Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra welcomes violinist Rachel Barton Pine as guest soloist for spring tribute

Conductor Daniel Sommerville will lead the Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 30, at the Illinois Valley Community College Dr. Mary Margaret Weeg Cultural Centre in a tribute to spring with an array of compositions by world-renowned composers.

Guest soloist for the concert will be violinist Rachel Barton Pine. She will play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major. The program also will include Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, “Melody” by Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk, Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances” from Prince Igor, and “The Great Gate of Kyiv” by Mussorgsky.

Pine’s history in the Illinois Valley goes back to the 1998 Maud Powell Festival. She performed with the IVSO five times, including at its 50th and 60th anniversary concerts. This performance was scheduled to be at the 70th in 2020 but was postponed twice because of the pandemic.

Pine’s 2021–2022 season includes offering the world premiere of Violin Concerto No. 2 written for her by Billy Childs through a co-commission by the Grant Park Music Festival, the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, and the Interlochen Orchestra. Her orchestral appearances have been numerous, including concerts with Apollo’s Fire, the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Symphonique Quebec, the Tel Aviv Soloists, the Pacific Symphony, and the Vancouver (WA) Symphony. She’ll perform in recital with Lara Downes at Ravinia, for Matinee Musical with Matthew Hagle, and will join harpsichordist Joy Vinikour for concerts presented by Chamber Music Charleston and Chamber Music Columbus.

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major was first successfully performed by Adolf Brodsky with the Vienna Philharmonic on Dec. 4, 1881. Leonard Auer championed the concerto and performed it often. He subsequently introduced it to his illustrious students Jasha Heifetz and Mischa Elman. This concerto utilizes the violinist’s considerable technical abilities.

The Academic Festival Overture was written by Brahms in thanks for the honorary doctorate degree he received from the University of Breslau. The overture cleverly catches the spirit of the German romp, full of beer and jollification.

Composer Skoryk (1938–2020) drew upon material from mostly western Ukrainian folklore as well as English, Welsh, German and Eastern European traditions. “Melody” is a poignant and moving short work that was performed by the Ukrainian Symphony Orchestra for its 2017 tour. Originally written in 1982 for piano, the variations will stay with the listener long after leaving the concert hall.

Borodin (1833–1887) was one of Russia’s most renowned chemists, and he founded the first Russian academy for the education of women doctors. His musical work suffered due to the time he spent on his students’ needs and his chemical research. He did, however, compose a tone poem, three symphonies, fifteen art songs, two string quartets, and chamber works. His opera, Prince Igor, was unfinished at his death, and it was left to Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov to complete the opera.

Modest Petrovitch Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite of fifteen movements, each representing a painting by Mussorgsky’s close friend Victor Hartman. The last movement, “The Great Gate of Kyiv,” isn’t a gate, it was a design submitted by Hartmann for a competition to commemorate the assassination of Czar Alexander II in the city of Kyiv on April 4, 1866. The death of his friend Hartmann inspired Mussorgsky to compose a classical piano suite of fifteen movements called Pictures at an Exhibition, representing pieces of Hartman’s artwork. The piano work was ignored for several decades until Maurice Ravel arranged it for a symphony orchestra. Since then, at least ten composers have orchestrated the work.

Admission to the concert is by season membership or individual ticket, available online at ivso.org or at the door: adult $20, students K–12 free, college with an ID $5. The Dr. Mary Margaret Weeg Cultural Centre is accessible to all. If you have any questions, contact accessibility@ivso.org.

Masks are required for all at the concert. This concert is sponsored by The Blouke and Marianne Carus Foundation, Illinois Cement Company, and Bernard W. Jenkins. The season Sponsor is WCMY/WRKX Radio.