Youth orchestra salutes Lincoln
Leave it to the creative staff at Schaumburg's Prairie Center for the Arts to come up with a multidisciplinary celebration of the Lincoln bicentennial.
No ordinary exhibit or concert would do.
At 7:30 p.m. Monday, the Schaumburg Youth Orchestra will present its "Salute to Abraham Lincoln" in the 400-seat Prairie Center theater.
Playing under the direction of Joseph Malmquist, the orchestra's founding director and orchestra teacher at Conant High School in Hoffman Estates, the group includes nearly 60 students from 25 communities.
Rob Pileckis, Prairie Center production supervisor, says his staff seized a chance to apply for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which funded Lincoln-related projects for the 200th anniversary of his birth.
Right from the start, orchestra members knew they wanted to feature Aaron Copland's famous work, "A Lincoln Portrait." They'd booked Tammy Duckworth, the director of the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs, to read the narration. But her national appointment as Veterans' Affairs assistant secretary forced her to pull out of the event last week.
A replacement was found in Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson, who said that, as the son of a Swedish immigrant who always revered Lincoln, he's thrilled to speak Lincoln's words.
"These are words that have resounded across the centuries," Larson says of the portion of the Gettysburg address included in the piece.
The evening is loaded with music, live narration, a four-minute video produced for the new Lincoln Library in Springfield, and projected images from the Library of Congress digital collection.
Orchestra members will fill the first half with a musical program featuring songs of Lincoln's time, including Civil War marches like "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic," as well as popular pieces like "Shenandoah."
Interspersed with the music selections will be a script, written by Pileckis, that describes seminal periods of Lincoln's life, including his humble beginnings, his rise to prominence in Springfield and the Civil War years, all recounted through historical records, quotes and anecdotes.
Tim Philbin, an area actor and host at youth symphony concerts, will provide the narration.
The second half of the evening will offer classical compositions that embrace Lincoln's ideals, including Dvorak's "New World Symphony" and Copland's dramatic piece.
"The program really looks at what makes Lincoln so iconic, even 200 years after his birth," Pileckis said. "His crusade for civil rights and preservation of a union still in its experimental stages are examined, as well as many other interesting aspects."