IVSO’s March 10 performance, Be Inspired by Story!, has been relocated to the Dr. Mary Margaret Weeg Cultural Centre at Illinois Valley Community College, and the performance time is now 3:30 p.m. Featuring the amazing talents of our Young Performers’ Competition winners, Senior Division Gabrielle Mosley and Junior Division Hallee Loza.
Read More
We were honored to welcome back to the Illinois Valley world-renowned violinist Rachel Barton Pine as she performed Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35.
Read More
All program notes for the IVSO, unless otherwise noted, are written by Larry Ault, IVSO librarian and orchestra timpanist.
Read More
On Sunday, March 13, the Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra presented Thrills and Chills! which featured the winners of the Junior and Senior Divisions of the 2022 Young Performers’ Concerto Competition, as well as a lively introduction to the orchestra narrated by Roger Amm.
Read More
The Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Music Director and Conductor Daniel Sommerville is pleased to announce the winners of its 2022 Young Performers Competition.
Read More
On Sunday, December 5, the Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra performed A Holiday Concert featuring horn soloist Tod Bowermaster on Reinhold Glière’s Concerto for Horn and Orchestra in B-flat major, Op. 91.
Read More
On Saturday, October 30, Sherry Rubins joined the IVSO in performing Milhaud’s Concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone and Orchestra.
Read More
On Saturday, September 25, Rhapsody for America featured pianist Michael Messer performing George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, as well as flutist Aubrey Garretson, winner of our 2021 Young Performers Concerto Competition.
Read More
When you think of how easy it is to say goodbye to a $20 bill, you realize that one adult admission to an afternoon of evening of great music performed by members of your own community is, by comparison, easily worth the $20 at the door.
But we at the IVSO have always wondered: Who wants to stop at just one? Really, each and every concert program of the season looks fantastic!
Read More
Originally, a serenade wasn’t today’s caricature of a song performed for the lady love in her balcony. It started out more broadly as a piece of music performed in the presence of a loved one or a dignitary with the purpose of bringing them honor.
Read More
The Mula sem Cabeça, or the Headless Mule, is a dark cautionary tale of a woman who committed sacrilege against the Church by having an affair with a priest. In this variation of the tale, the priest brings her peace by swearing at her seven times before beginning mass.
Read More
The song of Uirapurú enchants all who hear it. The theme used here is based on English researcher Dr. R. Spruce’s 1850 bird call transcription of the uirapurú, a small Amazonian songbird.
Read More
Saci Pererê is the trickster of the Amazon. Here his sense of fun is captured by the 5/4 samba, but as with Cururpira, chaos is sure to reign whenever his whistle is heard.
Read More
Iara’s beauty captivates the passions of men, but tragically for them, she is a mermaid who lives in the deep water, and they cannot survive their pursuit of her. In this movement, a man manages to escape her deadly charms at first, but he eventually succumbs, as all have done before him.
Read More
The percussion ensemble of the Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra performs the first movement in Ney Rosauro’s Mitos Brasileiros (Brazilian Myths). This movement captures the tomfoolery of Curupira, the Amazonian dwarf with feet that face the wrong way. Curupira makes his appearance halfway through the piece, creating a mess and causing chaos in the musicians’ midst.
Read More
Although it had been annexed from Sweden by the Russia Empire in the early nineteenth century, the Grand Duchy of Finland enjoyed a fair amount of cultural and political autonomy.
Read More
In this next episode in our “While We Wait” online series, we are thrilled to present the horn players of the IVSO as they perform Lowell Shaw’s toe-tapping Frippery No. 15 with permission from publisher Hornists’ Nest.
Read More
In this final dance from the 1942 cowboy ballet Rodeo, Aaron Copland draws from three Irish folk songs to depict a traditional Appalachian hoedown.
Read More
A small group of string players fight with a larger group of string players. Does this mean they fight against each other? Or do they fight alongside each other?
Read More
This suite of six short dances was composed by Béla Bartók for the piano in 1915 and is based on folk tunes from culturally diverse Transylvania. In 1917 he orchestrated it for a string ensemble, and today we are pleased to present Dr. Daniel Sommerville conducting the Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra Chamber Strings in this tuneful and dramatic set of dances. Kelsey Klopfenstein is featured on the violin in this episode of our “While We Wait Series”.
Read More