“Rays of hope amid the despair in 2020” Chicago Tribune | December 2020

“For music lovers, this was a year of monumental losses and occasional triumphs, vast silences and sorely needed bursts of sound.

Though there’s no way to claw back the music and musicians stolen from us by the coronavirus pandemic, there’s no denying the resilience Chicago’s jazz and classical musicians showed in the face of disaster. Whole seasons were canceled, clubs and concert halls stood empty, audiences disappeared. Yet Chicago’s musicians found new ways to reach listeners in a venue where few had ventured before: cyberspace.

The Chicago Sinfonietta offered a world premiere; Lyric Opera music director designate Enrique Mazzola provided a tutorial on Verdi’s “Attila”; and the CSO, Lyric Opera and Ravinia, Grant Park and Hyde Park Jazz Festivals all did what they do best – online.

As always, the Sinfonietta stood at the forefront locally and nationally in bringing diversity, equity and inclusion into the Eurocentric world of classical music. More than 35 percent of the orchestra is staffed by musicians of color, and over 45 percent of those are women, according to the Sinfonietta. Its audience is on average 46 percent people of color (specifically 37 percent African American, 5 percent Latino and 4 percent Asian). Equally striking: 58 percent of the board, 73 percent of the associate board and 36 percent of the staff are people of color.

No major orchestra in America comes close to this kind of representation, and when we come out of the pandemic, these institutions need to find ways to better reflect the communities in which they’re based. It’s an age-old problem for classical music, but one that no longer can be ignored.”

Read the article in Chicago Tribune

By Howard Reich
Chicago Tribune | Dec 08, 2020

Chicago Sinfonietta Presents “Twas the Night Before Christmas” | December 2020

Chicago Sinfonietta Presents “Twas the Night Before Christmas”

Continuing it’s 2020-21 season theme of storytelling, Chicago Sinfonietta invites everyone to get into the spirit of the holiday season with a Sinfonietta virtual premiere – a video performance of the popular poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke Moore.

The family-friendly video presentation of the world-beloved tale continues the time-honored tradition of reading the poem, but with a Sinfonietta twist.

“Twas the Night Before Christmas” is available to watch on any of Chicago Sinfonietta’s social media channels – facebook, twitter or youtube.

Media wishing to share the video are welcome to do so.

Note: Due to COVID-19 no reindeer were asked to travel to Chicago from the North Pole for this video. Santa and his reindeer have been granted special global travel exemption and will be making their traditional rounds worldwide on December 25th. Reading approved by Elves Union North Pole 1.

Chicago Sinfonietta Announces Two New Board Members | December 2020

Chicago Sinfonietta’s Board of Directors Grows By Two

Chicago Sinfonietta is pleased to announce the addition of two leaders from the healthcare and entertainment fields to its Board of Directors: Sundar Subramanian, Partner in Pricewater-house-Coopers, and Allyson Wynn, Founder and CEO of The Wynning Experience. Cited by Crains Chicago Business as the most diverse non-profit board in Chicago, the new members join an influential group of leaders from a variety of sectors dedicated to supporting the 33-year-old MacArthur Award-winning orchestra, a pioneer and positive influencer in the orchestral world holding an international position at the forefront of progressive change in the arts through its mission of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Scott Hoesman, Chair of the Board of Directors and CEO and Founder of inQUEST Consulting in Chicago stated, “The Sinfonietta has been built on the premise that the universal language of music has the power to help us understand, appreciate and unite around the diversity of our human experiences. We are thrilled to have the leadership that both Allyson and Sundar bring to our Sinfonietta family. We welcome their voices and commitment as we continue to accelerate our efforts to drive positive change not only in the arts, but for our world as a whole.”

A Senior Leader and Partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) based in New York, Sundar Subramanian leads US Strategy Consulting business and Growth platforms for PwC Health Industries. Widely published, including in Fortune, HBR, Forbes, Health Affairs, strategy+business, and Financial Times, Mr. Subramanian is a recognized expert in healthcare.

He pioneers in enterprise value creation, and linking community health and value -linking the social determinants in addition to clinical factors to improve measures such as healthy life years of communities. Mr. Subramanian is also a champion for Diversity and Inclusion in the work place within his teams.

Mr. Subramanian holds an MBA from The Wharton School, MS from MIT, and a BTech from IIT-Varanasi, India.

“I am honored to join The Sinfonietta family, the MacArthur Award- winning orchestra, that has a long track record of positive community impact,’ said Mr. Subramanian. “Groundbreaking programs like Project Inclusion foster creativity, mentorship, talent development, and breaks down traditional economic or social barriers across communities so everyone has the opportunity to experience and develop in music.”

Allyson Wynn is the founder and Lead Event Planner for The Wynning Experience. The Paducah, Kentucky native’s experience and expertise lies in project management, consumer-focused promotion, strategic activation, and virtual events. Throughout her career, Ms. Wynn has excelled in bringing brands to life. She consistently demonstrates the ability to build bridges between consumers and their preferred brands. Her clients include The Coca-Cola Company; Anheuser-Busch, Inc.; the City of Mobile; The Children’s Health Fund; and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, to name a few.

Ms. Wynn honed her craft working on large-scale projects such as the Essence Festival, Billboard Music Awards, Oprah Live Your Best Life Tour, and the National Football League Super Bowl. In addition, her passion for event planning earned her national recognition and an acknowledgment by her peers and professional organizations.

States Wynn, “I have always enjoyed art no matter the form. The expression, art is in the eye of the beholder, is true. However, it is important for the beholder to be able to see themselves in the art. Chicago Sinfonietta gives us all the opportunity to not only feel and hear the power of music, but it also allows us to see ourselves through the diversity of its members. It is an honor to lend my talents and skills to help move the orchestra forward.”

Chicago Sinfonietta’s progressive board is 56 % female, 40 % Black, 8% Latino, and 12 % Asian, and has a 15 member Associate Board that is equally diverse.

Six artists of color make their mark in classical music | Chicago Sun-Times, August 2020

Kyle MacMillan of the Chicago Sun-Times spoke with Chicago Sinfonietta Principal Violist Marlea Simpson for a feature on the future of classical music.

“According one report, the share of African American and Latino musicians in American orchestras stood at just 2.5 percent in 2014.

Success for Marlea Simpson will be when the entire field functions like the Chicago Sinfonietta, where the African American musician has served as principal violist since 2014. The ensemble is an unusual outlier in the orchestral realm, because at least one third of its musicians, staff and board are people of color.

“I get to experience classical music in the way I feel it should be experienced,” she said.”

Read the Chicago Sun-Times article.

A World Endangered – Interview with Michelle Isaac and Clarice Assad

 

At a moment in our history when conservation is crucial and time is of the essence, Chicago Sinfonietta seeks to illuminate environmental change through the power of symphonic music. Forces + Fates, the orchestra’s first conversation of the season, explores the volatility of our planet, and how its future rests solely in the hands of the human race.

Two of the concert’s featured composers, Clarice Assad (Nhanderu) and Michelle Isaac (Earth Tryptich, with Stefan L. Smith and Fernando Arroyo Lascurain), discuss the creative impetus for this environment-themed concert, and how the same priority for planetary preservation extends to the lifeblood of classical music.

 

Clarice Assad, whose piece Nhanderu is being performed on the first concert of Chicago Sinfonietta's 2019-20 season

Why is classical music such a powerful tool for you, creatively?

Clarice: I think I can say more with music than I can say with words sometimes. That’s the way that I grew up. Starting with a theme or idea following a storyline or motion – trying to play with that within the music if that makes any sense. With classical music, I can paint a picture of what I’m passionate about, what fuels me, what inspires me.

How does that passion relate to this environmental concert in particular?

C: I was always fascinated by Native American culture, and I really identify with the native cultures of Brazil. The Amazon, the tribes that were there – I studied a lot of their music, and I really enjoyed all of their beautiful rituals with the rain, calling it to help with their crops. It’s worshiping, really. They’re asking for help, getting nature to work with them without trying to manipulate it. I wanted to recreate that in the music. One thing I found effective was to get the orchestra to chant and perform with some effects that would sound like rain falling.

What does your creative process look like at present?

Michelle: I’m trying to nail down my creative process. It’s a lot of trial and error. For this piece, I started by just reading really depressing news articles about the state of the planet. I tend to draw a lot of pictures, doodles, and graphs. I write out prose to get ideas going and end up brainstorming a lot of the emotions you feel when you read these things. Sometimes I build compositional structures off of those things, or I use that as a starting point for basic emotions I’m trying to get to. It’s all one big learning process for me right now, and hopefully it works!

Do you think the creative process shifts as you grow as a composer and musician?

C: Mine is still evolving. I think that it never stops evolving, and that’s the idea. I never like to repeat myself if I’m capable of doing so. I’ll try really hard not to do that. When it comes to orchestrating a passage, I always try to do something different. I get upset when I can’t, because oftentimes we tend to fall back on many things that we know work.

Michelle Isaac, one of three composers collaborating on Earth Triptych, which will be premiered as part of Forces + Fates.

Michelle, we spoke a little about the background of Clarice’s piece and what’s she’s trying to convey. What kind of message are you trying to convey about the planet in your movement of Earth Triptych, both socially and musically?

M: The main message of my movement is a sense of urgency: the idea that we’re hitting a point of extremes not only in weather and temperatures, but also in human indifference. It is also extreme in the sense that we are running out of time to do anything about it. So musically, that’s also the impetus – it starts very slow and harmoniously, and makes people comfortable. By the end of it, it’s very aggressive and is written to make the audience feel very uncomfortable.

Clarice, are there components of Nhanderú that share the same outlook as Earth Triptych?

C: No, it’s different. I wasn’t thinking about climate change or anything like that. It’s more about nature evolving on its own. In a way, it’s the opposite of Michelle’s. It’s going back before all of this stuff started to happen and before we started mutilating the earth.

M: The first movement of Earth Triptych that Stefan is composing touches more on the sentiments of Clarice’s piece because it represents Earth before humans. The point of Earth Triptych is to show that there is beauty that we should be protecting. We depict the beauty, what we’re doing to it, and where we’re going to go from there. So, they’re two different snapshots of the same human-to-earth relationship – at different times, in different cultures, with different messaging.

What is the dynamic like in trying to get the movements of Earth Triptych to communicate with one another?

M: It’s pretty unusual for three composers to collaborate on one piece and make it sound cohesive. We’re still trying to figure out the best way to do that. At this point, it’s going to end up being a dialogue like any other, where different voices come to the table to discuss the same thing and hopefully find some common ground.

Are there parallels between the story that we’re telling about the earth and the state of classical music? Are there parallels regarding the evolution of this artform with the discussion that we’re having in the concert?

C: I think we’re not really damaging the Earth so much as we are damaging the capacity of life. We could disappear overnight, and the Earth would still be here, and it would probably be better off without us. We have to self-preserve. It’s kind of interesting because humans are usually very individualistic, and that’s not a good thing.

Going back to the state of classical music, everything is a little up in the air now, and yes, I think that we’re not listening. We’re not focusing because of all the information that we’ve got in our lives. This kind of music requires attention and listening, and that’s kind of a lost art form in a way. It absolutely links back to what is happening in our world. No one is stopping to listen and pay attention, and enjoy nature.

What steps should we be taking to preserve and evolve classical music?

C: It’s evolving no matter what. That’s the beauty of things that are struggling and have a hard time thriving. One thing to consider is the education system. It really needs attention as a whole. We learn things when we’re very young, and we learn values, we embrace what’s important, and we create habits. The fact that there’s no music in schools is pretty bad, the fact that we don’t really teach kids to preserve nature is really bad. It all goes hand in hand.

M: I absolutely agree. There are, in both the environmental and classical music movements, people who are doing the work, who are preserving, listening, and innovating. But it takes more than that if we want to see both come back to life in a more universal, global spread.

Just having this sort of dialogue in a concert hall is really important, and a really cool thing that Chicago Sinfonietta is doing. It’s not done very often. Maybe that’s the way to get people talking about both of these issues – the parallels between environmentalism and classical music and why we need both of them.

 

Both Nhanderú and Earth Triptych will be premiered on the first concert of our 2019-20 season, Forces + Fates. Get your tickets now!

Project Inclusion | Largest Project Inclusion Class to Date

Press Contact: Jim Hirsch
Chicago Sinfonietta
312-284-1553
jhirsch@localhost
 

Chicago Sinfonietta Continues Its Commitment to Diversity

With Largest Project Inclusion Class to Date

CHICAGO (August 15, 2019) – In a continuation of its commitment to equity, inclusion, and changing the face of classical music, Chicago Sinfonietta has announced its incoming class for its groundbreaking Project Inclusion Freeman Fellowship Program (PI).

Maestro Paul Freeman
Chicago Sinfonietta Founder Maestro Paul Freeman

Now in its 12th year Chicago Sinfonietta founder Paul Freeman created Project Inclusion to provide mentorship and professional development to diverse and emerging musicians, conductors, and arts administrators. Freeman and CS staff thoughtfully designed the program, which has grown to three multifaceted fellowship tracks, to eliminate institutional bias due to ethnicity, race, and socioeconomics, in hopes of making classical music accessible to all. Chicago Sinfonietta’s PI fellows come from across the globe country to work closely with Music Director Mei-Ann Chen, staff members, CS musicians, and key supporters of the organization to gain hands-on experience to help them compete for and win jobs in U.S. orchestras.  The Orchestra and Conducting Fellows will attend, conduct, and perform at Chicago Sinfonietta’s concerts throughout the 2019-2020 season, Dialogue.

“Nothing Chicago Sinfonietta does captures the legacy of our late founder, Maestro Paul Freeman, like the Project Inclusion Freeman Fellowship program,” said Chicago Sinfonietta CEO Jim Hirsch. “Paul had an incredible eye for talent and a life-long commitment to nurturing orchestral musicians, soloists, composers, and conductors from diverse backgrounds. This year’s class of Project Inclusion fellows would make Maestro proud and they will soon take their places on the stages and podiums of orchestras in the years to come.”

Assistant Conductor Jonathan Rush

Former PI Conducting alumnus Jonathan Rush (left) will serve as Assistant Conductor for the 2019-2020 season, working alongside this year’s PI fellows and taking the podium at this year’s MLK Tribute Concert.

 

“I am so thrilled to serve as Assistant Conductor with the Sinfonietta,” said Rush. “It’s truly an honor to be able to continue in Maestro Freeman’s vision, alongside America’s most diverse orchestra. I’m excited to continue changing the faces of classical with my Chicago Sinfonietta family.”

The 2019-2020 Project Inclusion Freeman Conducting Fellows are Dr. Antoine T. Clark, Alexandra Enyart, and Aaron King Vaughan. Former PI Orchestral Fellow Kyle Dickson, along with newcomers Taichi Fukumura and Yabetza Vivas Irizarry, will serve as Auditors.

The 2019-2020 Project Inclusion Freeman Orchestral Fellows are Najette Abouelhadi (cello), Fahad Awan (violin), Alison Lovera (violin), and Seth Pae (viola).

2018-19 Project Inclusion Freeman Fellows

 

“Project Inclusion is about diversity, talent, and developing talent without bias so that young, promising individuals can go on to contribute to what we see and hear on the world’s stages,” said Music Director Chen It is an honor to further Maestro Freeman’s ideals and nurture the incredible artists that are participating in the 2019-2020 fellowship program. Our past fellows have gone on to make their mark in the arts with major positions in the industry, and this season’s fellows hold the same promise. It is my dream come true to witness Maestro Freeman’s legacy being carried far and wide through the expansion of Sinfonietta’s fellowship program and how it impacts our industry in deep and meaningful ways!”

For more information about Project Inclusion, visit chicagosinfonietta.org

 

 

About the Sinfonietta

Now approaching its 32nd season, Chicago Sinfonietta continues to push artistic boundaries under the baton of Maestro Mei-Ann Chen and organizational leadership of Jim Hirsch and Courtney Perkins.  The orchestra is dedicated to providing an alternative way of hearing, seeing and thinking about a symphony orchestra and promoting diversity, inclusion, racial and cultural equity in the arts. In 2016, Chicago Sinfonietta was the proud recipient of the 2016 Spirit of Innovation Award presented by the Chicago Innovation Awards as well as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s prestigious MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions (MACEI). The MacArthur award recognizes exceptional organizations that are key contributors in their fields.

Chicago Sinfonietta is grateful to its 2019-2020 Project Inclusion supporters including: The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellow Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, and technology supporter CDW.