Chamber Orchestra and Dancers to Present "Carnival of the Animals" Nov. 1

The Chamber Orchestra at Illinois State University will present a concert featuring a performance of Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals” with dancers and narrator at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 1, in the Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall.

Tickets are $6 for the general public, $5 for faculty-staff, $4 for students and senior citizens and free for children 6 and younger.  Tickets can be purchased at the CPA box office from noon to 5 p.m. weekdays or at (309) 438-2535.

Members of the Illinois State Dance Theatre will provide the dance accompaniment to the music and the narrator will be Marc Lebovitz of ISU’s Media Relations/News Service.  Glenn Block, director of orchestras, conducts the Chamber Orchestra.  Laurie Merriman directs the Illinois State Dance Theatre.

A special event for children will precede the concert.  At 7:30 p.m. in the CPA lobby, youngsters (and their parents) can get an up-close look at the musical instruments, getting to hold the instruments and see how the sounds are made.  The “instrument petting zoo” is free.

After “Carnival of the Animals,” the Chamber Orchestra will perform the Igor Stravinsky Concerto in E-flat, also known as “Dumbarton Oaks” concerto.  They will then give the world premiere of a chamber symphony by Brian Patrick Bromberg, an Illinois State School of Music alumnus and recent master’s degree graduate of the University of Otago, located in Dunedin, New Zealand.

“Carnival of the Animals” combines Ogden Nash’s whimsical poetry with Charles Camille Saint-Saëns’ classical music for an enjoyable, humorous journey through a portion of the animal kingdom.  Saint-Saëns composed the 14-movement piece while on vacation in 1886, but the entire composition was only heard by his close friends.  Saint-Saens would not allow the piece to be published until after his death in 1921 because he thought it might damage his reputation as a serious composer of opera, symphonies and concertos.   The musical work premiered in February 1922, and Nash wrote the poetic accompaniment for Noel Coward to read on a recording in 1950.

Dumbarton Oaks is a 200-plus-year-old mansion in Washington, D.C.  In 1938, then-owner Robert Woods Bliss commissioned Stravinsky to compose a concerto for the Blisses’ 30th wedding anniversary.  The resulting “Concerto in E-flat” for chamber orchestra is more commonly referred to as the “Dumbarton Oaks” concerto.

Bromberg, who began composing at age 14, graduated from Illinois State in 2005 after studying composition with David Feurzeig and Serra Hwang.  He also studied conducting with Glenn Block.  At age 20, Bromberg received his first commission from the Northbrook Chamber Orchestra and several more commissions followed.