Program Book - Civic Orchestra of Chicago: Mentorship and Friendship

The 2022–23 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by The Julian Family Foundation, which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program.

ONE HUNDRED FOURTH SEASON CIVIC ORCHESTRA OF CHICAGO

Ken-David Masur Principal Conductor

The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair

Monday, June 5, 2023, at 8:00

Thomas Wilkins Conductor

coleridge-taylor Ballade in A Minor, Op. 33

bonds

The Montgomery Variations (arr. Cooper) Decision Prayer Meeting

March

Dawn in Dixie

One Sunday in the South Lament Benediction intermission

elgar Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), Op. 36 Theme (Andante)

1. C.A.E. (Andante)

2. H.D.S.-P. (Allegro)

3. R.B.T. (Allegretto)

4. W.M.B. (Allegro di molto)

5. R.P.A. (Moderato)

6. Ysobel (Andantino)

7. Troyte (Presto)

8. W.N. (Allegretto)

9. Nimrod (Adagio)

10. Intermezzo (Dorabella). (Allegretto)

11. G.R.S. (Allegro di molto)

12. B.G.N. (Andante)

13. * ** Romanza (Moderato)

14. Finale. E.D.U. (Allegro)

The 2022–23 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by The Julian Family Foundation, which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program.

Additional support for this performance is provided by a generous endowment gift from the estate of Halina J. Presley.

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.

comments by phillip huscher

samuel coleridge-taylor

Born August 15, 1875; London, England

Died September 1, 1912; Croydon, Surrey, England

Ballade in A Minor, Op. 33

When Theodore Thomas founded the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1891, he was widely known as America’s great program-maker, a conductor with a particular flair for putting on concerts that mixed the classics and popular favorites with unknown works by interesting new composers. As a result, Chicago became one of the first American cities to hear the music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. The week before the Chicago Orchestra’s performance of the big tenor aria from Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, in January 1900, the Chicago Tribune reported that “Mr. Coleridge-Taylor is a young negro composer residing in England, who has claimed the attention, first, of British musicians, and, latterly, of the musical world at large, by reason of his extraordinary gifts as a composer.” Samuel’s parents were a white Englishwoman and a medical student from Sierra Leone who met in London. As the paper pointed out, Samuel had already produced a long list of works, including a clarinet quintet that was introduced to Germany by the great violinist Joseph Joachim—the man who premiered Brahms’s Violin Concerto. Coleridge-Taylor was just twenty-five years old.

Thomas programmed the aria from Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha cantata, a rhapsodic setting of poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—it was for many years in the repertoire of every tenor—in the Chicago Orchestra’s ninth season. The Boston Symphony Orchestra would introduce Coleridge-Taylor to its audiences with the aria two years later, and the New York Philharmonic, again with the same music, in 1912. Four months after the Chicago premiere, the Tribune ran a dispatch from its London correspondent, reporting on the first performance there of the complete Hiawatha cantata, calling it “the musical sensation of the London season.” The paper said that the composer had married an Englishwoman and become the father of a son. “He has followed Wagner’s example of naming his firstborn after one of his heroes, and the boy will go through life to the name of Hiawatha Coleridge-Taylor.” A photo of the composer was headed “New Idol of London Music World.”

On February 13, 1903, Thomas and the Chicago Orchestra gave the U.S. premiere of Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade, which had

composed

1898

first performance

1898; Three Choirs Festival, England

instrumentation

two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, strings

approximate performance time

13 minutes

above: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, ca. 1893

been commissioned for London’s Three Choirs Festival at the recommendation of Edward Elgar, who was forced to decline the offer: “I wish, wish, wish you would ask Coleridge-Taylor to do it. He still wants recognition, and he is far and away the cleverest fellow going amongst the young men.” (He had been introduced to Coleridge-Taylor by the celebrated publisher, August Jaeger—the “Nimrod” of Elgar’s Enigma Variations.) The Chicago premiere was overshadowed in the press that week by the Orchestra’s urgent public plea for a new hall. The headline in the Tribune on February 13, the day of the Coleridge-Taylor performance, was “Crisis in Big Orchestra. Thomas Concerts To End Unless $750,000 Is Pledged.” The threat of disbanding the Orchestra, little more than a decade after its founding, clearly overrode the significance of the first performance of a short ballade by a composer who had never been to the United States.

By the time of Coleridge-Taylor’s first visit to this country in 1904, Chicago had quickly risen to the Orchestra’s fundraising challenge, and Orchestra Hall was already under construction on a vacant site on Michigan Avenue that ten men had purchased for $450,000. ColeridgeTaylor did not visit Chicago, but he enjoyed great success on his first American venture. He had been warned that he might encounter discrimination. “I can assure you that no one will be able to stop me from paying you my long deferred visit,” he wrote to his sponsor.

As for prejudice, I am well prepared for it. Surely that which you and many others have lived in for so many years will not quite kill me. . . . I am a great believer in my race, and I never lose an opportunity of letting my white friends here know it.

Coleridge-Taylor was treated like visiting royalty in America—President Theodore Roosevelt invited him to the White House— and he returned in 1906 and 1910. He quickly became a staple of American culture. A group of Black singers in Washington, D.C., founded the

Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society. Public schools in Baltimore and Louisville were named for him.

The Ballade performed this evening was composed in 1898, the year after Coleridge-Taylor completed his studies at the Royal College of Music in London and just before he began Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. Coleridge-Taylor himself conducted the premiere. The Ballade is a supremely confident work, marked by strong thematic material and an energetic spirit—it reveals not a shred of immaturity or inexperience, and it is full of promise for a long and rich composing life. But that was not to be.

In 1912, Coleridge-Taylor composed a violin concerto for Maud Powell, the Illinois native who had made her debut under Theodore Thomas in 1885 and played with him and the Chicago Orchestra at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. It turned out to be his last major score. He died three months after the premiere, at the age of thirty-seven—scarcely older than Mozart was at the time of his premature death. It is impossible to know how Coleridge-Taylor’s flourishing career might have continued. He was buried in Bandon Hill Cemetery in London. Four measures from Hiawatha are inscribed on his tombstone, along with a tribute from his close friend, the poet Alfred Noyes:

Too young to die: his great simplicity, his happy courage in an alien world, his gentleness, made all that knew him love him.

A footnote on the passing down of names and traditions. Just as Samuel was named after the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, his own name was the source for Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, the composer, conductor, and pianist who was born in New York City in 1932 and eventually moved to Chicago, where he was artistic director of the performance program at the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College until his death in 2004.

—Phillip Huscher

margaret bonds

Born March 3, 1913; Chicago, Illinois

Died April 26, 1972; Los Angeles, California

The Montgomery Variations (edited by John Michael Cooper)

A lifelong advocate of social and racial justice, Margaret Bonds grew up in a relatively affluent family in Chicago, in a community of Black artists and musicians. Though her parents divorced when she was young, they were both supportive of her obvious musical talent. As a twenty-yearold pianist, Bonds became the first African American instrumentalist to perform as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As a composer, her experience was wide-ranging, including jazz arrangements, songs for children, film music, popular songs, choral music, and musicals, as well as classical compositions. As the years went by, though, if anyone had heard of her, it was usually because of her arrangements of traditional spirituals. Fortunately, after decades of neglect, her time finally seems to have arrived as much of her music is being rediscovered or even premiered more than half a century after her death.

Pursuing degrees in both piano and composition, Bonds studied at Northwestern where she encountered high levels of racial prejudice. While there, she also discovered the poetry of Langston Hughes, which struck a deep chord, leading to a forty-year artistic bond of artistic collaborations, mutual respect, and shared enthusiasm. In 1936, she began to set his poems to music, and they collaborated on numerous projects, the most successful of which was a Christmas cantata titled The Ballad of the Brown King. Hughes convinced her to move to New York, where he had moved, helping to launch the Harlem Renaissance.

Disconsolate after his death, she moved to California to work in Hollywood. When she died at the age of fifty-nine, without a will, her husband and daughter gathered papers from her LA apartment. Many of her compositions were lost, and some even ended up next to a dumpster before they were rescued from oblivion. Now, because she has no survivors, no one knows who owns copyright to her music.

Considered a crowning work in her extraordinary career, Bonds’ Montgomery Variations was composed as a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., after her visit to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1963. Based on the spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me,”

composed 1964

first performance

Possibly 1967 with Albert McNeil; Official premiere December 6, 2018; University of Connecticut Symphony Orchestra

instrumentation

three flutes with alto flute and piccolo; two oboes, english horn, three clarinets with bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, strings

this page: Margaret Bonds, ca. 1956

opposite page: Edward Elgar, ca. 1900

her Montgomery Variations is a set of freestyle ruminations on Montgomery as a focal point of the Civil Rights Movement. She never heard the piece performed.

Margaret Bonds on The Montgomery Variations

Decision Under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. and SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference], Negroes in Montgomery decided to boycott the bus company and to fight for their rights as citizens.

Prayer Meeting True to custom, prayer meetings precede their action. Prayer meetings start quietly with humble petitions to God. During the course of the meeting, members seized with religious fervor shout and dance. Oblivious to their fellow worshippers they exhibit their love of God and their Faith in Deliverance by gesticulation, clapping and beating their feet.

March The Spirit of the Nazarene marching with them, the Negroes of Montgomery walked

edward elgar

to their work rather than be segregated on the buses. The entire world, symbolically with them, marches.

Dawn in Dixie Dixie, the home of the Camellias known as “pink perfection,” magnolias, jasmine, and Spanish moss, awakened to the fact that something new was happening in the South.

One Sunday in the South Children were in Sunday School learning about Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Southern “die-hards” planted a bomb and several children were killed.

Lament The world was shaken by the cruelty of the Sunday School bombing. Negroes, as usual, leaned on their Jesus to carry them through this crisis of grief and humiliation.

Benediction A benign God, Father and Mother to all people, pours forth Love to His children— the good and the bad alike.

Reprinted courtesy of the Hollywood Bowl

Born June 2, 1857; Broadheath, near Worcester, England

Died February 23, 1934; Broadheath, England

Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), Op. 36

The temptation to improvise at the piano after a hard day’s work surely never produced greater results than on an October evening in the Worcestershire countryside in 1898. Tired out from hours of teaching violin and writing music that would never make him famous, Edward Elgar began to play a tune that caught his wife’s ear. Alice asked what it was. “Nothing,” he replied, “but something might be made of it.” And then, to prove—or perhaps, test—his point, he began to play with it. “Powell would have done this, or Nevinson would have looked at it like this,” he commented as he went, drawing on the names of their friends. Alice said, “Surely you are doing something that has never been done before!”

composed

October 1898–February 19, 1899

first performance

June 19, 1899; London, England. Hans Richter conducting

instrumentation

two flutes with piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, side drum, triangle, bass drum, cymbals, organ, strings

approximate performance time

29 minutes

Alice wasn’t quite right, in terms of historical fact—Schumann’s Carnaval, for example, depicts a number of characters, real and imagined—but she obviously sensed that her husband had hit upon something important—not only to his own faltering career, but also for music itself. And so what was begun “in a spirit of humor” was soon “continued in deep seriousness,” as Elgar later recalled of the music that would make him famous, along with Powell, Nevinson, and a number of the composer’s other friends. On October 24, he wrote to August Jaeger, the closest of all those friends,

. . . I have sketched a set of Variations (orkestra) on an original theme: the Variations have amused me because I’ve labeled ’em with the nicknames of my particular friends—you are Nimrod. That is to say, I’ve written the variations each one to represent the mood of the “party”—I’ve liked to imagine the “party” writing the var: him (or her) self and have written what I think they wd. have written— if they were asses enough to compose—it’s a quaint idea & the result is amusing to those behind the scenes & won’t affect the hearer who “nose nuffn.”

The work went well. On November 1, Elgar played at least six variations for Dora Penny, now known as Dorabella, or variation 10. On January 5, Elgar wrote to Jaeger: “I say—those variations—I like ’em.” By February 22, he told Dorabella that the variations were done, “and yours is the most cheerful. . . . I have orchestrated you well.” The orchestration of the piece took the two weeks from February 5 to 19, 1899. Elgar then sent the score off to Hans Richter, the great German conductor known for championing both Wagner and Brahms. Elgar waited a long, nervous month for a response, but Richter recognized the quality of this music and agreed to give the premiere in London. For Elgar, already in his forties and not yet a household name, even in England, Richter’s advocacy was decisive. The first performance was a great success for both Elgar and for British music. The critics

recognized the work as a landmark, and although one was aggravated that the dedication “To my friends pictured within” didn’t name names, he was at least honest enough to admit that the music stood handsomely on its own. The friends have long ago been identified, but a greater question still remains. At the time of the premiere, Elgar wrote:

The enigma I will not explain—its “dark saying” must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme “goes,” but is not played—so the principal Theme never appears, even as in some late dramas—e.g., Maeterlinck’s L’intruse and Les sept princesses—the chief character is never on the stage.

Those are words Elgar later came to regret, for the public’s curiosity often overshadowed the music. Elgar himself only made matters worse by divulging that the “larger theme” fit in counterpoint with his original theme, by telling Arthur Troyte Griffith (variation 7) that the theme “is so well known that it is extraordinary that no one has spotted it,” and by admonishing Dorabella that she, of all people, had not guessed it. Several melodies have been favored over the years, including “God Save the King,” “Rule, Britannia!,” and, most often, “Auld lang syne,” but to date the Enigma still maintains its place in Elgar’s title. (Dorabella and her husband Richard Powell once asked Elgar outright about “Auld lang syne” and he denied it, but by then he was so tired of the whole mystery that many doubted the sincerity of his answer.)

For full descriptions of the “friends pictured within,” we are indebted to the invention of the piano roll; when the Aeolian Company later issued the Enigma Variations in this newfangled format, Elgar contributed his own comments on this circle of men and women in his life. Here, then, follows the portrait gallery, with some of Elgar’s remarks. Theme. This is an original

melody, as Elgar’s title boasts, born that October night in 1898 and without connections to anyone in the composer’s life. (It has been suggested that those important first four notes perfectly set the composer’s own name, but, as we shall see, Elgar saves himself for last.) It’s worth remembering, however, that when he wrote The Music Makers (an autobiographical, Ein Heldenleben–kind of work) in 1912, he recalled this theme to represent the loneliness of the creative artist.

1. (C.A.E.) Caroline Alice Elgar was the composer’s wife. “The variation,” Elgar writes, “is really a prolongation of the theme with what I wished to be romantic and delicate additions; those who knew C.A.E. will understand this reference to one whose life was a romantic and delicate inspiration.” She was his muse; after Alice died in 1920, Elgar never really worked again. The little triplet figure in the oboe and the bassoon at the very beginning mimics the whistle with which Elgar signaled Alice whenever he came home.

2. (H.D.S.-P.) Hew David Steuart-Powell played chamber music with Elgar. “His characteristic diatonic run over the keys before beginning to play is here humorously travestied in the semiquaver [sixteenth note] passages; these should suggest a toccata, but chromatic beyond

H.D.S.-P.’s liking.” (Their frequent partner was Basil Nevinson, variation 12.)

3. (R.B.T.) Richard Baxter Townshend, who regularly rode through the streets of Oxford on his bicycle with the bell constantly ringing, is here remembered for his “presentation of an old man in some amateur theatricals—the low voice flying off occasionally in ‘soprano’ timbre.” (Dorabella also recognized the bicycle bell in the pizzicato strings.)

4. (W.M.B.) William Meath Baker was “a country squire, gentleman, and scholar. In the days of horses and carriages, it was more difficult than in these days of petrol to arrange the carriages for the day to suit a large number of guests. This variation was written after the host had, with a slip of paper in his hand, forcibly read out the arrangements for the day and hurriedly left the music room with an inadvertent bang of the door.”

5. (R.P.A.) Richard Penrose Arnold was a son of Matthew Arnold and “a great lover of music which he played (on the pianoforte) in a selftaught manner, evading difficulties but suggesting in a mysterious way the real feeling.” In the middle section we learn that “his serious conversation was continually broken up by whimsical and witty remarks.”

top: Edward and Caroline Alice Elgar just after their marriage | b ottom, left to right: Hew David Steuart-Powell, Variation 2; Richard Baxter Townshend, Variation 3; William Meath Baker, Variation 4; Richard Penrose Arnold, Variation 5

TRACKING DOWN THE ENIGMA

In 1953, the Saturday Review sponsored a contest for the best solution to the identity of Elgar’s “enigma.” The top prizes (the composer’s daughter Carice Elgar Blake was one of the judges) were awarded to the Agnus Dei from Bach’s B minor mass, the trio “Una bella serenata” from Mozart’s Così fan tutte, the slow movement of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony, and “God Save the Queen.” None, however, seemed particularly convincing, and the search continued. In 1976, Theodore Van Houten proposed “Rule, Britannia!,” which includes a phrase that’s nearly identical to the opening of the Enigma and should have been obvious to Dora Penny, “of all people,” as Elgar remarked, because the British penny was engraved with the figure of Britannia. In 1984, Derek Hudson showed even more persuasively how a phrase of “Auld lang syne” fits Elgar’s theme and many of the variations.

In 1991, Joseph Cooper, a British pianist, proposed a new

6. (Ysobel) Isabel Fitton was an amateur violist. “The opening bar, a phrase made use of throughout the variation, is an ‘exercise’ for crossing strings—a difficulty for beginners; on this is built a pensive, and for a moment, romantic movement.”

7. (Troyte) Arthur Troyte Griffith, an architect, was one of Elgar’s closest friends. “The uncouth rhythm of the drums and lower strings was really suggested by some maladroit essays to play the pianoforte; later the strong rhythm suggests the attempts of the instructor (E.E.) to make something like order out of chaos, and the final despairing ‘slam’ records that the effort proved to be in vain.”

8. (W.N.) Winifred Norbury lived at Sherridge, a country house, with her sister Florence. The music was “really suggested by an eighteenth-century house. The gracious

solution. He claimed he had stumbled upon the answer thirty years earlier at a performance of Mozart’s Prague Symphony in Royal Festival Hall in London, but chose to keep it a secret. As he followed a score during that long-ago concert, Mr. Cooper noticed, midway through the slow movement, echoes of the opening of Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The two passages aren’t identical rhythmically—moreover, Mozart is in G major, Elgar in G minor—but they are strikingly similar. There are other connections: two weeks before Elgar invented his theme at the piano, he had heard the Prague Symphony. Mozart’s symphony also was the closing work on the concert of June 19, 1899, when the Enigma Variations were given their first performance. Although Elgar authority Jerrold Northrop Moore hailed Cooper’s solution, other scholars, Elgar lovers, and puzzle fanatics remain unconvinced.

The detective game continues. In 2017, a Cleveland police officer

claimed that nineteen symbols written by Elgar into the margin of an 1886 program for a concert of Liszt’s music is a code for the solution, which through a convoluted deciphering process, connects the first six measures of the Enigma Variations with Liszt’s Les préludes. That same year, Bob Padgett, from Plano, Texas, made news with his carefully developed theory that the secret tune is “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” which fits perfectly in counterpoint with Elgar’s theme—if you use three different versions of Martin Luther’s hymn (those by Luther, Bach, and Mendelssohn) and play it backwards. Elgar scholars have remained uniformly skeptical. More recently, Ed Newton-Rex, formerly a member of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, has proposed an underlying bass line in Pergolesi’s Stabat mater as the secret counterpoint, though that solution too has failed to win converts.

P.H.

personalities of the ladies are sedately shown”— especially Winifred’s characteristic laugh.

9. (Nimrod) Nimrod is the “mighty hunter” named in Genesis 10; August Jaeger (“Jaeger” is German for “hunter”) was Elgar’s greatest and dearest friend. That is apparent from this extraordinary music, which is about the strength of ties and the depth of human feelings. These forty-three bars of music have come to mean a great deal to many people; they are, for that reason, often played in memoriam, when common words fail and virtually all other music falls short. The variation records “a long summer evening talk, when my friend discoursed eloquently on the slow movements of Beethoven.” The music hints at the slow movement of the Pathétique Sonata, though it reaches the more rarefied heights of Beethoven’s last works. Dorabella remembered that Jaeger also spoke of the hardships Beethoven endured, and he urged Elgar not to give up. Elgar later wrote to him: “I have omitted your outside manner and have only seen the good lovable honest SOUL in the middle of you. The music’s not good enough: nevertheless it was an attempt of your E.E.” Jaeger died young, in 1909. Twenty years later Elgar wrote: “His place has been occupied but never filled.”

10. (Dorabella) Dora Penny, later Mrs. Richard Powell, and to the Elgars, always Dorabella, from Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Her variation, entitled Intermezzo, is shaded throughout by “a

dancelike lightness,” and delicately suggests the stammer with which she spoke in her youth.

11. (G.R.S.) Dr. George R. Sinclair was the organist of Hereford Cathedral, though it’s his beloved bulldog Dan who carries the music, first falling down a steep bank into the River Wye, then paddling upstream to a safe landing. Anticipating the skeptics, Elgar writes “Dan” in bar five of the manuscript, where Dr. Sinclair’s dog barks reassuringly (low strings and winds, fortissimo).

12. (B.G.N.) Basil G. Nevinson was a fine cellist who regularly joined Elgar and Hew David Steuart-Powell (variation 2) in chamber music. The soaring cello melody is “a tribute to a very dear friend whose scientific and artistic attainments, and the whole-hearted way they were put at the disposal of his friends, particularly endeared him to the writer.”

13. (***) The only enigma among the portraits: just asterisks in place of initials, and “Romanza” at the top of the page. The clarinet quoting from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage midway through points to Lady Mary Lygon, who supposedly was crossing the sea to Australia as Elgar wrote this music (she wasn’t). “The drums suggest the distant throb of a liner,” Elgar writes. Although Elgar eventually confirmed the attribution, it has never entirely satisfied a suspicious public. Dorabella claimed that in the composer’s mind, the asterisks stood for “My sweet Mary.”

opposite page. top, left to right: Isabel Fitton, Variation 6; Arthur Troyte Griffith, Variation 7 | b ottom, left to right: Winifred Norbury, Variation 8; August Jaeger, Variation 9 | t his page, left to right: Dora Penny, Variation 10; Dr. George R. Sinclair and his dog Dan, Variation 11; Basil G. Nevinson, Variation 12; Lady Mary Lygon, Variation 13

14. (E.D.U.) Edu was Alice’s nickname for her husband. This is his self-portrait, written “at a time when friends were dubious and generally discouraging as to the composer’s musical future.” Alice and Jaeger, two who never lost their faith in him, make brief appearances. The music is forceful, even bold. It’s delivered with an unusual strength known best to late bloomers, the defiance of an outsider intent on finding an audience, and the confidence of a man who has always wished to be more than another variation on a theme.

A parting word about the title. The work wasn’t at first called Enigma. Elgar used the word for

the first time in a letter to Jaeger written at the end of May 1899, three months after the score was finished. Enigma is written on the title page of the autograph manuscript, but it’s written in pencil and not by Elgar. When the Chicago Symphony introduced this music to the United States in 1902, the program page listed it only as “Variations, op. 36.”

—Phillip Huscher

Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

negaunee music institute at the cso

Tenth Anniversary Season of the Civic Fellowship Program

For more than a century, young musicians have received expert training through the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, which offers performance opportunities with top-tier conductors and mentorship from musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Currently in its tenth anniversary season, the Civic Fellowship program provides additional professional development for a select group of Civic Orchestra members. The mission of the Fellowship is to prepare participants for multifaceted careers in music through four areas of focus: concert curation, music education, social justice, and project management.

Read how three current and former Civic Fellows respond to the question, How has being a Civic Orchestra Fellow helped you professionally and personally? To read the complete interviews, visit cso.org/experience.

Marian Mayuga Violin, current Civic Fellow

While being a member and Fellow of the Civic Orchestra is an incredible honor, it also entails a huge amount of responsibility, both as a musician and a member of the community. As a values-based program, the Civic Fellowship constantly urges us to think about the purpose of our music and whose lives we are impacting. This is the kind of approach I would like to adapt for my future endeavors.

Zachary Good Clarinet, Civic Fellow alum

My time as a Fellow and the many education and community engagement projects I undertook showed me how my musicianship could inspire positive change in different contexts and that I could be more than just a clarinetist. The skills I gained through Civic, like developing a confident stage presence and curating programs, set me up for a successful career. During my time as a Fellow, Eighth Blackbird—an American contemporary music sextet based in Chicago—were my idols. I am now living my dream as a member of the ensemble!

Maria Arrua Violin, Civic Fellow alum

Playing in the Civic Orchestra alongside amazing young musicians continuously motivated me to work hard and get better. . . . During my time in the Fellowship, I was placed to teach group classes at the People’s Music School. I learned to love teaching and connecting with students. . . . I now have my own private violin studio and also teach as an adjunct professor at Illinois Wesleyan University.

from left: Marian Mayuga. Zachary Good. Photo by Deidre Huckabay. Maria Arrua. Photo by “Spider” Meka Hemmons

The 2022–23 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by The Julian Family Foundation, which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program.

Thomas Wilkins Conductor

Devoted to promoting a life-long enthusiasm for music, Thomas Wilkins brings energy and commitment to audiences of all ages. Wilkins is principal conductor of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s artistic advisor, Education and Community Engagement; principal guest conductor of the Virginia Symphony; and holder of Indiana University’s Henry A. Upper Chair of Orchestral Conducting, established by the late Barbara and David Jacobs as a part of its Matching the Promise Campaign. He completed his long tenure as music director of the Omaha Symphony Orchestra at the close of the 2020–21 season. Other past positions include resident conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Florida Orchestra (Tampa Bay) and associate conductor of the Richmond (VA) Symphony. He also has served on the music faculties of North Park University in Chicago, the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

Following his first season with the Boston Symphony, the Boston Globe named him among its Best People and Ideas of 2011. In 2014 Wilkins received the prestigious Outstanding Artist Award at the Nebraska Governor’s Arts Awards for his significant contribution to music in the state, and in 2018 the Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, conferred by Boston’s Longy School of Music of Bard College. In 2019 the Virginia Symphony in Norfolk honored Wilkins

with its Dreamer Award; in 2022 the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award for Music, the Boston Conservatory awarded him an honorary doctorate, and he received the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton Award.

During his career, Wilkins has led orchestras throughout the United States, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington (D.C.). In addition, he has guest conducted, among others, the Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras; the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Baltimore, San Diego, Seattle, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Utah; the Buffalo and Rochester philharmonic orchestras; and the Grant Park Music Festival.

His commitment to community has been demonstrated by his participation on several boards of directors, including the Greater Omaha Chamber of commerce; the Charles Drew Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska; and the Center Against Spouse Abuse in Tampa Bay and the Museum of Fine Arts and the Academy Preparatory Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. He currently serves as chairman of the board for the Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund and as national ambassador for the nonprofit World Pediatric Project headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, which provides children throughout Central America and the Caribbean with critical surgical and diagnostic care.

A native of Norfolk, Virginia, Thomas Wilkins is a graduate of the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music in Winchester, Virginia, and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He and his wife, Sheri-Lee, are the proud parents of twin daughters, Erica and Nicole.

PHOTO BY BILL SITZMANN

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 the CSO’s Zell Music Director Riccardo Muti.

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 field houses 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.

Civic Orchestra of Chicago

Ken-David Masur Principal Conductor

The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair

violins

Matthew Weinberg

Janani Sivakumar

Sungjoo Kang

Dylan Marshall Feldpausch*

Shin Lan

Jesus Linarez

Hee Woo Seo

Gabriela Lara

Annie Pham

Hee Yeon Kim*

Ran Huo

Rachel Orth

Valentina Guillen Menesello

Megan Pollon

Subin Shin

Diane Yang*

Kristian Brusubardis

Marian Mayuga*

Hsuan Chen

Kenichi Kiyama

Robbie Herbst

Liya Ma

Laura Schafer

Grace Walker

Emily Nardo

Natalie Koh

Yu-Kun Hsiang

Matt Musachio

Crystal Qi

Nelson Mendoza Hernandez*

violas

Stephanie Block

Teddy Schenkman*

Aditi Prakash

Megan Yeung

Pedro Mendez

Kunjing Dai

Derrick Ware

Calvin Dai

Amanda Kellman

Rachel Mossburg

Carlos Lozano Sanchez

Bethany Pereboom+

cellos

Abby Monroe

Cameron Slaugh

Miles Link

Annamarie Wellems

Lindsey Sharpe*

Charlotte Ullman

Francisco Malespin*

Andrew Shinn

Hana Takemoto

J Holzen

basses

Ben Foerster

Nathan Beaver

Olivia Reyes

Caleb Edwards

Bennett Norris

Victor Stahoviak

Hannah Novak

Sam Craig

flutes

Katarina Ignatovich

Eric Leise

Aalia Hanif

piccolo/alto flute

Aalia Hanif

oboes

Kyung Yeon Hong

Guillermo Ulloa

english horn

Natalie Johnson

clarinets

Daniel Solowey

Emily Hancock

Max Reese

Antonio Garrasi

bass clarinet

Max Reese

bassoons

Mackenzie Brauns*

Liam Jackson

Seo Young (Michelle) Min

contrabassoons

Mackenzie Brauns*

Seo Young (Michelle) Min

horns

Ryan Williamson

Michael Stevens

Jacob Medina

Emily Whittaker

Asuncion Martinez

trumpets

Sean Whitworth

Michael Leavens

Isaac Hopkins

Joshua Harris

trombones

Felix Regalado

Hugo Saavedra Arciniegas*

bass trombone

Alexander Mullins

tuba

Nick Collins

timpani

David Miller

percussion

Charley Gillette

Thaddeus Chung

Jordan Berini

organ

Tyler Kivel

harp

Natalie Man

librarian

Anna Thompson

* Civic Orchestra Fellow + Civic Orchestra Alumni

negaunee music institute at the cso

the board of the negaunee music institute

Leslie Burns Chair

Liisa Thomas Vice Chair

John Aalbregtse

David Arch

James Borkman

Jacqui Cheng

Ricardo Cifuentes

Richard Colburn

Charles Emmons

Judy Feldman

Lori Julian

Rumi Morales

Mimi Murley

Margo Oberman

Gerald Pauling

Harper Reed

Veronica Reyes

Steve Shebik

Marlon Smith

Eugene Stark

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

David Cooper Principal Horn

Daniel Gingrich Associate Principal 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

Peter Conover Principal Librarian

negaunee music institute at the cso

Jonathan McCormick Director, Education & the Negaunee Music Institute

Katy Clusen Senior Manager, School & Family Programs

Antonio Padilla Denis Manager, Civic Orchestra of Chicago

Rachael Cohen Coordinator, Institute Programs

Emory Freeman Operations Coordinator, Civic Orchestra of Chicago

Katie Eaton Coordinator, School Partnerships

Autumn Stolle Institute Programs Assistant

Frances Atkins Content Director

Kristin Tobin Designer & Print Production Manager

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.

$150,000 AND ABOVE

The Julian Family Foundation

The Negaunee Foundation

$100,000–$149,999

Anonymous

Allstate Insurance Company

$75,000–$99,999

The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation

John Hart and Carol Prins

Megan and Steve Shebik

$50,000–$74,999

Anonymous

Robert and Joanne Crown Income Charitable Fund

Lloyd A. Fry Foundation

Judy and Scott McCue

Nancy Lauter McDougal † and Alfred L. McDougal †

Polk Bros. Foundation

Barbara and Barre Seid Foundation

Shure Charitable Trust

Michael and Linda Simon

Mr. Irving Stenn, Jr.

$35,000–$49,999

Kinder Morgan

Bowman C. Lingle Trust

National Endowment for the Arts

Lisa and Paul Wiggin

$25,000–$34,999

Anonymous

Abbott Fund

Crain-Maling Foundation

Leslie Fund, Inc.

The James and Madeleine McMullan Family Foundation

Dr. & Mrs. Eugene and Jean Stark

$20,000–$24,999

Anonymous

Mary Winton Green

Richard P. and Susan Kiphart Family

Margo and Michael Oberman

PNC

Charles and M. R. Shapiro Foundation

The George L. Shields Foundation, Inc.

$15,000–$19,999

Carey and Brett August

Robert and Isabelle Bass Foundation, Inc.

The Buchanan Family Foundation

Bruce and Martha Clinton for The Clinton Family Fund

Sue and Jim Colletti

Ellen and Paul Gignilliat

Illinois Arts Council Agency

The League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association

Mr. Philip Lumpkin

The Maval Foundation

Sandra and Earl Rusnak, Jr.

Ms. Liisa M. Thomas and Mr. Stephen L. Pratt

Dr. Marylou Witz

$11,500–$14,999

Nancy A. Abshire

Mr. † & Mrs. David A. Donovan

Mrs. Carol Evans, in memory of Henry Evans

Jim and Ginger Meyer

Ksenia A. and Peter Turula

Theodore and Elisabeth Wachs

$7,500–$11,499

Anonymous

Robert H. Baum and MaryBeth Kretz

John D. and Leslie Henner Burns

Mr. Lawrence Corry

Mr. & Mrs. † Allan Drebin

Nancy and Bernard Dunkel

Ms. Nancy Felton-Elkins and Larry Elkins

Mr. & Mrs. Joseph B. Glossberg

Chet Gougis and Shelley Ochab

Halasyamani/Davis Family

Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett

Mr. Glen Madeja and Ms. Janet Steidl

Ling Z. and Michael C. Markovitz

Drs. Robert and Marsha Mrtek

Ms. Susan Norvich

Ms. Emilysue Pinnell

D. Elizabeth Price

COL (IL) Jennifer N. Pritzker, IL ARNG (Retired)

Robert E. † and Cynthia M. † Sargent

Catherine M. and Frederick H. Waddell

$4,500–$7,499

Anonymous

Joseph Bartush

Ms. Marion A. Cameron-Gray

Ann and Richard Carr

Harry F. and Elaine Chaddick Foundation

Constance M. Filling and Robert D. Hevey Jr.

Italian Village Restaurants

Mr. & Mrs. Stan Jakopin

Dr. June Koizumi

Dr. Lynda Lane

The Osprey Foundation

Benjamin J. Rosenthal Foundation

Dr. Scholl Foundation

Jessie Shih and Johnson Ho

Dr. Nanajan Yakoub

$3,500–$4,499

Anonymous

David and Suzanne Arch

Arts Midwest GIG Fund

Jon W. and Diane Balke

Charles H. and Bertha L. Boothroyd Foundation

Dr. Edward A. Cole and Dr. Christine A. Rydel

Mr. & Mrs. Dwight Decker

Camillo and Arlene Ghiron

Dr. Ronald L. Hullinger

Ms. Ethelle Katz

Dr. Leo and Catherine Miserendino

$2,500–$3,499

Anonymous

Ms. Sandra Bass

Mr. James Borkman

Mr. Douglas Bragan

Mr. Ray Capitanini

Patricia A. Clickener

Mr. Clinton J. Ecker and Ms. Jacqui Cheng

Ms. Paula Elliott

Brooks and Wanza Grantier

William B. Hinchliff

Mrs. Gabrielle Long

Mr. Zarin Mehta

Mrs. Frank Morrissey

David † and Dolores Nelson

Mr. David Sandfort

Gerald and Barbara Schultz

David and Judith L. Sensibar

Margaret and Alan Silberman

Mr. Larry Simpson

Dr. & Mrs. R. Solaro

Ms. Mary Walsh

Mr. Kenneth Witkowski

$1,500–$2,499

Dora J. and R. John Aalbregtse

Richard J. Abram and Paul Chandler

Mr. Edward Amrein, Jr. and Mrs. Sara Jones-Amrein

Ms. Marlene Bach

Mr. Carroll Barnes

Mr. & Mrs. William E. Bible

Cassandra L. Book

Adam Bossov

Ms. Danolda Brennan

† Deceased

Italics indicate individual or family involvement as part of the Trustees or Governing Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. Gifts listed as of April 2023

Mr. Lee M. Brown and Ms. Pixie Newman

Bradley Cohn

Elk Grove Graphics

Charles and Carol Emmons

Dr. & Mrs. Sanford Finkel, in honor of the Civic horn section

Mr. Conrad Fischer

Mrs. Roslyn K. Flegel

David and Janet Fox

Scott and Amber Halvorson

James and Megan Hinchsliff

Clifford Hollander and Sharon Flynn Hollander

Michael and Leigh Huston

Cantor Aviva Katzman and Dr. Morris Mauer

Mr. & Mrs. Norman Koglin

Bob and Marian Kurz

Dona Le Blanc

Dr. Herbert and Francine Lippitz

Ms. Molly Martin

Adele Mayer

Mr. Aaron Mills

Mr. & Mrs. Dennis Moffat

Edward and Gayla Nieminen

Dianne M. and Robert J. Patterson, Jr.

Mr. & Mrs. Jeffery Piper

Erik and Nelleke Roffelsen

Ms. Cecelia Samans

Mr. David Samson

Jane A. Shapiro

Ms. Denise Stauder

Michael and Salme Steinberg

Walter and Caroline Sueske Charitable Trust

Mr. Peter Vale

Abby and Glen Weisberg

M.L. Winburn

$1,000–$1,499

Anonymous (6)

Ms. Margaret Amato

Mr. & Mrs. John Barnes

Howard and Donna Bass

Daniel and Michele Becker

Marjorie Benton

Ann Blickensderfer

Mr. Thomas Bookey

Mr. Donald Bouseman

Ms. Jeanne Busch

Darren Cahr

Robert and Darden Carr

Drs. Virginia and Stephen Carr

Mr. Rowland Chang

Lisa Chessare

Mr. Ricardo Cifuentes

David Colburn

Mr. & Mrs. Bill Cottle

Alan R. Cravitz

Constance Cwiok

Mr. Adam Davis

Mr. & Mrs. Barnaby Dinges

Tom Draski

DS&P Insurance Services, Inc.

Mr. & Mrs. Robert Dulski

Judith E. Feldman

Ms. Lola Flamm

Arthur L. Frank, M.D.

Mr. Robert Frisch

Peter Gallanis

Eunice and Perry Goldberg

Enid Goubeaux

Mr. & Mrs. John Hales

Dr. Robert A. Harris

Mr. David Helverson

Dr. & Mrs. Jerome Hoeksema

Mr. Matt James

Mr. Randolph T. Kohler

Mr. Steven Kukalis

Ms. Foo Choo Lee

Dr. & Mrs. Stuart Levin

Diane and William F. Lloyd

Mr. † & Mrs. Gerald F. Loftus

Sharon L. Manuel

Mr. & Mrs. William McNally

Mr. Robert Middleton

Stephen W. and Kathleen J. Miller

Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Morales

Mrs. MaryLouise Morrison

Catherine Mouly and LeRoy T. Carlson, Jr.

Mr. George Murphy

Mr. Bruce Oltman

Ms. Joan Pantsios

Mr. & Mrs. Gerald L. Pauling II

Kirsten Bedway and Simon Peebler

Ms. Dona Perry

Quinlan & Fabish

Susan Rabe

Dr. Hilda Richards

Dr. Edward Riley

Mary K. Ring

Christina Romero and Rama Kumanduri

Mr. Nicholas Russell †

Ms. Mary Sauer

Barbara and Lewis Schneider

Mr. & Mrs. Steve Schuette

Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Scorza

Stephen A. and Marilyn Scott

Mr. & Mrs. James Shapiro

Richard Sikes

Dr. Sabine Sobek

Mr. & Mrs. Ronald Stepansky

Donna Stroder

Sharon Swanson

Ms. Joanne Tarazi

Ms. Joanne C. Tremulis

Mr. & Ms. Terrence Walsh

Mr. & Mrs. Joel Weisman

Ms. Zita Wheeler

William Zeng

Irene Ziaya and Paul Chaitkin

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

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 ORCHESTRA 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 2022–23 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 The Julian Family Foundation

Nancy A. Abshire

Amanda Kellman, viola

Dr. & Mrs. Bernard H. Adelson Fund Megan Yeung, viola

Mr. Lawrence Belles and The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation+ Michael Stevens, horn

† 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 April 2023

Sue and Jim Colletti

Hee Yeon Kim,** violin

Lawrence Corry

Jonah Kartman, violin

Robert and Joanne Crown Income

Charitable Fund

Irina Chang, clarinet

Kunjing Dai, viola

Antonio Garrasi, clarinet

James Jihyun Kim, oboe

David Miller, timpani

Bennett Norris, bass

Mr. † & Mrs. David A. Donovan

Jacob Medina, horn

Mr. & Mrs. † Allan Drebin and The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation

Benjamin Foerster, bass

Mr. & Mrs. Paul C. Gignilliat

Larissa Mapua, viola

Mr. & Mrs. Joseph B. Glossberg

Michael Leavens, trumpet

Richard and Alice Godfrey

Robbie Herbst, violin

Chet Gougis and Shelley Ochab

Liam Jackson, bassoon

Mary Winton Green

Victor Stahoviak, bass

Jane Redmond Haliday Chair

Hana Takemoto, cello

The Julian Family Foundation

Nelson Mendoza,** violin

Ryan Williamson, horn

Lester B. Knight Charitable Trust

Jaime An, cello

Isaac Hopkins, trumpet

Miles Link, cello

Jake Platt, bass

Crystal Qi, violin

League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association

Lindsey Sharpe,** cello

Leslie Fund Inc.

Aalia Hanif, flute Francisco Malespin,** cello

Phillip G. Lumpkin

Dylan Feldpausch,** violin

Mr. Glen Madeja and Ms. Janet Steidl

Abigail Monroe, cello

The Maval Foundation

Joshua Harris, trumpet Felix Regalado, trombone

Judy and Scott McCue

Andrew Port,** oboe

Nancy Lauter McDougal † and Alfred L. McDougal †

Emily Nardo, violin

Dr. Leo and Catherine Miserendino

Olivia Reyes, bass

Ms. Susan Norvich

Nick Collins, tuba

Benjamin Poirot, tuba

Michael and Margo Oberman

Kyung Yeon Hong, oboe

Sandra and Earl J. Rusnak, Jr.

Sylvia Denecke, horn

Barbara and Barre Seid Foundation

Alexander Mullins, bass trombone

Hugo Saavedra,** trombone

The George L. Shields Foundation Inc.

Stephanie Block, viola

Laura Schafer, violin

Haley Slaugh, cello

The David W. and Lucille G. Stotter Chair

Grace Walker, violin

Ruth Miner Swislow Charitable Fund

Kimberly Bill, violin

Lois and James Vrhel Endowment Fund

Caleb Edwards, bass

Dr. Marylou Witz

Marian Mayuga,** violin

Anonymous

Diane Yang,** violin

Anonymous

Kina Ono, violin