CARBONDALE, Ill. (HEARTLAND NEWS) - The 22nd Southern Illinois Music Festival is underway, with this year’s performances celebrating American composers. The concerts hold special meaning as they mark America’s 250th anniversary.
More than 65 professional musicians from across the country are performing works by women, Black composers and artists spanning generations. The program features music from historic figures to composers still creating today.
“A lot of American composers aren’t pretty well represented in orchestras all across the country, so it’s really cool that we’re bringing American music to Southern Illinois,” violinist Gabriela Benyas said. “A lot of the musicians on stage also haven’t played a lot of these composers and these compositions.”
Benyas said the difference is easy to hear within the Western Style. “There’s a piece that we’re playing called American in Paris by George Gershwin and there’s like taxi horns incorporated in it, which I think is super cool,” she said. “And something that you definitely wouldn’t hear is like a Brahm’s symphony or something like that.”
Fellow violinist Amelia Korbitz said she loves to play works from underrepresented Americans. “I think that music is really powerful in that way,” Korbitz said. “And I think knowing about the lives of the composers, knowing what they went through in order to be able to do this, it’s such an honor to be able to represent them in that way.”
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Korbitz said she hopes the pieces they play this year help her connect deeper with her American identity. One song by Mary Watkins, “Soul of Remembrance”, gives her time to reflect.
“It’s not a very technically difficult piece,” she said. “So I choose that time to sort of like reflect on what this music means to me and just thinking about all the memories that I have here.”
The festival is featuring young composers like Maya Benyas from Carbondale. Her piece will be featured during the festival’s concert highlighting women composers.
“I’m playing my own piece. It’s called Meditation and Vault, and it’s written for cello and piano at the echoes of her chamber concert,” Maya Benyas said. “A really cool opportunity, especially as a young composer.”
For conductor and festival director Edward Benyas, the goal goes beyond the music. “A lot of people may be turned off by classical music,” Benyas said. “We’re playing a lot of music that the audience might not know. They might know the great European masters, they might not know they’re American masters. So I’m trying to expose everybody to the great music of our own American classical music tradition.”
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And pulling a two week festival like this all together is no small task.
“We cram everything in virtually, like an entire orchestra season is crammed in,” he said. “So we have really great people and they’re really good spirited and it works out really well.”
As America celebrates 250 years, the orchestra hopes audiences leave with a new appreciation from a selection of many sounds that make up America’s story. The concert series runs through the Fourth of July with the final concert outside of SIU’s Banterra Center at 8 p.m.
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