By Kathy Cichon
Naperville Sun
Sep 07, 2022 at 4:13 pm
Saxophonist and Cedille Records Emerging Artists Competition winner Julian Velasco will
perform as guest musician on Roberto Sierra’s “Concerto for Saxophones and Orchestra” during
the Chicago Sinfonietta’s season opening concert, “Next,” performed on Sept. 17 at Wentz
Concert Hall in Naperville. (Chicago Sinfonietta)
A bit of the old and a bit of the new combined with big percussion sounds and a wide range
emotion is a good way to describe the Chicago Sinfonietta’s season-opening concert.
“I think that’s how people (are feeling at the moment),” Maestro Mei-Ann Chen said. “It is a
wide range of emotions we all feel in our life. The new reality if you will, the new normal.”
Audience members can experience the pieces when the Chicago Sinfonietta performs the concert
“Next” at 8 p.m. Sept. 17 at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville and at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 19 at
Symphony Center in Chicago.
Big percussion sections are needed in the two pieces that comprise the first half of the program.
George Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture” is followed by Roberto Sierra’s “Concerto for
Saxophones and Orchestra,” a piece featuring Cedille Records Emerging Artists Competition
winner Julian Velasco as guest musician.
After hearing Velasco perform, Sinfonietta President and CEO Blake-Anthony Johnson asked
Music Director Chen to program a piece with saxophonist Velasco.
“Saxophone concertos are of course, less standard, even I had to Google Julian’s list to pick the
one that seems to fit in our season,” she said
With the jazz theme on the Sinfonietta’s wish list for future programming, “I picked the very
interesting jazz concerto that hadn’t been done that many times by the wonderful composer we
have played a couple of times,” she said.
Chen said Sierra is “able to combine the sounds of Latin America with other idioms and in this
case, jazz” in the work, which has four movements. While the last movement, “Fast (with
swing),” leaves no doubt about the jazz connection, she said all of the movements are fun. The
second movement, titled “Tender,” is also a highlight.
“It’s just absolutely gorgeous music that needs to be shared,” Chen said.
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