Discover Symphony to hold final concert of 28-year history
Discover Symphony, the next generation of the Park Ridge Civic Orchestra, announced that after 28 years it will perform its final concert, Clarinet Times Two, at 3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 28, at Schram Memorial Chapel, 1799 Patriot Blvd., Glenview.
The performance features Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, the first known work written for clarinet and string quartet, followed by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Clarinet Quintet, a work that was written as a challenge to Brahms's quintet, a piece that had become the new gold standard for this combination of instruments.
Tickets may be purchased at www.discoversymphony.org.
Participants can join the symphony after the performance for a reception to commemorate a 28-year history of critically acclaimed performances, as well as community initiatives that included family Halloween concerts, annual music scholarships and continuing music workshops at Lutheran General Hospital's Adult Down syndrome Center.
In October 2020, the award-winning Park Ridge Civic Orchestra wanted to expand its geographic reach and make classical music more accessible to a greater number of patrons and communities.
After performing solely in Park Ridge for 26 years, the PRCO rebranded as Discover Symphony, with a mission of accessibility inclusion and education.
Displaced from its concert home, the Pickwick Theatre, in 2017, and then sidelined by COVID and the sudden loss of its main donor, the organization was never able to find a suitable concert venue or recoup major sponsors and donors.
Therefore, the Discover Symphony board of directors made the difficult decision to shutter the organization.
Highlights over many PRCO's seasons featured performances by an array of famous guest artists, including violin virtuoso Rachel Barton Pine; the late Chicago Symphony Orchestra principal trumpeter Adolph Herseth; pianist Ralph Votapek; former CSO principal cellist John Sharp; baritone William Warfield; former CSO concertmasters Samuel Magad and Robert Chen; twin pianists Christina and Michelle Naughton; Blackhawks national anthem singer Jim Cornelison and others.
Founded in 1994 by CSO first violinist Edgar Muenzer, his wife Nancy and a cadre of dedicated supporters, this organization was acknowledged as one of the finest professional symphonies in Illinois, winning numerous awards.