Harp-violin duo leads fall season of Norris Gallery Sunday concerts in St. Charles
The Norris Cultural Arts Center in St. Charles will host three Sunday afternoon chamber music concerts for its fall "Music & More in the Gallery" series, starting Sept. 24 with a performance by harpist Alison Attar and violinist Rika Seko.
Appearing together as Mi Luna Duo, Attar and Seko are among the Chicago area's most prominent performers on their respective instruments. Their program will include works for harp and violin by Camille Saint-Saëns, Joseph Bologne, Marcel Tournier, Nikolai von Wilm and other composers. The concert will begin at 3 p.m. in the art gallery of the arts center, 1040 Dunham Road.
The Sunday afternoon gallery concert series resumes on Oct. 29 with performances by the Hanson String Quartet and the Earl Clemens Wind Quintet, two of the honors chamber ensembles of the Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestras. The series' fall season finale is set for Nov. 26, featuring pianist Jeffrey LaDeur and mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich.
For more information and links to ticketing for all three concerts, visit www.NorrisCulturalArts.com.
Harpist Alison Attar and violinist Rika Seko performed together as orchestral colleagues for over 25 years before beginning their collaboration as Mi Luna Duo in 2021.
A champion of new music, Attar has performed with numerous new music groups, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW, Fulcrum Point, Contempo (formerly Contemporary Chamber Players), and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (England). She was a founding member of the quartet Pinotage (flute, harp, viola and mezzo-soprano) and the Marinos Trio (guitar, harp and mandolin).
Attar's interest in historical harps, specifically multi-row instruments, has led to performances internationally. Career highlights include a 2017 tour of Cuba as guest harpist with the Chicago Harp Quartet, the Chicago Symphony's 2014 Beyond the Score project "A Pierre Dream," two productions (eight full cycles) of "Der Ring des Nibelungen" with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and her role as second harpist for the Grant Park Symphony.
After graduating from Tokyo University of Arts, Seko began her professional career in Bogota, Colombia in 1986, first as guest Concertmaster of the Colombia Symphony, then as Assistant Concertmaster and later as Concertmaster of the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestras. During that time, she performed over 20 different concertos from Baroque to contemporary repertoire, and gave numerous recitals in Latin America.
Since moving to Chicago in 1994, Seko has appeared with many Chicago-area orchestras. Currently she is concertmaster at the Elmhurst Symphony and a member of the Grant Park Music Festival Symphony, Music of the Baroque, Fulcrum Point New Music Project and Camerata Chicago. She is also a regular substitute at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. As a soloist, Seko has performed with the Peninsula Music Festival Orchestra (Wis.), Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra and Camerata Chicago. She gave the Colombian premier performance of "Serenade" by L. Bernstein in 2006.