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BY JOSEPH MCLELLAN | SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON POST |

THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2001

“We are in for a treat,” promised Virginia Williams, filling

in for her absent son, the mayor, Tuesday evening in the

Kennedy Center Concert Hall. ”This, she added, “is a

different kind of music.”

The program, performed by the Chicago Sinfonietta

with conductor Paul Freeman and a variety of guest

artists, was titled “Symphonic Diversity.” With one

spectacular exception, the Concerto for Steel Pan and

Orchestra of Jan Bach, the concert featured com-

posers of African-American or Hispanic ancestry. And,

true to Williams’s promise, it was one of the most

unusual programs in the Washington Performing Arts

Society’s season.

As exemplified in this program, symphonic diversity

usually involves a lot of percussion, muscular rhythms

and an array of sounds never imagined by Beethoven

or even Rimsky-Korsakov. In one piece, Encuentro:

Suite de Danzas Yucatecas by Victor Pichardo, the

orchestration included conch shell, wooden box, tor-

toise shells, donkey jawbone and other folk instru-

ments, played by

the five-member

Sones de Mexico

Ensemble.

The Bach concerto offered a technically brilliant and

sometimes witty solo by Liam Teague on the metallic

percussion instrument heard in Caribbean steel bands.

What it does best is shimmer,an effect that was sometimes

submerged in the orchestral sound. It had the audience

laughing loudly during a comic dialogue (or debate) with

a flexatone in the orchestra’s percussion section, and it

concluded with a dazzling display of speed.

In his note on his brassy, bluesy, energetic An

American Port of Call, Adolphus Hailstork ignores the

music’s descriptive qualities and says it is about “the

interval of a major seventh and the cascading, synco-

pated theme that grew out of it.” Perhaps, but in per-

formance it called to mind a bustling scene with motor

rhythms, traffic jams, horns blowing, trains roaring by

and other sounds of a busy city.

The program built to a climax with Alberto

Ginastera’s exotic, high-energy dances from the ballet

“Estancia,” music that rises to a concluding frenzy

comparable to Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.”

For contrast, the program included two of the less bois-

terous classics of African American symphonic music:

George Walker’s gently elegiac Lyric for Strings and William

Grant Still’s “Afro-American” Symphony. During the Still

work, narrator Danny Glover read three poems by Langston

Hughes. The result was emotionally powerful,but at a cost;

the spoken words overshadowed the music to the point of

serious imbalance, except for moments when the music

drowned out the speaker’s voice.

REPRINTED BY CHICAGO SINFONIETTA

©2001 THE WASHINGTON POST COMPANY

THE DELIGHTS OF ‘DIVERSITY’

“THIS,” SHE ADDED, “IS A DIFFERENT KIND OF MUSIC.”

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PAUL FREEMAN, MUSIC DIRECTOR THOMAS DE WALLE, GENERAL MANAGER

MUSIC EXCELLENCE DIVERSITY

BY CHESTER LANE | MAY · JUNE 1997

Presenting a rich variety of symphonic music to a

diverse community is increasingly the goal of American

symphony orchestras. Few of them, however, have put

that idea into practice as successfully as the Chicago

Sinfonietta, an ensemble of 40 to 50 musicians that

plays in Orchestra Hall and in the west suburb of River

Forest. Its board, its playing roster, and its audience

are all permeated with ethnic variety. And the story of

how the Sinfonietta’s Martin Luther King concerts took

on an extra dimension this year begins with the

ecumenical ideas of Paul Freeman and Weldon

Rougeau, the orchestra’s African-American music

director and president.

Long before he earned a Harvard law degree and

became an attorney, Rougeau was a dedicated civil

rights activist. His activism had gotten him expelled

from the public university he was attending in his

native Louisiana.

And through CORE, a

national civil rights

group, he had met

Michael Schwermer,

a young Jewish man

from New York whose idealism had brought him to the

Deep South to work on voter registration drives. In

1964, soon after Rougeau came to Chicago to resume

his schooling at Loyola University, he learned that

Schwermer, along with another Jewish worker named

Andrew Goodman and an African American, James

Chaney, had paid the ultimate price for their activism:

they had been murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

“The shock was a personal one for me,” says

Rougeau. “Being in the civil rights movement in those

days was almost like being at war. The relationships

you developed were very strong and long-lasting.

People felt a kinship to each other. And when some-

body died, especially in circumstances like those, it

was tough.”

Like Rougeau, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a

black man who appreciated the contributions that

Jewish Americans had made to the civil rights move-

ment. King had, in fact, paid tribute to his “Jewish

brethren” in a speech soon after three civil rights work-

ers were slain. So when the Chicago Sinfonietta was

looking for a way to bring the city’s black and Jewish

communities closer together – an idea proposed by one

of its board members, Seymour H. Persky – the orches-

tra’s Martin Luther King concerts in January seemed

like the “ideal slot,” according to Freeman. “We would

salute Dr. King and have as part of the program a

memorial to the three civil rights workers,” he says.

“At first I couldn’t find the catalyst, because I didn’t

know what music to perform. Fortunately, one of the

cantors in Chicago, Albert Mizrahi, sent me the Yizkor

Requiem by Thomas Beveridge. Tom is minister of

music at a church in northern Virginia, and his requiem

combines the Jewish and Christian liturgies.” Freeman

selected about half of the work, inviting Mizrahi and

the choir from Anshe Emet Synagogue to perform with

the Sinfonietta at Orchestra Hall on Martin Luther King

Day, January 20, 1997. On the second half of that

concert the orchestra combined with the 200-voice

Apostolic Church of God Sanctuary Choir, performing

gospel selections arranged by Alvin Parris. The previ-

ous day at Rosary College, the orchestra’s other venue

in River Forest, Morton Gould’s orchestral Revival:

LIVING THE DREAM: EXCELLENCE THROUGH

DIVERSITY AT THE CHICAGO SINFONIETTA

ITS BOARD, ITS PLAYING ROSTER, AND ITS AUDIENCE ARE ALL PERMEATED WITH ETHNIC VARIETY.

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Fantasy on Six Spirituals and Aldolphus Hailstork’s

Epitaph (In Memoriam: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) were

performed in place of the rafter-raising gospel songs.

Both concerts filled out the “freedom” theme with

Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, narrated by actor Paul Winfield,

and Beethoven’s Leonora Overture No. 3 (composed for

the opera Fidelio, an impassioned statement about

political imprisonment and deliverance). And both con-

certs ended with an emotionally charged audience joining

the orchestra and chorus in “We Shall Overcome.”

Unlike many orchestras, the Sinfonietta performs a

Martin Luther King program only every two years, the

idea being to avoid any predictable routine. This year’s

far-from-routine MLK concerts exemplify an approach

to programming that has been the hallmark of

Freeman’s leadership. An African-American conductor

who put together a pioneering series on black com-

poser for Columbia Records in the 1970’s, he has

nonetheless brought to the orchestra’s programs

a highly eclectic mix of

home-grown artistry and

European classics from

several centuries.

The February con-

certs, for example, fea-

tured the world pre-

miere of Chicago composer Kimo Williams’ Two

Gether. Commissioned as a Sinfonietta auction “pre-

mium” in honor of a couple’s 38th wedding anniver-

sary, it shared the program with works by jazz great

Thelonius Monk, 17th-century Italian Girolamo

Frescobaldi, and two Europeans from our own century,

Maurice Ravel and Rodion Shchedrin. And Freeman

has espoused such under-performed American com-

posers as Leo Sowerby (1895-1968), whose Symphony

No. 2 appeared on the March concerts along with

Aldolphus Hailstork’s Celebration and Carl Orff’s

Carmina Burana.

Since last fall, Freeman also directed the Czech

National Symphony Orchestra, and he speaks with

pride about the “cross-pollination” of musical cultures

that this is helping to bring about. This season he

involved both of his orchestras in a two-CD recording

project devoted to works of Sowerby. Freeman brought

in two Czech soloists for the Sinfonietta’s Carmina

Burana performances in March, and the chorus used in

that concert, the Northern Illinois University Concert

Choir, will reprise its efforts with the Czech orchestra

in Prague next season.

African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians make up

43 percent of the Sinfonietta’s board of directors, 24

percent of its playing roster, 50 percent of its soloists,

and 35 to 40 percent of its audience. A commitment to

diversity has attracted the financial backing of the

Chicago Tribune and Marshall Field’s, a major depart-

ment store chain. And the Sinfonietta recently

received a two-year, $120,000 grant from the Joyce

Foundation for its audience-broadening efforts. This is

good news for an organization that has performed sig-

nal service to the City of Chicago but is only now, after

a decade of operation, seeing the end of the deficit

tunnel. “In the first three years,” says Freeman, “we

accumulated a deficit that we have paid down over the

past six and a half. Now that we’re in our tenth year,

we hope to burn the mortgage.”

“When I started the orchestra ten years ago,”

Freeman continues, “I didn’t know that it would blos-

som as well as it has. But I say now to our board that

we are living the dream. The dream was that one day

PAUL FREEMAN DIRECTING THE CHICAGO SINFONIETTA AT ORCHESTRA HALL

THE DREAM WAS TO FILL AN ARTISTIC NICHE IN THECOMMUNITY, WHICH WAS TO PERFORM REPERTOIRE FOR MID-SIZED ORCHESTRA.

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we’d have a big audience, and as we’ve gone along

audiences have increased both in Orchestra Hall and

in the suburbs. The dream was to fill an artistic niche

in the community, which was to perform repertoire for

mid-sized orchestra. We also wanted to tour. We’ve

now toured Europe four times and been invited back

for 1998-99. We wanted to record, and we’ve now

made seven recordings. But perhaps the most impor-

tant dream was our social mission: We coined the

expression ‘Excellence Through Diversity’ and we’re

fortunate in having African Americans, Hispanics, and

Asians of great stature on our board, with a similar mix

in the orchestra.”

For principle violist Renee Baker, an African

American who plays principal viola with several other

Chicago-area orchestras as well, the Sinfonietta is

“the best thing I could have ever come across short of

playing in a full-time symphony.” Baker heads up the

Sinfonietta’s Youth and the Professional Program,

through which orchestra musicians serve as mentors

for Chicago-area students, providing private instruction

and leading workshops for members of the All-City

Youth Orchestra, “There’s a very high percentage of

minority children in All-City,” she says. Many [profes-

sional] orchestras have so few minorities that these

kids don’t think that kind of thing is for them. But they

come to the Sinfonietta concerts and see [minority

musicians], and they’re not all in the back!

“Paul Freeman is world class. A lot of people talk

about encouraging minority talent, but that talent

could be staring them in the face and unless govern-

ment makes them do it they won’t make the move. He

did it without being told, and without the funds.

“I’ve always felt the Sinfonietta was like a milkshake.

Lots of things go into it, and you don’t want to drink it

and say ‘I can’t taste anything except milk, or vanilla, or

sugar.’ To get a homogenous product you have to shake it.

Everybody all together.”


CHESTER LANE IS A SENIOR EDITOR OF SYMPHONY

©1997 SYMPHONY

THE SINFONIETTA ON MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY WITH NARRATOR PAUL WINFIELD,

CANTOR ALBERTO MIZRAHI, THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH OF GOD SANCTUARY CHOIR, AND

MUSIC DIRECTOR PAUL FREEMAN.

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BY JOHN VON RHEIN | TRIBUNE MUSIC CRITIC |

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1996

ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND IMAGINATION EQUAL SUCCESS

FOR CHICAGO SINFONIETTA

The Chicago Sinfonietta clearly believes in backing up

its mission statement with good, honest community

outreach. And the results of those efforts speak for

themselves.

Having built a respectable reputation at home and

abroad, all the while keeping its fiscal house in order,

the mid-sized orchestra can afford to blow its own horn

a bit as it prepares for its 10th anniversary concert

series, beginning next month at Orchestra Hall and

[Dominican University] in River Forest.

“As an organization, we have determined that bigger

is not necessarily better,” says Paul Freeman, founder

and music director of the ensemble, which numbers as

many as 55 players and as few as 45, depending on

the music that’s being performed.

Being relatively compact makes the Sinfonietta

more portable than an orchestra like the mighty 105-

member Chicago Symphony, Freeman points out, and

allows him the flexibility to program an unusually varied

repertory, spanning the 17th to the 20th centuries, that

doesn’t fall within the purvue of a large symphony orchestra.

That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t explain how

Freeman’s group has managed to survive – and indeed,

prosper – for ten years in a tight, highly competitive

classical music market that has seen the demise of

several mid-sized groups, notably The City Musick and

Basically Bach.

“Maestro” Freeman (as he is known within the

organization) is as quick at rattling off rosy statistics

as he is with the baton. The group, he explains, has

operated in the black for the past six years, ending

last season with a $33,000 surplus. This has enabled

the Sinfonietta to reduce its accumulated deficit to

about $25,000, on a budget of $1.4 million.

Subscription ticket sales increased 40 percent over

the previous year. This year’s subscription sales, so

far, are running 15 to 20 percent higher than they were

last year at this time.

William Griffin, the Sinfonietta’s general manager

since 1994, attributes the orchestra’s success primarily

to two factors. “First of all, we would not be where we

are without Paul Freeman’s vision. The other reason we

have taken hold in Chicago is that we are such an eth-

nically diverse institution, at all levels.”

Indeed, from the very beginning Freeman saw the

Sinfonietta as a kind of Rainbow Coalition orchestra,

youthful in personnel as well as in outlook, and also a

place where talented black, Hispanic and Asian musi-

cians could gain valuable orchestral experience.

And he has made good on that vision.

No other small orchestra in the Chicago metropolitan

area can boast so ethnically diverse a roster. About 28

percent of the orchestra is made up of non-white players;

this translates into six to nine African Americans

(again depending on the specific repertory), three or

four Asians and three Hispanic musicians. It is also

significant that more than half the players are women.

YOUTHFUL OUTLOOK

PAUL FREEMAN, FOUNDER AND MUSIC DIRECTOR OF THE CHICAGO SINFONIETTA,

NOW ENTERING ITS 10TH SEASON

Similar percentages apply to the group’s racially

mixed board of directors as well as to the associate

board and its various support groups.

Freeman is always on the lookout for deserving

young soloists who would otherwise find it hard to

secure a professional orchestral booking in the area.

Among the soloists the Sinfonietta will present this

season are a 19-year-old African-American pianist, Carl

Gales, and violinist Livia Sohn, a Korean-American

teenager.

“From the feedback I get from black audience mem-

bers, I know their positive reaction to our concerts

relates directly to seeing their own on stage, hearing

black soloists perform and hearing music by black

composers, which we intersperse with more standard

fare,” the music director says.

Still, Freeman stresses that the Sinfonietta is not an

affirmative-action orches-

tra. Quality, not quotas,

is its operative credo:

Regardless of a player’s

ethnic background, he or

she must be able to

meet a certain level of

performance ability – and

many do not.

“Although we hold auditions for minority musicians

from time to time, we do not displace other players

just to give a position to a minority player. An orches-

tra could not thrive that way,” Freeman explains. “What

we do, rather, is keep a list of possible substitute play-

ers. When there’s an opening in the orchestra, if a

qualified minority musician is on the list, we try to give

that person preference.”

Unlike other professional mid-sized orchestras in

the area, the Sinfonietta has taken full advantage of the

exposure provided by touring and recording.

Last season the group made its fourth European

tour – nine concerts in Switzerland and three in

Germany – and undertook its first major U.S. tour, con-

sisting of eight concerts in California. This month will

bring the release of the Sinfonietta’s sixth recording,

the Rudolph Ganz Piano Concerto as performed by the

late Chicago pianist Ramon Salvatore, on the Cedille

label. Next spring Freeman and friends will be back in

the studio to tape another Chicago composer’s work,

Symphony No. 2 by Leo Sowerby; the Sinfonietta con-

cert March 31 will mark its first local performance in

nearly 70 years.

And the group’s go-getter spirit has not escaped the

attention of Chicago foundations, its largest support

source. Last year local foundations gave the Sinfonietta

$222,475 (including $25,000 from the Chicago Tribune

Foundation) – about $60,000 more than the Sinfonietta

had budgeted. By comparison, non-foundation corporate

support – around $73,000 last year – is lagging, but this

is a problem shared by many of the city’s smaller

groups.

Perhaps what is needed is for the Sinfonietta to

entice a few corporate honchos into one its concerts

downtown or at [Dominican University], where the group

continues as the resident professional orchestra. Maybe

then these captains of local industry would realize what sets

the group apart – the eagerness of the young musicians

and the frisky, diverse programming that puts symphon-

ic music within reach of a true community of listeners.

All it takes, Freeman says, is a bit of musical imag-

ination, talented young players and a willingness to

demolish the invisible barriers that separate performer

and listener, highbrow and lowbrow music. Last year

he put a 16-piece steel drum ensemble on stage for the

premiere of a new Concerto for Steel Pan by Chicago

composer Jan Bach. The result was one of the most

exhilarating evenings stuffy old Orchestra Hall has

heard in ages. Here was the Sinfonietta doing what it

does best.

NO OTHER SMALL ORCHESTRA IN

THE CHICAGO METROPOLITAN

AREA CAN BOAST SO ETHNICALLY

DIVERSE A ROSTER.

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Looking ahead, orchestra officials have put together

a five-year growth plan. Griffin says he hope to have an

endowment fund in place by the year 2000, by which

time the orchestra will have added a third subscription

series to its concert agenda at Orchestra Hall and

[Dominican University]. More domestic and foreign tours

are penciled in for 1998 and 1999, perhaps even several

joint appearances with Freeman’s “other” orchestra, the

Czech National Symphony Orchestra of Prague, of which

he was named music director earlier this year.

But the people in charge of the Sinfonietta are careful

not to put artistic ambition ahead of financial stability.

And careful, too, to keep the ensemble’s mission ever

in clear view – which means,among other things,building

classical music audiences for the future.

“One of my most gratifying experiences is talking

with young people when they come backstage after our

concerts,” Freeman says. “I asked one 8-year-old what

his favorite piece on the concert was. ‘Shostakovich,’ he

replied. Imagine your typical adult listener saying that!

“I asked another youngster whether she had fallen

asleep at any point during the concert. ‘Of course not,’

she replied, very huffily. She clearly felt I had insulted

her to the quick!”


©1997 THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

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BY TED SHEN | SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE |

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2000

At first glance, Monday night’s program for the Chicago

Sinfonietta concert at Symphony Center looked as if

conductor Paul Freeman’s “something for everyone”

policy had gone amok. How else to explain the inclu-

sion of Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony alongside

works written by and associated with three prominent

African-American musicians from the 20th Century?

Yet, a close scrutiny reveals that it might not have

been far-fetched to lump together music of a lyrical

bent that didn’t break new ground but elaborated or

even improved on existing forms. Mendelssohn, in his

symphonies, paid heed to the classical style of Mozart

and Beethoven just as much as George Walker and

Hale Smith followed the examples of European-

influenced modernists and jazzman Charlie Parker

honored Tin Pan Alley tunesmiths by playing the alto

sax in arrangements of their popular hits.

Juxtaposing jazz and classical music has become a

trademark for the Sinfonietta, an organization that

insists on diversity in its roster and repertoire. Still, it

was unusual even for it to feature three black com-

posers in one program – albeit composers who, though

divergent in their career paths, are now regarded as

exemplars of the African diaspora.

Parker played in bars and clubs and died young,

while his near-contemporaries Walker and Smith went

the establishment route and ended up with long

tenures in academia. The irony, of course, is that Bird’s

legacy has had the more profound impact on American

music and culture.

Just how much could be sensed in the Sinfonietta’s

performances of five selections from the “Charlie

Parker With Strings” recordings made between 1947

and ‘52. Or, more accurately, in the buoyant playing of

veteran saxist Phil Woods that uncannily resembled

the original grace and feel of freedom.

The glossy pizzicato-laden orchestral backdrops –

some by Joe Lipman and others by Jimmy

Carroll – sounded awfully like Muzak, even though the

Sinfonietta painted them with gusto. When the quartet

led by Woods performed “Body and Soul” alone, they

managed to reclaim Parker’s bop essence.

Walker’s 1945 Lyric for Strings suffers from

a “by-the-numbers” simplicity; the strings enter stately,

section by section, then swell to euphony. Like its

model, Barber’s Adagio for Strings, it exudes a sweet-

ness tempered by regret and ends in calm acceptance.

Freeman guided his players through the various shadings

carefully and brought forth the poignancy.

SINFONIETTA CONCOCTS AN UNUSUAL MIX

CHICAGO SINFONIETTA CONDUCTOR PAUL FREEMAN

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Smith’s Ritual and Incantation, a 1974 work cham-

pioned by Freeman over the years, couldn’t have been

more different in mood. It’s raucous and ecstatic, moving

from primordial brass wails to string buzzes to percus-

sive whacks. Its percussion-heavy soundscape brings

to mind Stravinsky, Hindemith and Lukas Foss. But its

wild streak and raw power also hark to Smith’s experi-

ence as a jazz pianist collaborating with the likes of

Dizzy Gillespie.

Freeman worked up a sweat getting a rousing, skill-

ful performance out of the orchestra. The same zeal

could have enhanced their reading of Mendelssohn’s

symphony, which turned out to be tepid except for the

vibrant finale. It was back in full force for the encore,

Gliere’s Russian Sailor’s Dance. The band becomingly

whooped up the boozy delirium.



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SINFONIETTA TEAMS UP WITH APOSTOLIC CHURCH

OF GOD CHOIR TO RAISE THE RAFTERS IN ORCHESTRA

HALL IN A TRIBUTE TO MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

BY HOWARD REICH | TRIBUNE ARTS CRITIC |

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1997

America celebrated the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. in

uncounted ways on Monday, but the musical tribute that

shook Orchestra Hall surely ranks among the most stirring.

With the Chicago Sinfonietta playing at the top of

its form, the Apostolic Church of God Sanctuary Choir

singing to the high heavens and a nearly sold-out

house roaring its approval, one might almost have

thought this was Sunday morning in a magnificent

South Side Church.

Certainly the mood of jubilation and sense of

redemption that defined the final minutes of the concert

transcended expectations, particularly for anyone

accustomed to the secular forms of musicmaking that

typically are heard in Orchestra Hall. Defying the musical

convention, however was precisely the idea.

For the past several years, the Chicago

Sinfonietta – under the direction of Paul Freeman – has

marked King’s holiday with a special tribute concert,

none more ambitious nor stylistically wide-ranging than

this. By featuring a gospel choir of more than 200 voices

and backing it with both an orchestral accompaniment

and a buoyant gospel rhythm section, Freeman was

tossing symphonic convention to the winds.

If the massive choir sounded a bit tentative in its first

two selections, “When All of God’s Children” and “Soon,

Very Soon,” the ensemble burst forth with remarkable

sonic power and rhythmic drive in its final offering, “I’m

So Glad I’m Free.” Here,at last,was an arrangement worthy

of this group, with call-and-response patterns making

one chorus sound like three.

But Freeman, a shrewd program builder, was not

content to win over his audience with heaven-storming

fare alone. Instead, he offered two major works that

honored King’s legacy in significantly different ways.

Much of the music that Aaron Copland wrote in his

populist manner would have fit neatly into this program,

yet A Lincoln Portrait was particularly appropriate.

Using excerpts from Lincoln’s speeches and letters,

Copland fashioned a piece addressing the nobility of

Lincoln’s ideas in both word and musical phrase.

To his credit, conductor Freeman chose actor Paul

Winfield to read the famous narration, and Winfield’s

decidedly idiosyncratic version – one of the most lyrical

this listener has heard – justly won him a standing ovation.

The poetry of Winfield’s reading, with its soft tones

and carefully nuanced phrasings, cast A Lincoln

Portrait in a relatively new light. For while many

narrators relish the drama and oratory of the piece,

Winfield gave the text a soft-spoken, human dimension

it rarely receives.

DEFYING CONVENTION

PAUL FREEMAN LEADS THE CHICAGO SINFONIETTA IN ITS ANNUAL TRIBUTE

TO REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING ON MONDAY NIGHT IN ORCHESTRA HALL.

The most challenging work of the evening was

Thomas Beveridge’s Yizkor Requiem, a piece for cantor,

small chorus, and orchestra that draws heavily on

Hebraic text and musical tradition. By including such a

work in an evening honoring King, Freeman and the

Sinfonietta clearly were saluting the Jewish contribu-

tion to the civil rights movement in America.

For anyone who didn’t pick up on this point, however,

the evening’s program booklet noted that the perform-

ance of the piece was “dedicated to James Chaney,

Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner,” the

“African-American Christian and two European-American

Jews” who died during the civil rights battles in

Mississippi in the early 1960’s.

Cantor Alberto Mizrahi, the Anshe Emet Synagogue

Choir and the Sinfonietta performed excerpts of the

piece with fervor and sensitivity.

Yet by including on this program such a broad range

of repertoire, Freeman was reaching out to all of his

listeners, surely King would have been pleased.

The program will be broadcast on WFMT-FM 98.7

February 2.



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BY WYNN DELACOMA | SUN-TIMES MUSCIC CRITIC |

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1996

Ask any consultant what an arts organization needs

to survive in these difficult times, and the answer will

be simple: a clear mission.

Few Chicago music groups have as clear a sense of

its own mission as the Chicago Sinfonietta. Monday

night, at its second program of the season at

Orchestra Hall, the message of that vision was sent

loud and clear, as is typical of this ensemble founded

ten years ago by conductor Paul Freeman.

One reason Chicago Sinfonietta exists is to give

young soloists a chance to be heard. The evening’s

violin soloist was 19-year-old Livia Sohn, whose

resumé includes some impressive concert appear-

ances and a Yehudi Menuhin Competition prize.

Chicago Sinfonietta also aims to bring the best

possible performances to audiences at less-than-

stratospheric prices. The evening’s other soloist was

Alex Klein, who joined the Chicago Symphony

Orchestra as principal oboist last season. Ray Still, his

predecessor at the CSO, was among the world’s finest

oboists, and Klein is proving to be worthy replacement.

The Sinfonietta also exists to give its players, many

of them just starting orchestral careers, a chance to

explore the standard repertory and expose audiences

unfamiliar with classical music to the major com-

posers and works. The evening closed with a rousing

reading of Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony. This list may

impress funding organizations, but the true test of a

music group’s vision is how its performances sound.

Monday’s program, a repeat of one done Nov. 10 at

[Dominican University], was a reminder of the

Sinfonietta’s strengths.

Klein brought his trademark clear, powerful tone to

Mozart’s C Major Oboe Concerto. The orchestra sounded

heavy behind him, but his bright, agile playing was

seamless and smooth, whether in Mozart’s elegant

ornaments or longer, singing melody lines. A sense of

playfulness suffused the finale.

In Bruch’s G Minor Violin Concerto, Sohn played

with ardor and confidence, matched by the orchestra’s

crisp attacks and ability to create musical drama.

Freeman, who also is music director of the Czech

National Symphony Orchestra, excels in 19th century

Eastern European music, and the Dvorak Seventh

Symphony was exuberant, full of vivid color and

unforced excitement.


©1996 CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

SINFONIETTA PLAYS ITS MISSION PROUD

FEW CHICAGO MUSIC GROUPS HAVE AS

CLEAR A SENSE OF THEIR OWN MISSION

AS THE CHICAGO SINFONIETTA.

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BY ANDREW PATNER | CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW |

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1996

DIVERSE CROWD FINDS DELIGHT IN SINFONIETTA

Those who bemoan the future of audiences for classical

music should attend a concert by the Chicago

Sinfonietta. People of all ages and walks of life mingle

cheerily. African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian-

Americans are a strong presence. There is a spirit of

bon homme too often absent from the stuffy crowd at

Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts.

But a Sinfonietta evening is not merely an exercise

in feel-good psychology or sociology. Serious music is

made under the baton of music director Paul Freeman.

Monday night’s program at Orchestra Hall exhibited

another Freeman strength-program building.

The high point was a rarity: the 1941 Piano Concerto in

E-flat by legendary pianist and conductor Rudolph Ganz,

the longtime head of Chicago Musical College who lived

here until his death at 95 in 1972. The CSO commis-

sioned the concerto to mark its 50th anniversary, with

Ganz himself giving the premiere under Frederick Stock.

Ramon Salvatore was the revival’s more than able

soloist. He brought out the 25-minute work’s debts to

Ravel to Shostakovich, but did so with an ear that

found “Dr. Rudi’s” own voice. Like Ganz’s influences, it

was one inspired by the sounds and rhythms of

American jazz but with a decidedly European accent.

So what if passages in the outer movements sounded

as if they were written for Jose Iturbi to play at the

Hollywood Bowl? Salvatore tore into them with preci-

sion and gusto. One looks forward to the premiere

album of the work that he and Freeman will record this

week for Cedille Records.

These were the first performances by a local

orchestra of Hale Smith’s 1977 Innerflexions. Smith, 70,

a leading African-American composer, was present to

hear his nine-minute essay that echoed Stravinsky in

its bending of rhythms, harmonies and colors.

The high notes and pianissimos of Mahler’s early

Songs of a Wayfarer were beyond veteran Norwegian

soprano Kari Lovass, but Freeman gave Schoenberg’s

reduction of the score for midsize orchestra a con-

vincing reading. A spirited performance of Mozart’s

Symphony No. 35, “Haffner,” K. 385, opened the pro-

gram; joyful encores of a Dvorak Slavonic Dance and

Leroy Anderson’s delightful pizzicato Plink, Plank,

Plunk (offered twice!) closed it, sending the audience –

whether black or white, young or old, in wheelchairs or

running shoes – out smiling into the night.



MUSICAL MELTING POT

CHICAGO SINFONIETTA DIRECTOR PAUL

FREEMAN BRINGS SERIOUS MUSIC TO

A LIGHTER ATMOSPHERE.

SOLOIST RAMON SALVATORE PERFORMED

THE 1941 PIANO CONCERTO IN E-FLAT

WITH GUSTO

BY WYNN DELACOMA | SUN-TIMES MUSCIC CRITIC |

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1997

The advertised theme of Monday night’s Chicago

Sinfonietta concert at Symphony Center was “Music of

Our Homelands,” one of those vague, catch-all titles

often slapped on mundane programs to give them

some zip.

Had the evening conducted by Sinfonietta founder

Paul Freeman simply consisted of Dvorak’s well-worn

“New World” Symphony and the vapid Irelande-

Symphonic Poem by Irish composer Augusta Holmes,

the title would have been mere window dressing. But

the program also included August 12, 1952: The Night

of the Murdered Poets, a powerful work composed in

1978 by Morris Moshe Cotel.

The piece is a setting of seven texts masterfully

declaimed Monday night by Lyric Opera’s Danny

Newman, set against a spare accompaniment of

piano, double bass, French horn and percussion.

Inspired by the deaths of 24 Jewish poets in Moscow’s

infamous Lubyanka Prison during Stalin’s reign of

terror, the work raises profound

questions about the very defini-

tion of homeland. By scoring the

work for such a tiny band of

musicians, Cotel underlined the

horrifying loneliness that must

have haunted the doomed Jewish poets in their final

hours. Also implied, of course, is the loneliness of any

people, including Jews, who feel themselves in exile

and without a homeland.

Newman, a legendary public relations man who fre-

quently announces changes of cast in Lyric’s vast

Ardis Krainik Theatre without benefit of microphone,

has a clear dramatic voice suited to Cotel’s work. He

was amplified Monday night, but there was nothing

exaggerated in his delivery. Hurling forth the words,

“Earth, oh earth, do not cover my blood,” attributed to

slain poet David Bergelson, he spoke directly from the

heart, with the raw urgency of a tormented soul.

The orchestral accompaniment was a marvel of

understatement. Principal bassist Brenda [Farnsley],

pianist Patrick Sinozich and principal horn John

Fairfield, along with Sinfonietta percussionists, creat-

ed a landscape of winterly solitude. In comparison, the

late 19th century romanticism of Holmes’ “Irelande-

Symphonic Poem,” sounded trite. Her tone poem

portraying Irish life from pastoral gambols to political

turmoil sounded hackneyed despite the polished

performance.

The concert opened with a sprightly performance of

Carl Maria von Weber’s “Euryanthe” Overture. Early

deadlines prevented me from staying for Dvorak’s

“New World” Symphony.



CHICAGO SINFONIETTA AT SYMPHONY CENTER

THE ORCHESTRAL ACCOMPANIMENT WAS A MARVEL OF UNDERSTATEMENT.

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BY WYNN DELACOMA | SUN-TIMES MUSCIC CRITIC | TUSEDAY,

NOVEMBER 19, 1996

James “Kimo” Williams stood triumphantly onstage at

Orchestra Hall. The Chicago Sinfonietta had just given

the Chicago premiere of his classical music composi-

tion, Symphony for the Sons of Nam, and the audience

was on its feet.

Williams bowed to the main floor before raising his

arms in victory to the balcony. When the clapping subsided,

Williams, a 44-year-old black Vietnam veteran, turned

and bowed deeply to Paul Freeman, the Sinfonietta’s

conductor and the man who made William’s memorable

night possible.

“He’s been the greatest catalyst for getting the works

of African-American composers heard,” said Williams,

who is an artist-in-residence at Columbia College.

Getting the compositions of little-known ethnic com-

posers heard and recorded was one of the goals

Freeman set out to achieve when he founded the

Sinfonietta in 1987. Freeman also wanted to expose

the works of great composers to diverse audiences

and provide opportunities for ethnic musicians to play

classical music.

He seems to have reached all of those goals

despite busy travel schedule that takes him around

the world to conduct and record with other orchestras.

Last week, for example, Freeman was in England con-

ducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Sinfonietta is Italian for “little symphony.” Unlike

traditional symphonic orchestras that have about 100

members, the Sinfonietta has only about [55] members.

And in this instance, Sinfonietta also means “tiny

budget,” compared to

major orchestras.

The Sinfonietta’s

annual budget is about

$1.5 million. The Chicago

Symphony Orchestra, by

comparison, has a yearly

budget of $35 million.

Sinfonietta members

also get paid only when

they perform, unlike CSO

members, who receive a

regular paycheck.

Despite its shoestring budget, the Sinfonietta puts

on six concerts a year at Orchestra Hall. It also per-

forms at [Dominican University] in River Forest.

The Sinfonietta also has made major strides in pro-

viding career opportunities in classical music. Some

52 percent of the Sinfonietta’s musicians are women

and 25 percent are non-white, Freeman said during a

recent interview. The Sinfonietta’s motto is Excellence

Through Diversity.

“At CSO, women are a minority, and the orchestra

never has had a permanent black member in its history,”

Freeman said. The CSO isn’t the only major orchestra

that has a dearth of black musicians. A survey

released in April by Symphony magazine reported that

blacks held a mere 1.4 percent of the 8,700 positions

at 116 major orchestras – virtually unchanged from a

survey conducted five years earlier.

SINFONIETTA PROVIDES SOUNDINGBOARD

FOR BLACK COMPOSERS

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PAUL FREEMAN IS OPENING THE DOOR FOR

BLACK CLASSICAL MUSICIANS AND COMPO-

SURES WITH THE CHICAGO SINFONIETTA,

WHICH HE FOUNDED IN 1987

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“Conductors such as Freeman help open the doors

for black classical musicians and knock down racial

stereotypes,” said Samuel A. Flood Jr., director of the

Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College.

“If Freeman didn’t offer young blacks a chance to

play classical music, they wouldn’t see it as a career

option,” Flood said.

“There’s also a strong belief that blacks can only

play jazz and blues. It is important to show another

side of our talents.”

That side not only includes playing classical music,

which evolved from Europe, but writing it as well.

Although Freeman has become a champion of black

composers, he only

discovered their exis-

tence in 1969 while

attending a musical

symposium in the

South. In its reper-

toire, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra included classical

compositions by black composers from the Southeast.

“It was a revelation…I had not been exposed to the

works of black composers in conservatory,” said

Freeman, who received his doctorate from Eastman

School of Music in Rochester, NY.

Five years later, Freeman gave African-American

composers a new performance in the world of classical

music when he recorded the now-famous “Black

Composers Series” for Columbia Records .

The first discs in the set were issued from 1974-77

and reissued in 1988. In that series, Freeman recorded

the music of William Grant Still, who wrote “Afro-American”

Symphony; Ulysses Kay, who composed Markings, and

Chevalier de Saint-Georges, who died in 1799.

“By recording the works of a composer, you expose

what you heard in a hall to many, many more people.

You have the potential of reaching 10,000 to 20,000

more people. Other conductors also hear the music

and possibly put it into their music programs,”

Freeman said.

Columbia’s Flood agrees, but says symphony

orchestras still largely ignore black composers.

“Despite the acclaim the ‘Black Composers Series’

received, the works of African-American composers are

seldom played by anybody,” he said.

Someone, however, is listening.

Recently the Sinfonietta received a $28,000 match-

ing grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to

record the works of three black composers on the Pro

Arte Fanfare Label.

They include Roque Cordero’s Eight Miniatures for

Orchestra, Adolphus Hailstork’s Epitaph for a Man who

Dreamed and Williams’ Fanfare for Life, which concerns

urban violence.

When Freeman isn’t traveling, he stays in Chicago

and Victoria, British Columbia, where he lives with

his son and wife, Cornelia, a French teacher.



HE’S BEEN THE GREATEST CATALYST FOR GETTING THE WORKS OF AFRICAN-AMERICANCOMPOSERS HEARD

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BY ANDREW PATNER | SUN-TIMES MUSCIC SECTION |

SUNDAY OCTOBER 13, 1996

10-YEAR-OLD SINFONIETTA IS THRIVING

If the Chicago Sinfonietta could claim only to have

brought new audiences to the world of classical music,

you’d have to regard the group as a marvelous

success story.

The same is true if it were known only for offering

an outlet to minority musicians, soloists, composers

and conductors.

Or ditto if in 10 years the feisty ensemble had sim-

ply accomplished a high level of performance of a

wonderfully varied repertoire.

But as it marks its 10th anniversary, Chicago’s

alternative symphony orchestra and its founder and music

director, Paul Freeman, have done all of these things

and more.

“We’re living the dream,” says Freeman, the visionary

with orchestras in Prague, Czech Republic and

Victoria, British Columbia, as well as Chicago.

“Starting with virtually no capital at a time of sup-

posed decline in the orchestral music business, we

are alive and thriving. And we haven’t had to sacrifice

any of our mission or purpose.”

While given to positive thinking and big dreams,

Freeman is not boasting. The critics back him up, as

do audiences and the blue chip members of Chicago’s

philanthropic community.

Sun-Times classical music critic Wynne Delacoma

has saluted Freeman’s “flair for programming that

expertly blends the familiar and the new,” as in programs

that might combine Mozart and a Trinidadian-influenced

steel band. During the recent tour, the leading German

daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, noted that

the Sinfonietta’s “musicians not only respond exquisitely

and capture the spirit of the music, but also perform with

careful attention to the most minute detail.”

“In a short time they’ve created a pretty impressive

organization,” says Francine Carbonargi, program officer

with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur

Foundation. “You go to their concerts and you just feel

an excitement in the crowd that is sometimes lacking

in some of the older and more established institu-

tions.” Other major Sinfonietta funders include the

Joyce Foundation, the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation and the

Chicago Community Trust.

Other groups might learn from the Sinfonietta’s

example. Dreams of artistic excellence have always

been partnered with the development of a strong board

and volunteer support. The Sinfonietta has a cadre of

supporters for audience and development that are as

diverse as the group itself and its ticket buyers.

Last year marked the Sinfonietta’s first million-

dollar budget year and the creation of an associates

board of younger supporters.

A POSIT IVE REFRAIN

“WE’RE LIVING THE DREAM... AND WE HAVEN’T HAD TO SACRIFICE ANY OF OUR MISSION

OR PURPOSE,” SAYS CHICAGO SINFONIETTA FOUNDER AND MUSIC DIRECTOR

PAUL FREEMAN.

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“I have always said that bigger is not necessarily

better,” Freeman says of his [55]-member orchestra.

“Over the next decade we are looking to grow, but in

depth, through outreach and in our partnerships with

education, not by increasing our schedule or reducing

our quality.”

At a time when the major classical music organiza-

tions have had to be dragged into an era of diversity and

educational programs, the Sinfonietta sees these func-

tions as central to its mission.

Stories are often told in the world of music out-

reach of the excitement inner-city youngsters feel

when they encounter classical music and instrumen-

talists. The Sinfonietta

can top those stories, as it

is one of the few organiza-

tions that provides profes-

sional musicians who are

themselves minorities to work with both inner-city and

affluent young people.

The Sinfonietta’s “Youth and the Professional”

program matches players with students in the

All-City Youth Orchestra of the Chicago Public Schools.

“The bonds that we see established between musi-

cians, black and white, Hispanic and Asian, just blow

your mind,” Freeman says.

None of these activities diminishes the

Sinfonietta’s more standard tasks of performing, tour-

ing and recording. Next winter will see a tour to

Southern California, and in 1999 the group has been

invited back to Switzerland and southern Germany for

its fifth European tour.

At its Orchestra Hall gala last Monday, the

Sinfonietta launched its seventh compact disc, “Chicago

Concertos”, on James Ginsburg’s Cedille Records. The

disc contains another Freeman dream, supporting the

music of Chicago composers, past and present.

The group’s spring concerts will see a long-overdue

return of the music of Leo Sowerby to Orchestra Hall

with performances – and a recording – of the late

Chicagoan’s Second Symphony.

“I have always been a dreamer,” Freeman says.

“But growing up in segregation in Richmond, VA, to

have fulfilled my personal dreams and to have helped

to found an entity that brings dreams to others, even I

sometimes can’t believe what we’ve done.”



OTHER GROUPS MIGHTLEARN FROM THESINFONIETTA’S EXAMPLE.

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