Sinfonietta Bel Canto features young talent for concert honoring America’s 250th
The Sinfonietta Bel Canto, under the direction of Dan D’Andrea, is hosting its first concert of the season, its annual SBC Invitational.
Featured are some of the most outstanding young singers and instrumentalists in the Western suburbs and greater Chicago area.
Join the Sinfonietta Bel Canto this season, as it features music celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. This concert features Edward MacDowell’s 1896 “Indian Suite.”
The concert will be at 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 28, at the acoustically pleasing St. Paul United Church of Christ, 5739 Dunham Road in Downers Grove. Ticket information can be found through sinfoniettabelcanto.org. Parking is free and there is ample intimate seating.
Edward MacDowell (1860-1908) was a highly celebrated American composer in the 19th century. His compositions won the approval of music critics both in Europe and the United States, as well as of his contemporaries, including composers Franz Liszt and Joachim Raff.
MacDowell was one of the first American composers to incorporate native materials into his works, aligning himself with the European Nationalistic movement that incorporated folk music into the classical idiom.
MacDowell aligned himself with his contemporaries, such as Dvorak, Smetana, and Grieg, and brought this fascination for indigenous folk songs and dances into his music. Nearly all his compositions feature descriptive titles.
MacDowell studied the Paris and Frankfurt conservatories and taught at the Darmstadt Conservatory in 1886 and Columbia University from 1896 to 1904. In addition to teaching on the faculty at Columbia University, he directed the Mendelssohn Glee Club (New York) and started an all-male chorus at Columbia University.
The “Indian Suite” for orchestra was composed in 1892. This was the composer's second suite for orchestra and was first performed in New York City by the Boston Symphony in 1896. It was composed primarily using themes found in the music of Native Americans of the Northeast and was a success with audiences and critics. The suite is in five movements.
The first, “Legend,” is built upon two themes, both for horns. The second, “Love Song,” is derived from a love song of the Iowa tribe. The third movement is titled “In War-Time” and is martial character. The fourth movement, “Dirge,” is a threnody introduced by tolling bells. The fifth and last movement, “Village,” is based upon two Iroquois melodies, one in the plucked strings and one played by flute and piccolo and accompanied by strings and woodwinds.
MacDowell himself wrote in 1903 that “of all my music, the ‘Dirge’ in the ‘Indian’ Suite pleases me most. It affects me deeply and did when I was writing it. In it an Indian woman laments the death of her son; but to me, as I wrote it, it seemed to express a world-sorrow rather than a particularized grief.”
Sinfonietta Bel Canto has a strong and vital history of supporting vocal and instrumental performance in the Western suburbs and greater Chicago area. Seven works by Mozart, J. Strauss Jr., Donizetti, Humperdinck, Beethoven, and Sarasate will be featured in this performance.
Highlighted artists include Winifred Wolf of Elmhurst, Abbey Carlson of Crestwood, Tzu-Jung Wang of Schaumburg, Joyce Wang of Clarendon Hills, and Raji Venkat, Anya Shi and Drake Wunderlich, all of Chicago.
This program is partially funded by grants from Arts DuPage, a DuPage Foundation initiative, the Illinois Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.