Music director and conductor, Stephen Alltop, highlights famous compositions inspired by an early America.
The program features classic works by Coleridge-Taylor, Dvořák, and Tchaikovsky and includes guest musicians, cellist Jean Hatmaker and violinist Isabel Chen, the 2021 Stanger Young Artist Competition Winner.
What’s Interesting About This Concert
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a British descendant of freed African-American slaves, was greatly inspired by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic The Song of Hiawatha and chose to set the poem to music in what became one of the composer’s most well-known pieces. Coleridge-Taylor’s The Song of Hiawatha became so popular in Britain in the early 20th Century that it rivaled Handel’s Messiah and Mendelssohn’s Elijah!
This concert features Isabel Chen, winner of the 2021 Stanger Competition, in a performance of Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s (pronounced de-VOR-zhahk) Violin Concerto. The Dvořák Violin Concerto received its first US performance in Chicago, just down the road at the Auditorium Theatre in 1891.
Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” was written while the composer worked and toured the United States in 1893 — it was completed, in fact, in Spillville, Iowa. Inspired by African-American spirituals like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and Native American music, Dvořák commented: “The future music of [the United States] must be founded on what are called [Black] melodies… They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them.”
What’s Playing
Coleridge-Taylor: The Song of Hiawatha Overture
Dvořák: Violin Concerto — I. Allegro ma non troppo
Tchaikovsky: Pezzo capriccioso
Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”)
Who’s Performing
Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra
Stephen Alltop Music Director & Conductor
Isabel Chen violin | 2021 Stanger Competition Winner
Jean Hatmaker cello
General Admission tickets ($35) and reduced fare tickets for Students and Seniors are available here.
Phone: (630) 941-0202
Email: contact@elmhurstsymphony.org
2023/03/11 - 2023/03/11
Additional time info:
The popular pre-concert lecture with Ted Hatmaker is back for this concert and will begin at 5:45 PM.
Elmhurst Christian Reformed Church
149 West Brush Hill Road, Elmhurst, IL 60126
Located just off Roosevelt Road between York Road and Route 83-next to the new Elmhurst Hospital. Brush Hill Road is the frontage road that runs along the north side of Roosevelt Road.
Free parking is available on both the south and west sides of the Building. Additional parking is located at Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, the Orange Lot (southwest corner) a short 3-5 minute walk. Feel free to drop your passengers at the door before parking in the remote lot.