
Viet Cuong on Vital Sines
I
t would be difficult to overstate just how important the wind ensemble has been in my life. Band was where I found community and identity during a time in my youth when I feared that there was nothing out there for me. In fact, it was one of the only places during those teenage years where I felt confident in who I was. And it was ultimately this confidence that gave me the nerve to believe that I could one day make it as a composer. But my life in the wind ensemble world almost never was. I very nearly gave up my musical pursuits in a fit of childhood frustration at the age of eleven. My father, though he had no musical ability himself, saw in it something important. Always one to look after my creativity, he steadied me and encouraged me to give it more time. It was not long before he was proven right, and music became something vital to me. I find myself thinking of that crucial moment more and more since my father’s passing and how music was and remains my vital connection to him. In the last weeks of his life—spent in the disorienting whir of the ICU—I often struggled to speak. But when I could not, I would play him the pieces of mine that I knew were his favorites, hoping that the sounds, the sine waves, could find their way to his consciousness. Since his death, I have come to understand that my love for music
is inseparable from the love I have for him. I still catch myself wanting to call him and play him my latest efforts. This one, Vital Sines, is dedicated to my father’s memory as the guardian of my musical life, as well as the many moments during my life when I found sanctuary in music. The creation of this particular piece, though challenging, was a way of finding solace when I needed it most. Throughout the piece, I employ several musical sequences and chaconne forms, all of which use repetition as a means of development. The overarching structure of the piece thus bears a resemblance to the visual depiction of the sine wave, rising and falling like the tracing of breaths and heartbeats. There is, of course, comfort in the familiarity of continued repetition. But I also followed memories back to my teenage years in band, when that community had the extraordinary ability to not just bring me comfort but heal my heart. What I then realized was that all the other musical communities I have become a part of since then, band or not, hold this same healing power. With this concerto, written for Eighth Blackbird and the United States Navy Band, I am tremendously honored to bring together the wind band and new music communities. —Viet Cuong; courtesy of vietcuong.com
EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA
COMPOSED
Born October 9, 1928; Helsinki, Finland Died July 27, 2016; Helsinki, Finland
1972
FIRST PERFORMANCE
Cantus arcticus, Op. 61 (Concerto for Birds and Orchestra)
October 18, 1972; Oulu, Finland
Einojuhani Rautavaara was the first Finnish composer to command world attention after Sibelius early in the twentieth century. For many years, he was a low-profile figure whose name was barely known outside his native land. Rautavaara was born into a musical family (his father was an opera singer and cantor); he studied
I N S T R U M E N TAT I O N
two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, trombone, celesta, strings, recording A P P R OX I M AT E PERFORMANCE TIME
19 minutes
C SO.ORG/INSTITUTE
5
C OMME NTS
musicology at the University of Helsinki and composition at the Sibelius Academy. It was the ninety-year-old Sibelius, in fact, who selected him for a Koussevitzky Foundation Grant to study in the United States. In 1955 Rautavaara came to this country and worked with Vincent Persichetti at the Juilliard School and with Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland at the Tanglewood Music Center. After he returned to Finland, Rautavaara taught at the Sibelius Academy. Although Rautavaara’s music was regularly performed at home and had won several awards, his popularity was largely limited to Finland until the 1990s, when he became a kind of cult figure, both throughout Europe and the United States. Although his works aren’t overtly religious, their spiritual and contemplative nature, conveyed in highly tonal music of simplicity and atmospheric beauty, began to attract a wide following, particularly from listeners drawn to the suddenly fashionable music of such composers as Arvo Pärt and Henryk Górecki. Rautavaara also has unwittingly cashed in on a rising fascination with angels, which he anticipated by more than a decade. (His own interest in the dark and powerful force of angels was inspired by a childhood dream and by a cloud formation in the shape of an angel that he saw many years later from an airplane window.) This obsession—“They repeat in my mind like a mantra that radiates musical energy,” he says—has influenced much of his output, beginning with Angels and Visitations in 1978. (The last manifestation was his Seventh Symphony, subtitled Angel of Light, composed in 1994.) Rautavaara’s music has evolved over his long career from neoclassicism through serialism to his own idiosyncratic language. He has fashioned something distinctive and personal of the Sibelius legacy he inherited but calls himself a
6
romantic composer: “A romantic has no coordinates. In time he is in yesterday or tomorrow, but never in today.” When Rautavaara died in 2016, he left a large body of work: eight symphonies, nine operas, and a dozen concertos, along with many chamber, choral, and orchestral scores. Cantus arcticus, an early work, dating from 1972, incorporates field recordings and improvisatory gestures; it remains his most frequently performed piece. At the top of the score, Rautavaara gives the musicians this direction: “Think of autumn and Tchaikovsky.” —Phillip Huscher
Einojuhani Rautavaara on Cantus arcticus
T
he Cantus arcticus was commissioned by the University of Oulu for its degree ceremony. Instead of the conventional festive cantata for choir and orchestra, I wrote a “concerto for birds and orchestra.” The bird sounds were taped in the Arctic Circle and the marshlands of Liminka [a municipality in the former province of Oulu, in Northern Finland]. The first movement, Suo (The Bog), opens with two solo flutes. They are gradually joined by other wind instruments and the sounds of bog birds in spring. Finally, the strings enter with a broad melody that might be interpreted as the voice and mood of a person walking in the wilds. In Melankolia (Melancholy), the featured bird is the shore lark; its twitter has been brought down by two octaves to make it a “ghost bird.” Joutsenet muuttavat (Swans Migrating) is an aleatory texture with four independent instrumental groups. The texture constantly increases in complexity, and the sounds of the migrating swans are multiplied, too, until finally, the sound is lost in the distance.
C OMME NTS
MASON BATES Born January 23, 1978; Richmond, Virginia
Anthology of Fantastic Zoology “The task of art,” Jorge Luis Borges said in an interview shortly before his death, “is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory.” Mason Bates, the Chicago Symphony’s Mead Composerin-Residence from 2010 to 2015, discovered Borges in a Latin American literature course at Columbia University. “His use of nonfiction prose style when describing the realm of fantasy and imagination is unmatched by any writer,” Bates said. Bates’s 2014 work, Anthology of Fantastic Zoology—written for the Chicago Symphony and Riccardo Muti to mark the end of Bates’s residency with the CSO—is a fabulist concerto for orchestra that was inspired by one of Borges’s greatest flights of fancy. Borges’s Manual de zoología fantástica was first published in 1957, at the time when Borges’s eyesight had deteriorated to the point that he could no longer read what he was writing. His inner vision, however, had never been more vivid, as he described mythical beasts from folklore, legend, and literature. When an expanded version of the anthology came out a decade later, under the title The Book of Imaginary Beings, the New York Times suggested it was the “skeleton-key to Borges’s literary imagination.” Although Borges’s writings have inspired composers before, Bates is the first to take the anthology as a point of departure. At the time, Bates was an English major—he attended the Columbia-Juilliard joint program and received degrees in both English literature and musical composition—he didn’t realize that magical realism or any other form of fiction would have a direct impact on the music he would write. Now that he is an established composer with a catalog of regularly performed works, Bates says that literature is his primary nonmusical influence. Yet although books have often served as a reference point—the form of alternative energy, the “energy symphony” he wrote for the CSO and Muti and introduced here in February 2012, was indebted to the changing time frames of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas—this is his first major work that is actually based on a book. In his preface to the anthology, Borges says that it was never intended for consecutive reading, and he
COMPOSED
2014
Commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Dedicated to Riccardo Muti, the CSO’s tenth music director I N S T R U M E N TAT I O N
three flutes and piccolo, three oboes and english horn, three clarinets, E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet, three bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets and piccolo trumpet, three trombones, tuba, xylophone, glockenspiel, large Chinese drum, woodblocks, crash cymbals, crotales, triangle, bass drum, snare drum, castanets, tam-tam, ratchet, Asian woodblock, suspended cymbals, wind machine, conga, tambourine, almglocken, hi-hat, whip, vibraphone, wood switches, Asian drum, timpani, harp, piano, celesta, strings A P P R OX I M AT E PERFORMANCE TIME
30 minutes
a b o v e : Mason Bates, photo by Todd Rosenberg
C SO.ORG/INSTITUTE
7
C OMME NTS
recommends that the reader dip into the pages at random, “just as one plays with the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope,” giving Bates free reign to pick and choose from among Borges’s 120 creatures in compiling his own musical anthology. Bates selected creatures based on the musical possibilities they offered. The Sprite, for example, allowed him to toss material from one violin stand to another—an effect he had long wanted to try—and then finally offstage. It is “something like a miniature relay race at high speeds,” he says. The A Bao A Qu, a serpent that slithers up a tower and then slides back down, suggested the form of a palindrome—music that is the same backward and forward. Bates had never heard a musical palindrome that actually sounds like one—“as if the record suddenly spins backward,” he says—and he spent a lot of time finding material that could be “perceptively reversible.” (The midpoint, when the music turns back on itself, is marked by a pause in the orchestra and the ecstasio outburst of the wind machine.) Linking Bates’s movements are “forest interludes” that work like the promenades in Pictures from an Exhibition. But while Mussorgsky’s interludes are relatively simple—“like a palate-cleanser between paintings,” as Bates says—the Anthology interludes are surreal and increasingly dark as the work progresses from twilight to dawn. As a result, the sequence of bestiary portraits, themselves growing in size as the work progresses, is overlaid with a sense of time moving forward through the hours of the night—all leading up to the witching-hour finale. “Imaginative narratives were once a powerful force in symphonic music,” Bates says, “and I have been fascinated with bringing them back with entirely new sounds.” —Phillip Huscher
Mason Bates on Anthology of Fantastic Zoology
T
he slim size of Jorge Luis Borges’s Anthology of Fantastic Zoology belies the teeming bestiary contained within its pages. A master of magical realism and narrative puzzles, Borges was the perfect writer to create a compendium of mythological creatures. Several are of his own invention. The musical realization of this, a kind of psychedelic Carnival of the Animals, is presented in eleven interlocking movements (a sprawling form inspired by French and Russian ballet scores). In between evocations of creatures familiar (sprite, nymph) and unknown (an animal that is an island), brief “forest interludes” take us deeper into the night and deeper into the forest itself. Imaginative creatures provoke new sounds and instrumentation, with a special focus on spatial possibilities, using a variety of soloists. For example, the opening Sprite hops from music stand to music stand, even bouncing offstage. The A Bao A Qu is a serpentine creature that slithers up a tower, gloriously molts at the top, then slides back down, so the entire movement—like the life cycle of the animal—is an exact palindrome. Nymphs features two frolicking clarinets, while The Gryphon uses timpani and brass to conjure a flying lion that hunts horses (in this case, the violins). The lyrical core of the piece, Sirens, features offstage violins that lure the rest of the strings, one by one, to an epiphany. But it is short-lived, as the island they near devours them in The Zaratan, an island-sized animal conjured by tone clusters. The sprawling finale occurs at the witching-hour moment between midnight and dawn (madrugada, from the Spanish). This movement collapses the entire work upon itself, and all of the animals fuse together in the darkest, deepest part of the forest. Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
8
PROFILES Lina González-Granados Conductor Colombian American Lina González-Granados has distinguished herself nationally and internationally as a singularly talented young conductor. Her powerful interpretations of the symphonic and operatic repertoire and her dedication to highlighting new and unknown works by Latin American composers have earned her international recognition, most recently being named part of Bloomberg Línea’s 100 Influential Latinos of 2022. She is also the recipient of the 2021 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the third prize and ECHO Special Award (European Concert Hall Organization) of La Maestra Competition, and the 2020 and 2021 Solti Foundation Career Assistance Award. After winning the 2019 Chicago Symphony Orchestra Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition, González-Granados was named the Solti Conducting Apprentice and served as assistant to Maestro Riccardo Muti from February 2020 through June 2023. Last season, she was appointed resident conductor by the Los Angeles Opera, a post she will hold through June 2025. She has also held positions as the inaugural conducting fellow of the Philadelphia Orchestra and conducting fellow of the Seattle Symphony.
P H OTO BY TO D D R O S E N B E R G
The 2023–24 season has her leading performances across the globe, including debuts with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, I Musici de Montreal, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, New World Symphony, Basque National Orchestra, and San Antonio Philharmonic. She returns to the Los Angeles Opera to conduct several performances, including El último sueño de Frida y Diego, the LA Opera rendition of a new musical portrait from Grammy Award–winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Nilo Cruz. Her 2022–23 season highlights included debuts with Opera Philadelphia, the Orchestre Metropolitain, Indianapolis Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, Aalborg Symphony, and Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia, as well as leading a highly acclaimed production of Britten’s Rape of Lucretia with the LA Opera. Born and raised in Cali, Colombia, Lina González-Granados made her conducting debut in 2008 with the Youth Orchestra of Bellas Artes. She holds a master’s degree in conducting with Charles Peltz, a graduate diploma in choral conducting from New England Conservatory with Erica Washburn, and a doctorate in orchestral conducting from Boston University. Her principal mentors include Riccardo Muti, Yannick Nézet- Séguin, Bernard Haitink, Bramwell Tovey, and Marin Alsop.
C SO.ORG/INSTITUTE
9
P ROF ILES
Eighth Blackbird
Eighth Blackbird (8BB) has been operating for twenty-seven years, beginning in 1996 as a group of six undergraduates and continuing under the leadership of two founding members, Lisa Kaplan, pianist/executive director and Matthew Duvall, percussionist/artistic director. Accolades include four Grammy awards for Best Small Ensemble/Chamber Music Performance, the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, Concert Artists Guild Competition grand prize, Musical America Ensemble of the Year and Chamber Music America Visionary awards, and APRA AMCOS Art Music Award for Performance of the Year. In addition to chamber music performers, the members of 8BB are curators, educators, and mentors, expanding the group’s role from exclusively chamber music performances to numerous mission-driven initiatives. In 2017 the group inaugurated its boldest initiative yet: the Blackbird Creative Lab. The Lab is an inclusive two-week professional development immersion for performers and composers, fostering expansive artistic vision, collaboration, and mentorship. It continues its mission beyond the two-week immersion, finding opportunities for its alumni network to present in professional engagements.
10
In 2020 8BB introduced the Chicago Artists Workshop. Conceived with the purpose of creating work for artists during a time when the performance industry was threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic, the workshop created paying livestream engagements for artists during the stoppage in 2020–21. It continues as a presenting series in both live venues and livestream platforms. Additional accolades include commissions and world premieres of hundreds of works by established and emerging composers. In addition to traditional chamber music commissioning successes, 8BB has pioneered two particularly noteworthy genres in the classical chamber music field—fully produced theatrical chamber music productions and chamber ensemble concertos. The ensemble’s extensive recording catalog includes the Grammy Award–winning albums Meanwhile, Filament, Mackey: Lonely Motel— Music from Slide, and Strange Imaginary Animals. In 2019 the group released When We Are Inhuman in collaboration with the National’s Bryce Dessner and Will Oldham (Bonnie “Prince” Billy), and in 2020, Singing in the Dead of Night, written for Eighth Blackbird by Michael Gordon and Pulitzer Prize winners David Lang and Julia Wolfe. World premieres include Into the Night by Joan Tower, David Lang’s fully staged theatrical production Composition as Explanation, the concerto for 8BB and orchestra Nine Mothers by Kinds of Kings, Viet Cuong’s Vital Sines, and Bekah Simms’s Metamold. The ensemble name derives from the eighth stanza of Wallace Stevens’s evocative, imagistic poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” Lisa Kaplan is a Steinway artist. Matthew Duvall proudly endorses Pearl Drums and Adams Musical Instruments, Vic Firth Sticks and Mallets, Zildjian Cymbals, and Black Swamp Percussion Accessories. Eighth Blackbird is managed by Epstein Fox Performances LLC.
P H OTO BY F R E D D I E C O L L I E R
P ROF I L ES
Civic Orchestra of Chicago Founded in 1919 by Frederick Stock, second music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), the Civic Orchestra of Chicago prepares emerging professional musicians for lives in music. Civic members participate in rigorous orchestral training, September through June each season, with the Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Ken-David Masur, musicians of the CSO, and some of today’s most luminary conductors, including Riccardo Muti, the CSO’s music director emeritus for life. The importance of the Civic Orchestra’s role in Greater Chicago is underscored by its commitment to present concerts of the highest quality at no charge to the public. In addition to the critically acclaimed live concerts at Symphony Center, Civic Orchestra performances can be heard locally on WFMT (98.7 FM). Civic musicians also expand their creative, professional, and artistic boundaries and reach diverse audiences through educational performances at Chicago Public Schools and a series of chamber concerts at various locations throughout the city, including Chicago Park District fieldhouses and the National Museum of Mexican Art. To further expand its musician training, the Civic Orchestra launched the Civic Fellowship
program in the 2013–14 season. Each year, ten to fifteen Civic members are designated as Civic Fellows and participate in intensive leadership training that is designed to build and diversify their creative and professional skills. From 2010 to 2019, Yo-Yo Ma was a leading mentor to Civic musicians and staff in his role as CSO Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant, and the programs and initiatives he established are integral to the Civic Orchestra curriculum today. Civic Orchestra musicians develop as exceptional orchestral players and engaged artists, cultivating their ability to succeed in the rapidly evolving world of music in the twenty-first century. The Civic Orchestra’s long history of presenting full orchestra performances free to the public includes annual concerts at the South Shore Cultural Center (in partnership with the South Shore Advisory Council) as well as numerous Chicago Public Schools. The Civic Orchestra is a signature program of the Negaunee Music Institute at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which offers a wide range of education and community programs that engage more than 200,000 people of diverse ages, incomes, and backgrounds each year in Chicago and around the world. For more on the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and its Principal Conductor Ken-David Masur, please visit cso.org/civic.
C SO.ORG/INSTITUTE
11
PROFILES
Civic Orchestra of Chicago
Ken-David Masur Principal Conductor
The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair
VIOLINS
Janani Sivakumar Subin Shin Kristian Brusubardis Julianne Oh J. Andrés Robuschi Hobart Shi Polina Borisova Matthew Weinberg Heewoo Seo Spencer Day Darren Carter Matthew Musachio* Annie Pham Danira Rodríguez-Purcell Justine Teo Karino Wada Ran (Ryan) Huo Marian Antonette Mayuga* Kimberly Bill Mona Munire Mierxiati Freya Liu Isabelle Chin Sean Hsi Elise Maas Valentina Guillen Menesello Nelson Mendoza Lina Yamin* Alec Tonno Jason Hurlbut Hojung Christina Lee Crystal Qi Sheena Lan VIOLAS
Michael Ayala Sava Velkoff Carlos Lozano Megan Yeung Siyang Calvin Dai Justin Pou Sanford Whatley Derrick Ware Elena Galentas Jason Butler Phoebe Hu Amanda Kellman
* Civic Orchestra Fellow
12
CELLOS
Brandon Xu David Caplan Cameron Slaugh Lindsey Sharpe Francisco Lopez Malespin* Miles Link J Holzen* Abigail Monroe Buianto Lkhasaranov Lidanys Graterol BASSES
Ben Foerster* Daniel W. Meyer Hannah Novak Victor Stahoviak James O’Toole Walker Dean Tiffany Kung Sam Craig FLUTES
Aalia Hanif* Katarina Ignatovich Jungah Yoon
BASSOONS
Nina Laube* Ian Arthur Schneiderman Seo Young (Michelle) Min CONTRABASSOON
Seo Young (Michelle) Min HORNS
Ryan Williamson Mark Morris Loren Ho Jacob Medina Asunción Martínez TRUMPETS
Sean-David Whitworth Abner Wong Kai-Chun Chang TROMBONES
Felix Regalado Hugo Saavedra BASS TROMBONE
Alexander Mullins
PICCOLO
TUBA
OBOES
T I M PA N I
Jungah Yoon James Kim Kyung Yeon Hong Natalie Johnson
Nick Collins* Tomas Leivestad PERCUSSION
ENGLISH HORN
Natalie Johnson
Alex Chao Sehee Park Charley Gillette
CLARINETS
ELECTRONICS
Elizabeth Kapitaniuk Tyler Baillie Amy Hur* E - F L AT C L A R I N E T
Tyler Baillie
BASS CLARINET
Amy Hur
Benjimen Neal HARP
Janna Young KEYBOARD
Wenlin Cheng LIBRARIAN
Benjimen Neal
NEGAUNEE MUSIC INSTITUTE AT THE CSO the board of the negaunee music institute Leslie Burns Chair Steve Shebik Vice Chair John Aalbregtse David Arch James Borkman Jacqui Cheng Ricardo Cifuentes Richard Colburn Dunni Cosey Gay Charles Emmons Judy Feldman Lori Julian Toni-Marie Montgomery Rumi Morales Mimi Murley Margo Oberman Gerald Pauling Harper Reed Veronica Reyes Marlon Smith Eugene Stark Liisa Thomas Ex-officio Members Jeff Alexander Jonathan McCormick Vanessa Moss
civic orchestra artistic leadership Ken-David Masur Principal Conductor The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair Coaches from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Robert Chen Concertmaster The Louis C. Sudler Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor Baird Dodge Principal Second Violin Danny Lai Viola Max Raimi Viola John Sharp Principal Cello The Eloise W. Martin Chair Kenneth Olsen Assistant Principal Cello The Adele Gidwitz Chair Richard Hirschl Cello Daniel Katz Cello Brant Taylor Cello Alexander Hanna Principal Bass The David and Mary Winton Green Principal Bass Chair Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson Principal Flute The Erika and Dietrich M. Gross Principal Flute Chair Emma Gerstein Flute Jennifer Gunn Flute and Piccolo The Dora and John Aalbregtse Piccolo Chair William Welter Principal Oboe The Nancy and Larry Fuller Principal Oboe Chair Stephen Williamson Principal Clarinet John Bruce Yeh Assistant Principal Clarinet and E-flat Clarinet Keith Buncke Principal Bassoon William Buchman Assistant Principal Bassoon Mark Almond Principal Horn Daniel Gingrich Horn Esteban Batallán Principal Trumpet The Adolph Herseth Principal Trumpet Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor Mark Ridenour Assistant Principal Trumpet John Hagstrom Trumpet The Bleck Family Chair Tage Larsen Trumpet The Pritzker Military Museum & Library Chair Michael Mulcahy Trombone Charles Vernon Bass Trombone Gene Pokorny Principal Tuba The Arnold Jacobs Principal Tuba Chair, endowed by Christine Querfeld David Herbert Principal Timpani The Clinton Family Fund Chair Vadim Karpinos Assistant Principal Timpani, Percussion Cynthia Yeh Principal Percussion Sarah Bullen Former Principal Harp Mary Sauer Former Principal Keyboard Justin Vibbard Principal Librarian
negaunee music institute at the cso Jonathan McCormick Director, Education & the Negaunee Music Institute Katy Clusen Associate Director, CSO for Kids Rachael Cohen Program Manager Antonio Padilla Denis Manager, Civic Orchestra of Chicago Katie Eaton Coordinator, School Partnerships Mona Wu Operations Coordinator, Civic Orchestra of Chicago Jackson Brown Program Assistant Frances Atkins Content Director Kristin Tobin Designer & Print Production Manager Petya Kaltchev Editor
C SO.ORG/INSTITUTE
13
HONOR ROLL OF DONORS Negaunee Music Institute at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Negaunee Music Institute connects individuals and communities to the extraordinary musical resources of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The following donors are gratefully acknowledged for making a gift in support of these educational and engagement programs. To make a gift or learn more, please contact Kevin Gupana, Associate Director of Giving, Educational and Engagement Programs, 312-294-3156. $ 15 0,000 A N D A B OV E
Lori Julian for The Julian Family Foundation The Negaunee Foundation $ 10 0,0 0 0 – $ 1 4 9,9 9 9
Anonymous Allstate Insurance Company $ 75,0 0 0 – $ 9 9,9 9 9
John Hart and Carol Prins Barbara and Barre Seid Foundation Megan and Steve Shebik $ 5 0 , 0 0 0 – $ 74 , 9 9 9
Anonymous BMO Robert and Joanne Crown Income Charitable Fund Lloyd A. Fry Foundation Judy and Scott McCue Polk Bros. Foundation Michael and Linda Simon Lisa and Paul Wiggin $ 3 5,0 0 0 – $ 4 9,9 9 9
Bowman C. Lingle Trust National Endowment for the Arts The George L. Shields Foundation, Inc. Shure Charitable Trust $25,000 –$ 3 4,999
Anonymous Abbott Fund Carey and Brett August Crain-Maling Foundation Kinder Morgan Margo and Michael Oberman Gene and Jean Stark $ 2 0,000 – $ 2 4,9 9 9
Anonymous Mary Winton Green Halasyamani/Davis Family Illinois Arts Council Agency Richard P. and Susan Kiphart Family PNC Charles and M. R. Shapiro Foundation
14
$ 15,0 0 0 – $ 19,9 9 9
Nancy A. Abshire Robert & Isabelle Bass Foundation, Inc. The Buchanan Family Foundation John D. and Leslie Henner Burns Bruce and Martha Clinton for The Clinton Family Fund Sue and Jim Colletti Mr. Philip Lumpkin The Maval Foundation Sandra and Earl Rusnak, Jr. Dr. Marylou Witz $11,500–$14,999
Barker Welfare Foundation Mr. † & Mrs. David A. Donovan Mrs. Carol Evans, in memory of Henry Evans Ksenia A. and Peter Turula $ 7, 5 0 0 – $ 1 1 , 4 9 9
Anonymous Robert H. Baum and MaryBeth Kretz Mr. Lawrence Corry Nancy and Bernard Dunkel Ellen and Paul Gignilliat Mr. & Mrs. Joseph B. Glossberg Chet Gougis and Shelley Ochab JPMorgan Chase & Co. The League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association Mr. Glen Madeja and Ms. Janet Steidl Dr. Leo and Catherine Miserendino Ms. Susan Norvich Ms. Emilysue Pinnell D. Elizabeth Price LTC. Jennifer N. Pritzker, USA (Ret.) Benjamin J. Rosenthal Foundation Ms. Courtney Shea Ms. Liisa M. Thomas and Mr. Stephen L. Pratt Theodore and Elisabeth Wachs Catherine M. and Frederick H. Waddell $ 4 , 5 0 0 – $ 7, 4 9 9
Anonymous Joseph Bartush Ann and Richard Carr Harry F. and Elaine Chaddick Foundation Mr. Lionel Go Constance M. Filling and Robert D. Hevey Jr. Dr. June Koizumi Dr. Lynda Lane Francine R. Manilow Mrs. Leoni McVey Jim and Ginger Meyer Drs. Robert and Marsha Mrtek The Osprey Foundation Dr. Scholl Foundation
$3,500–$4,499
Anonymous Arts Midwest Gig Fund Charles H. and Bertha L. Boothroyd Foundation Dr. Edward A. Cole and Dr. Christine A. Rydel Mr. & Mrs. Dwight Decker Judith E. Feldman Camillo and Arlene Ghiron Ms. Dawn E. Helwig Ms. Ethelle Katz Robert J. Richards and Barbara A. Richards Mr. Peter Vale Ms. Mary Walsh $2,500–$3,499
Anonymous Dora J. and R. John Aalbregtse David and Suzanne Arch Mr. James Borkman Adam Bossov Mr. Douglas Bragan † Mr. Ray Capitanini Lisa Chessare Mr. Ricardo Cifuentes Patricia A. Clickener Ms. Nancy Dehmlow Mr. Clinton J. Ecker and Ms. Jacqui Cheng William B. Hinchliff Michael and Leigh Huston Italian Village Restaurants Ms. Mirjana Martich and Mr. Zoran Lazarevic Mrs. Frank Morrissey David † and Dolores Nelson Mr. & Mrs. Jeffery Piper Lee Ann and Savit Pirl Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Racker Erik and Nelleke Roffelsen Mr. David Sandfort Gerald and Barbara Schultz Jessie Shih and Johnson Ho Dr. & Mrs. R. Solaro Carol S. Sonnenschein Mr. † & Mrs. Hugo Sonnenschein Ms. Joanne C. Tremulis Mr. Kenneth Witkowski Ms. Camille Zientek $1,500–$2,499
Ms. Marlene Bach Ms. Barbara Barzansky Mr. Lawrence Belles Mr. & Mrs. William E. Bible Cassandra L. Book Mr. Donald Bouseman Ms. Danolda Brennan Mr. Lee M. Brown and Ms. Pixie Newman Darren Cahr Bradley Cohn Charles and Carol Emmons Dr. & Mrs. Sanford Finkel, in honor of the Civic horn section
H ON OR ROL L OF D ON ORS
Mr. Conrad Fischer Ms. Lola Flamm David and Janet Fox Ronald and Diane Hamburger Mr. † & Mrs. Robert Heidrick Thomas and Reseda Kalowski Mr. & Mrs. Norman Koglin Dona Le Blanc Adele Mayer Mr. Aaron Mills Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Morales Mr. & Mrs. Robert S. Murley Mr. Alexander Ripley Ms. Mary Sauer Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Scorza Jane A. Shapiro Mrs. Julie Stagliano Michael and Salme Steinberg Walter and Caroline Sueske Charitable Trust Ayana Tomeka Ms. Betty Vandenbosch Abby and Glen Weisberg M.L. Winburn Irene Ziaya and Paul Chaitkin Dr. & Mrs. Larry Zollinger $1,000 –$1,4 99
Anonymous Duffie A. Adelson John Albrecht Ms. Rochelle Allen Ms. Margaret Amato Allen and Laura Ashley Howard and Donna Bass Daniel and Michele Becker Ann Blickensderfer Mr. Rowland Chang David Colburn Mr. & Mrs. Bill Cottle Alan R. Cravitz Mr. & Mrs. Barnaby Dinges Tom Draski DS&P Insurance Services, Inc. Ms. Sharon Eiseman Richard Finegold, M.D. and Ms. Rita O’Laughlin Foxman Family Foundation Eunice and Perry Goldberg Enid Goubeaux Mrs. Susan Hammond Dr. Robert A. Harris Mr. David Helverson Clifford Hollander and Sharon Flynn Hollander Dr. Ronald L. Hullinger Dr. Victoria Ingram and Dr. Paul Navin Mr. Ray Jones Charles Katzenmeyer Cantor Aviva Katzman and Dr. Morris Mauer Randolph T. Kohler and Scott Gordan Ms. Foo Choo Lee Dr. & Mrs. Stuart Levin Mr. † & Mrs. Gerald F. Loftus
Timothy Lubenow Sharon L. Manuel Rosa and Peter McCullagh Mr. & Mrs. William McNally Robert O. Middleton Stephen W. and Kathleen J. Miller Geoffrey R. Morgan Mrs. MaryLouise Morrison Catherine Mouly and LeRoy T. Carlson, Jr. Lewis Nashner William H. Nichols Ms. Sylvette Nicolini Edward and Gayla Nieminen Mr. Bruce Oltman Ms. Joan Pantsios Kirsten Bedway and Simon Peebler Ms. Dona Perry James † and Sharon Phillips Christine and Michael Pope Quinlan & Fabish Mr. George Quinlan Susan Rabe Dr. Hilda Richards Dr. Edward Riley Mary K. Ring Christina Romero and Rama Kumanduri Mr. & Mrs. Richard Rosenberg Mr. & Mrs. Jeffrey Ross Mr. David Samson Peter Schauer Mr. David M. Schiffman Barbara and Lewis Schneider Mr. & Mrs. Steve Schuette Stephen A. and Marilyn Scott Mr. Rahul and Mrs. Shobha Shah Mr. & Mrs. James Shapiro Dr. Rebecca Sherrick Mr. Larry Simpson Dr. Sabine Sobek Ms. Denise Stauder Mrs. Pamela Stepansky Mr. & Mrs. Ronald Stepansky Donna Stroder Sharon Swanson Dr. Douglas Vaughan Mr. & Mrs. Richard Waxman Mr. & Mrs. Joel Weisman Joni Williams Jane Stroud Wright ENDOWED FUNDS
Anonymous (3) Cyrus H. Adams Memorial Youth Concert Fund Dr. & Mrs. Bernard H. Adelson Fund Marjorie Blum-Kovler Youth Concert Fund CNA The Davee Foundation Frank Family Fund Kelli Gardner Youth Education Endowment Fund Jennifer Amler Goldstein Fund, in memory of Thomas M. Goldstein Mary Winton Green
William Randolph Hearst Foundation Fund for Community Engagement Richard A. Heise Peter Paul Herbert Endowment Fund Julian Family Foundation Fund The Kapnick Family Lester B. Knight Charitable Trust The Malott Family School Concerts Fund The Eloise W. Martin Endowed Fund in support of the Negaunee Music Institute at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Negaunee Foundation Nancy Ranney and Family and Friends Shebik Community Engagement Programs Fund Toyota Endowed Fund The Wallace Foundation Zell Family Foundation CIVIC ORCHESTR A OF CHICAGO SCHOLARSHIPS
Members of the Civic Orchestra receive an annual stipend to help offset some of their living expenses during their training in Civic. The following donors have generously underwritten a Civic musician(s) for the 2023–24 season. Eleven Civic members participate in the Civic Fellowship program, a rigorous artistic and professional development curriculum that supplements their membership in the full orchestra. Major funding for this program is generously provided by Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation. Nancy A. Abshire Amanda Kellman, viola Dr. & Mrs. Bernard H. Adelson Fund Megan Yeung, viola Sue and Jim Colletti Nina Laube,* bassoon Lawrence Corry Jonah Kartman, violin Robert and Joanne Crown Income Charitable Fund Charley Gillette, percussion James Kim, oboe Buianto Lkhasaranov, cello Daniel W. Meyer, bass Subin Shin, violin Abner Wong, trumpet Mr. † & Mrs. David A. Donovan Jacob Medina, horn Mr. & Mrs. Paul C. Gignilliat Janani Sivakumar, violin
C SO.ORG/INSTITUTE
15
H ONOR ROLL OF DONORS
Mr. & Mrs. Joseph B. Glossberg Hannah Novak, bass
Leslie Fund Inc. Francisco Lopez Malespin,* cello
Richard and Alice Godfrey Matthew Weinberg, violin
Phil Lumpkin Matthew Musachio,* violin
Jennifer Amler Goldstein Fund, in memory of Thomas M. Goldstein Alex Chao, percussion
Glenn Madeja and Janet Steidl Abigail Monroe, cello
Chet Gougis and Shelley Ochab Tomas Leivestad, timpani Mary Winton Green Victor Stahoviak, bass Jane Redmond Haliday Chair Mona Munire Mierxiati, violin Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation Nelson Mendoza, violin Lina Yamin, violin Lester B. Knight Charitable Trust Valentina Guillen Menesello, violin Elizabeth Kapitaniuk, clarinet Elise Maas, violin Ryan Williamson, horn Brandon Xu, cello League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association Lindsey Sharpe, cello
The Maval Foundation Mark Morris, horn Felix Regalado, trombone Judy and Scott McCue and the Leslie Fund Inc. Aalia Hanif,* flute
The George L. Shields Foundation, Inc. Hsuan Chen, violin Carlos Lozano, viola Cameron Slaugh, cello David W. and Lucille G. Stotter Chair Ran (Ryan) Huo, violin Ruth Miner Swislow Charitable Fund Kimberly Bill, violin Lois and James Vrhel Endowment Fund Broner McCoy, bass Theodore and Elisabeth Wachs Hae Sol (Amy) Hur,+ clarinet
Dr. Leo and Catherine Miserendino Sean-David Whitworth, trumpet
Dr. Marylou Witz Marian Antonette Mayuga, violin
Ms. Susan Norvich Nick Collins,* tuba Ben Poirot, tuba
Anonymous Jesús Linárez, violin
Margo and Mike Oberman Ben Foerster,* bass Sandra and Earl J. Rusnak, Jr. Quincy Erickson, trumpet Barbara and Barre Seid Foundation Alexander Mullins, bass trombone Hugo Saavedra,* trombone
Anonymous Gabriela Lara, violin Anonymous Hojung Christina Lee, violin Anonymous J Holzen,* cello
† Deceased * Civic Orchestra Fellow + Partial Sponsor Italics indicate individual or family involvement as part of the Trustees or Governing Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. Gifts listed as of December 2023
The appearance of Eighth Blackbird with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago is generously sponsored by John and Dora Aalbregtse, Leslie and John Burns, Judy Feldman, Mirjana Martich and Zoran Lazarevic, Sandra and Earl Rusnak, Jr., and Carol S. Sonnenschein.