2018-19: Radiance and Reflection
An American Spectacular
Presented by the Elgin Symphony Orchestra
Saturday, October 6, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 7, 2:30 p.m.
Hemmens Cultural Center
An eclectic mix of American music honors the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI.
Tickets: click here or call 847 888 4000
Mass No. 5 in A Flat Major
Franz Schubert
Sunday, November 11
3:30 p.m.
Blizzard Theatre, Elgin Community College
With the Elgin Symphony Orchestra Featuring the EMC Children's Chorus
The 2018-19 Season opens with one of Schubert’s lesser-known but beautiful works – his Mass in A flat. Schubert commenced composing this Mass in November of 1819, and two hundred years later, almost to the day, the Elgin Master Chorale will bring it to their stage and prove this piece’s overwhelming staying power through the centuries.
Tickets: click here or call 847 622 0300
Sounds of the Season
Presented by the Elgin Symphony Orchestra
Saturday, December 8, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, December 9, 2:30 p.m.
Hemmens Cultural Center
Bring the entire family and create joyful holiday memories together at ESO Sounds of the Season.
Tickets: click here or call 847 888 4000
Tunes from the Toons
An Educational Connections Concert
Friday, February 22
10:00 a.m.
Blizzard Theatre, Elgin Community College
Featuring the EMC Chamber Singers and soloists
Free for school and senior groups
For more than five years, EMC has been bringing unique, original, and engaging concert experiences to its local school students in its Educational Connections series. This concert will present the history of classical music through the lens of music used in familiar animated series, or cartoons. The history of music is our own history, and we invite you and the children in your life to an experience full of music and history – and just a bit of “looney” fun.
For school and senior group tickets (10+ people) call 847 214 7225
Individual Tickets: click here or call 847 622 0300
Dixit Dominus
George Frideric Handel
Sunday, April 14
3:30 p.m.
Blizzard Theatre, Elgin Community College
With the Bella Voce Sinfonia
Featuring the EMC Children's Chorus
Handel’s triumphant masterpiece “Dixit Dominus” brings the 2018-19 season to a close. This performance will feature the Bella Voce Sinfonia, an ensemble which specializes in bringing the most historically accurate Baroque performances possible to the stage. Experience a concert with vocally acrobatic singing and join us in this celebration of true virtuosic musicality.
Tickets: click here or call 847 622 0300
News and Announcements
Employment Opportunity: Bass Section Leader
EMC is looking for a Bass/Baritone sec
tion leader, to start in late August 2018 for the 2018-19 season. More information can be found at elginmasterchorale.org/employment. Interested persons should send a resumé to info@elginmasterchorale.org.
EMC Hires New Children’s Chorus Director
Elgin Master Chorale is Pleased to Announce Matthew Bishop as its New Children's Chorus Director
About Mr. Bishop
Matthew Bishop received his degree in Music Education from the VanderCook College of Music in Chicago, Illinois, where he spent time focusing on instrumental and vocal pedagogy and performance, composition/arranging, and conducting. He currently works at Dundee Middle School in West Dundee, IL, where he teaches choir, band, a music class to students with special needs, and serves as music director and choreographer for the spring musical performed at Elgin Community College. His ensembles have received topp ratings at regional contests and festivals.
In addition to teaching, Matthew has guest conducted for local community ensembles. He also serves as music director for Children’s Theater of Elgin/Fox Valley Theater Company’s productions that have included Mary Poppins, Little Shop of Horrors, Rapunzel, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
As an advocate of live music and community service, he calls together colleagues and professional musician friends to form the Bishop Super Band, a rhythm and blues band that plays school and community fundraiser events like Dundee Middle School’s ‘Schoolapalooza’ and West Dundee’s ‘Heritage Fest.’
Matthew is excited for his new role as conductor of the Elgin Master Chorale’s Children’s Chorus!"
Between Worlds: Elgin Master Chorale and Durufle’s Requiem
The Elgin Master Chorale, conducted by Music Director Andrew Lewis, concluded its 71st season with a performance of the "Requiem" composed by Maurice Duruflé, on Sunday, April 15 at 3:30 p.m. in the Blizzard Theatre at Elgin Community College.
From the Elgin Review:
"Ancient sacred Gregorian chants supplied the modal palette that gives this music its ethereal quality, avoiding the usual emotional interpretations of major or minor keys. The orchestra, augmented by organist David Schrader, produced sounds and textures that defied explanation at times, adding to the experience of being between worlds.
The power of more than one hundred voices was restrained and reverent throughout most of the Mass, but the full-throated delivery of "Hosanna in excelsis" ("Hosanna in the highest") or "judicare saeculum per ignem" ("to judge the world by fire") moved one's spirit in quite a different way."
Click here to read the full review of the concert by Jeffrey R. Pierce
