Chicago Sinfonietta To Host ‘Open Heart’ Concert
Chicago Sinfonietta To Host ‘Open Heart’ Concert
By Tia Carol Jones
To celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, the Chicago Sinfonietta will present a concert that pays tribute to the legacy of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams. “Open Heart” will take place at 4 p.m. Sunday Jan. 18th, at Wentz Concert Hall at North Central College in Naperville, and at 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 19th, at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago.
The Chicago Sinfonietta was founded in 1987 by Maestro Paul Freeman. Its mission is to champion diversity, equity and inclusion by creating community through bold symphonic experiences. Sidney P. Jackson is the President and CEO of the Chicago Sinfonietta and Maestra Mei-Ann Chen is the conductor.
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was the Founder of Provident Hospital and is known as the first surgeon to perform open heart surgery. “Open Heart” will feature the premiere of a suite from the score of “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat,” composed by Katherine Bostic, breathe/burn: an elegy, a work by Joel Thompson, which was commissioned by the Chicago Sinfonietta after the murder of Breonna Taylor, as well as Symphony No. 9 “From the New World,” by Antonin Dvořák.
Jackson described the Chicago Sinfonietta as groundbreaking, dynamic and daring. He said that Freeman was a trailblazer who sat in the conductor’s chair at a time when it was not common for a Black man to have that role. He said that the orchestra has been doing work around equity and inclusion with a focus on giving opportunities to Black and brown orchestral members. He said the orchestra’s unrelenting commitment to creating a standard in the symphonic world has been instrumental in creating a new sound.
“We were putting Black and brown composers on stage before others,” he said.
The Chicago Sinfonietta also values recording music and has 12 records with Cedille Records. Jackson said that recording the orchestra and the new compositions that come from Black and brown composers is necessary in the Chicago Sinfonietta’s work to create a new sound world. He said that because Chicago is diverse, the orchestra has to be diverse, in order to reflect the people who live in the city. He said it is important that stories from the Black and brown perspectives are told, because music reflects the world. He said having those perspectives and stories told through music at the Chicago Sinfonietta wouldn’t happen without Freeman and Chen.
Jackson said that the Chicago Sinfonietta is still one of the only orchestras that was founded by a Black person that is part of the League of American Orchestras. Jackson said that having the Open-Heart concert pay tribute to Dr. Daniel Hale Williams is the orchestra’s way to highlight a Chicagoan who did the kind of work that was championed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
He said that what makes the concert special is that “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat” was a book that was written by orchestra member Edward Kelsey Moore and Bostic was the first composer-in-residence for the orchestra. The composer-in-residence program gave Bostic and other Black and brown composers the place and space to create new works.
Jackson, while a singer by trade, spent a lot of time in social justice. He said he has a clear vision and wants to go back to basics and go back to being more of a part of the Chicago community, in the way Freeman envisioned. He said he is looking for the concert to be about community and service.
“For me, it’s important to bridge classical and community and use our place and space and convening as an opportunity to connect more with the community and truly activate our space for the greater community of Chicago,” Jackson said.
Other concerts include Still I Rise on March 6th through the 7th, which will feature a collaboration between the Chicago Sinfonietta and Deeply Rooted Dance Theater and American Rhapsody, which will take place on May 8th and May 10th and will feature Pianist Clayton Stephenson performing “Rhapsody in Blue.”
For more information about the Chicago Sinfonietta, visit chicagosinfonietta.org.
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