Old friends, new friends for upcoming ESO season

The Elgin Symphony Orchestra's 2009-10 season, announced today, will include the traditional mix of classical and pops concerts, along with several changes that excite music director Robert Hanson and chief executive officer Dale J. Lonis.

"For our 60th season, we're not having a gala artist to open the season. Instead, we're spreading the wealth throughout the season, so we've brought in a higher level of artists generally," Hanson said. "We're bringing back old friends, such as opening the season Oct. 2-4 with the Romero guitar quartet, which we did, like, five years ago. This is our second time with the quartet, but it will be Pepe Romero's fourth time with us. We've become really good friends over the years.

"That will anchor the beginning of the season," Hanson said. "For the middle of the season, for our Pops Series we're bringing back pianist Kevin Cole to do Gershwin, et. al., and at the end of the season we're closing with the 'Symphonie Fantastique' by Berlioz on a program which will also feature the extraordinarily gifted pianist Stewart Goodyear, who also has been with us before."

The ESO decided to shelve the gala concert concept for a while because, as Hanson says, "How many guest artists like Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and James Galway are out there? Our audience has already enjoyed their artistry, so we decided to go in a different direction."

Two major artistic initiatives next season are the creation of a three-concert weekend matinee family series and the move of the annual holiday program back to the Hemmens Theatre after three years at the Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates.

"We're really hoping to bring back the family audience with our new series," Hanson said. "Two of the concerts will be on Sundays and one on Saturday. We will open on Nov. 15 with a program titled 'Peter and the Wolf,' then have a concert featuring our percussion section on Jan. 24 and close April 17 with 'The Magic in Movie Music,' part of our spring festival, which will explore how émigré Hollywood movie composers have influenced our American voice."

The ESO's one-concert "Holiday Showcase at the Sears Centre" will return to its three-concert roots at the Hemmens under the theme "Home for the Holidays," on the weekend of Dec. 12-13.

"First, I want to say we've been pleased with our experience at the Sears Centre," Lonis said. "But we're an acoustic symphonic orchestra, and our best thing is when you can hear us live without the benefit of amplification. When you have to hear us through microphones and everything else, we're in their hands of whoever is in that sound booth. It sounds great in that context, but I don't think by using amplification we're getting the full impact of Bob's great arrangements in that large space.

"We also analyzed it from a business point of view, and it just didn't make sense for us to stay there after this season," Lonis said. "It was a good experiment, and when all the stars were aligned it was great, but there are a lot of fine reasons to come back to Hemmens."

Following the Oct. 2-4 season-opening concerts at Hemmens featuring the Romeros, here are the remaining seven programs in the 2009-10 Classic Series:

• Nov. 7-8: The ESO will join the statewide Lincoln Bicentennial festivities with the commissioning of a new work by Michael Daugherty, titled "Lincoln Letters," which includes excerpts from the Gettysburg Address and from childhood poems and wartime correspondence. The work is written for baritone and orchestra. That program will also include Franz Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony (No. 8 in E Minor).

• Jan. 8-10, 2010: Guest conductor Tania Miller, music director of the Victoria Symphony, the first female conductor to lead a major Canadian Orchestra, will conduct Brahms' Third Symphony and Dmitri Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony, along with Maurice Ravel's "Le Tombeau de Couperin."

• Jan 29-31, 2010: Van Cliburn Competition silver medalist Joyce Yang will play Serge Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto, the all-Russian program also including Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Russian Easter" Overture.

• March 5-7, 2010: Guest conductor Jeanette Sorrell will be joined by the St. Charles Singers for Antonio Vivaldi's "Gloria," the Baroque-period concert also featuring G.F. Handel's "Water Music" Suite and "Music from the Royal Fireworks."

• March 26-28, 2010: The renowned violinist/violist Jaime Laredo will conduct Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, and he will join with ESO concertmaster Isabella Lippi in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364. The concert will open with Mendelssohn's overture to "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

• April 30, May 1-2, 2010: Hanson will conduct the already mentioned "Exiles in Hollywood" program featuring music by Miklos Rozsa, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman and Richard Strauss. This is the ESO's sixth annual spring festival presented under the general theme "In Search of our American Voice." Korngold's Violin Concerto will feature soloist Jennifer Frautschi.

• June 11-13, 2010: The season will close under Hanson's baton with Hector Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique," Michael Daugherty's "Red Cape Tango" from his "Metropolis Symphony," and guest soloist Stewart Goodyear playing Franz Liszt's "Totentanz" for piano and orchestra

Pops Series: The ESO Pops Series will open Oct. 16-18 with a salute to Henry Mancini with guest conductor Michael Berkowitz; "Benny Goodman's 100th Birthday Tribute" on Nov. 20-22 with guest conductor and clarinet virtuoso Carl Topilow; a visit Feb. 19-21 by the vocal quintet Five By Design in a tribute to classic TV commercials titled "Stay Tuned"; and will wrap up on April 16-18 with "ESO Goes to Hollywood," with Hanson joined by guest pianist Kevin Cole in a concert thematically tied in with the orchestra's spring festival.

For information on season subscriptions, call the Elgin Symphony Orchestra box office at (847) 888-4000, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, or visit elginsymphony.org.