Chicago Sinfonietta Presented a Great Celebration of the End of the 2013-2014 Season – by Natalia Dagenhart

This Mother’s Day lit up with a great celebration of the end of the 2013-2014 season of the Chicago Sinfonietta. This great orchestra presented an amazing concert called Identities that took place at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville on Sunday, May 11. As always, the Sinfonietta connected cultures and nations and left unforgettable memories in everyone’s heart.

The concert started with compositions written by Ilya Levinson. Mr. Levinson is originally from the former Soviet Union. He graduated from the Moscow State Conservatory as a composer, but in 1988 he immigrated to the United States. In 1997 Ilya Levinson earned a doctorate in composition at the University of Chicago. Today, he is a well-known composer both in Russia and in the United States and teaches music composition at Columbia College in Chicago.

His Shtetl Scenes impressed me with their originality and a unique combination of classical genre and national Jewish motives and melodies. Sometimes his music sounded thoughtful and even sad, but then it sounded impulsive and energetic. My soul was singing along with the orchestra that was performing so enthusiastically that I felt all the pain of the Jewish people.

However, I felt even more emotional when the Sinfonietta started playing Klezmer Rhapsody for Klezmer Band and Orchestra. I was lucky to talk to Mr. Levinson during the intermission, and he told me that he wrote this rhapsody in 1998. Originally, this composition was written for a violin and an orchestra. It took Mr. Levinson four months to write that version.

Recently, he decided to rearrange this music and rewrote it for a klezmer band and an orchestra. It wasn’t easy to transfer his thoughts and his mind to the period of time when this piece was composed originally; so it took him about a year to work on its rearrangement and reconceptualization.

The Chicago Sinfonietta performed this rhapsody with Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, a group of professional and very talented Jewish musicians that sounded even more impressive playing along with the orchestra. Alex Koffman, a violin soloist, touched everyone’s heart with his emotional and highly professional solo performance. Klezmer means “vessels of music”. Sometimes, these musical vessels sounded sad, and sometimes they were full of joy.

As Mr. Levinson said, “Tragedy exists even in the moments of celebration”. Again, it describes the depth and the nature of the Jewish music. It would be nice, if these emotional vessels of music represented by Maxwell Street Klezmer Band crossed the musical vessels of the Chicago Sinfonietta many more times in the future.

The second part of the concert presented a composition called Identity: Zhongshang Zhuang written by Michael Gordon Shapiro and Victor Cheng. I never before heard Chinese music performed live and was really impressed by a guzheng soloist Su Chang. She performed on a Chinese stringed instrument called guzheng that is plucked and strummed like a harp. It is nearly 3800 years old, but today, along with the orchestra, it sounded very modern and inspiring.

I was watching Su Chang and was amazed not only by her performance and by the music, but also by her pose, facial expressions and the way she was moving while playing. She brought not only Chinese music to Naperville, but she also demonstrated Chinese culture and mentality through her manners on the stage, her body language, her attitude and her performance overall.

It was interesting just to watch her play. When it was the orchestra’s part, she was sitting still with a nice expression on her face; but when it was her solo part, she all the sudden was very emotional, energetic and involved in the music. It was a pleasure to look at her and listen to the music she was producing.

She wasn’t just playing; she was almost dancing. It was unforgettable and made me fall in love with this beautiful instrument and with such touching Chinese music. The combination of a modern symphonic orchestra and an ancient Chinese instrument sounded so unique that it should be presented to more and more audiences in the world.

The concert was concluded with Romanian Rhapsody written by Georges Enescu. Some parts of this composition I remember from my childhood and was very happy to hear this rhapsody again. Romanian Rhapsody was a very nice and emotional ending of the concert and created a very pleasant mood and state of mind.

This time, as many times before, the Chicago Sinfonietta demonstrated its high professionalism and devotion to the musical art and as always impressed the audience by its excellent performance. I am looking forward to a new concert season and will be happy to attend more and more performances of the Chicago Sinfonietta.

Natalia Dagenhart Copyright