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.

All program notes for the IVSO, unless otherwise noted, are written by Larry Ault, IVSO librarian and orchestra timpanist.

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.

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.

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.

On Saturday, October 30, Sherry Rubins joined the IVSO in performing Milhaud’s Concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone and Orchestra.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In this final dance from the 1942 cowboy ballet Rodeo, Aaron Copland draws from three Irish folk songs to depict a traditional Appalachian hoedown.