Eric Owens
Florence B. Price (1887-1953)
is
profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works
List by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma,
http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com.
Opera Superstar Eric Owens Makes His Conducting Debut;
Guest
Artists also include Met clarinetist Anthony McGill and the Mosaic Choir
Wentz Concert Hall, Naperville, January 20
Symphony Center, Chicago, January 21
CHICAGO – Chicago Sinfonietta continues its milestone 25th Anniversary Season with its Annual Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
celebrating the universal lessons of Dr. King with music from the
American South to the African plains. Before 2013’s special guest –
Grammy Award®-winning bass-baritone Eric Owens – takes
the stage as a vocalist, he will first pick up the baton to make his
debut as conductor. Led for a second year by Sinfonietta Music Director
Mei-Ann Chen, the annual MLK concert has been a cherished
Sinfonietta tradition since its founding in 1987 by Dr. Paul Freeman.
The 2013 Annual Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is presented at
Wentz Concert Hall of North Central College, 171 E. Chicago Avenue in
Naperville, Sunday, January 20 at 3 p.m. and at Orchestra Hall of
Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago, Monday, January 21 at 7:30 p.m. (the official MLK holiday). The Sinfonietta is proud to have Fifth Third Bank as the Lead Sponsor of this concert.
Chen opens the concert with a rare performance of The Oak by
Florence Price, the first African-American woman to achieve
international recognition as a symphonic composer. In 1932 Price, a
Chicagoan, won the first and second place of the Wanamaker Foundation
Awards, and the following year the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered
her winning composition, Symphony in E Minor. She had subsequent
works performed by the
orchestras of Detroit, Pittsburgh and Brooklyn, marking a first for an
African-American woman to have her work presented on stages at this
level.
For
the second selection on the program, opera star Owens makes his
professional podium debut conducting Samuel Barber’s inspiring Adagio for Strings.
"One
of my goals for the Sinfonietta, and a personal passion of mine, is to
help expose talented diverse conductors
to our audience,” said Chen. “At last year's MLK concert I invited
Jerilynn Johnson to share the podium with me, and I am very excited to
be able to provide opera superstar Eric Owens with his debut conducting
opportunity at this year's performances."
Maestro Chen returns to lead Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, featuring Chicago native Anthony McGill,
principal clarinetist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, as soloist.
The program continues with African composer Obo Addy’s Wawshishijay, a work originally created for the Kronos Quartet
on its album Pieces of Africa.
Owens returns to the stage as a vocalist for the Chicago Premiere of I’m a Soldier (Spiritual Suite) arranged
by Lena McLin, one of America’s foremost African-American composers.
Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, McLin – a childhood and personal
friend of Dr. King – has more than 200 choral works, cantatas and
musicals published; she is one of the most published African-American
female composers of the Twentieth Century. Most of these compositions
are written in the American Folk
Tradition – choral and solo arrangements of spirituals along with
blues, jazz and gospel compositions.
For the remaining gospel portion of the program (a traditional part of the MLK tribute since the beginning), the award‐winning Mosaic Choir, under the musical direction of Mark Myers, Choral Music Educator, from Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, joins the orchestra with an intern
ationally flavored selection of songs, including
“This Is My Prayer” (African-American), “Janger” (Indonesian),
“Ntakana” (South African) and “Total Praise” (African-American), all
orchestrated by Sam Shoup.
The
concert concludes in the same joyous tradition begun by Dr. Freeman,
with the audience joining together to sing “We Shall Overcome.”
Tickets
Single
tickets range from $40-$50 for concerts at Wentz Concert Hall and
$26-$50 for concerts at Symphony Center, with special $10 pricing
available for students. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Chicago
Sinfonietta at 312-236-3681 ext. 2 or online at www.chicagosinfonietta.org.
About the Guest Artists
Grammy Award®-winning American bass-baritone Eric Owens
has carved a unique place in the contemporary opera world as both an
esteemed interpreter of classic works and a champion of new music.
Equally at home in concert, recital and opera performances, Owens
continues to bring his powerful poise, expansive voice and instinctive
acting faculties to stages around the world. Owens’s career operatic
highlights include his San Francisco Opera debut in Otello conducted by Donald Runnicles; his Royal Opera, Covent Garden, debut in Norma; Aida at Houston Grand Opera; Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Bohème at Los Angeles Opera; Die Zauberflöte for his Paris Opera (Bastille) debut; and Ariodante and L’Incoronazione di Poppea at the English National
Opera. He sang Collatinus in a highly acclaimed Christopher Alden production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at Glimmerglass Opera. A former member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Owens has sung Sarastro, Mephistopheles in Faust, Frère Laurent, Angelotti in Tosca, and Aristotle Onassis in the world premiere of Jackie O with that company.
Principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (Met), Anthony McGill
has been recognized as one of classical music’s finest solo, chamber
and orchestral musicians. Before joining the Met Orchestra in 2004, he
served as associate principal clarinet of the Cincinnati Symphony
Orchestra. On January 20, 2009, McGill performed Air and Simple Gifts
by John Williams with Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and Gabriela Montero at
the inauguration of
President Barack Obama. In 2000, McGill was a winner of the
prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and in March of 2012 was one of
the first three artists to receive the Sphinx Organization’s Medal of
Excellence.
Mosaic Choir is
part of a larger choral program of 15 vocal ensembles involving more
than 300 students at Waubonsie Valley High School. Choral students have
toured both nationally and internationally, with recent tours
to Los Angeles and New York City as well as Italy, South Africa and
Australia. The Music Department at Waubonsie Valley has been recognized
for excellence in music education on several occasions by the Grammy
Foundation through designation as a Grammy Signature School (1999,
2003-2006) and as a Grammy Gold Signature School (2007, one of only
three in the nation, and 2011, one of only six in the nation). The
Waubonsie Valley Music Department was also recognized by the NAMM
Foundation in 2011 as one of the “Best Communities for Music
Education.” Waubonsie Valley High School serves students from the
Western Chicago Suburbs of Aurora and Naperville.
About the Chicago Sinfonietta
For
25 years, the Chicago Sinfonietta has pushed artistic and social
boundaries to provide an alternative way of hearing, seeing and thinking
about a symphony orchestra. Each concert experience fuses inventive
new works from a diverse array of voices with classical masterworks to
entertain, transform and inspire.
The Chicago Sinfonietta has a proud history of having enriched the
cultural, educational and social quality of life in Chicago. Under the guidance of Founding Music
Director Paul Freeman, the orchestra has performed at the highest
artistic level since 1987. Mei-Ann Chen succeeded Paul Freeman as the
Chicago Sinfonietta’s Music Director beginning with the 2011-12 season.
The Chicago Sinfonietta musicians truly represent the city’s rich
cultural landscape and continue to fulfill the orchestra’s mission of Musical Excellence through Diversity™.
The
Sinfonietta was recently honored with two national awards for
excellence from the League of
American Orchestras, one for adventurous programming and one
recognizing Maestro Chen with the Helen M. Thompson Award for an
Emerging Music Director.
Mei-Ann Chen,
also Music Director of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, has appeared
with symphonies all over the country and the world, include the
symphonies of Alabama, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Colorado, Columbus,
Edmonton (Canada), Florida, Fort Worth, Honolulu, National (Washington,
D.C.), Oregon, Pacific, Phoenix, Princeton, Seattle, Toronto, and the
Grand Teton Festival Orchestra.
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