Orion Ensemble Opens 20th Season with ORION BEGINNINGS Tonight, 10/10

To open its 20th Anniversary Season, The Orion Ensemble, Chicago's nationally recognized and critically acclaimed chamber music ensemble, presents "Orion Beginnings," featuring a trio and a quartet the ensemble performed during its early seasons, along with a quintet commissioned for its 10th anniversary. Performances take place tonight, October 10 at Roosevelt University's Ganz Memorial Hall in Chicago, October 14 at Fox Valley Presbyterian Church in Geneva and October 21 at Music Institute of Chicago's Nichols Concert Hall in Evanston. Stephen Boe joins Orion as violist for this program.

After Orion's original members first performed Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin and Piano (1938) by Bela Bartók, they formed what is now the Orion Ensemble. Contrasts is Bartók's only chamber music that includes a wind instrument; it was commissioned by America's "King of Swing," Benny Goodman. The title of the work refers to many of its elements: tempos, textures, dynamics, keys and instruments. Not only do the clarinet, violin and piano belong to different families of instruments, the clarinetist and violinist each use two different instruments in the final movement. The work uses folk themes from Hungary and Romania along with compositional devices such as polyphony, imitation and motivic manipulation.

Orion commissioned Chicago composer Sebastian Huydts' Quintet for Clarinet, Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello, Op. 30 (2002) for its 10th anniversary. According to Huydts, the first movement of the Quintet evokes one of those summer nights in which a serene calm prevails, and life seems to offer nothing but good. The second movement opens with a playful statement by the cello, picked up by the other instruments. The third movement offers bluesy harmonies in tribute to the composer's father, a jazz musician, and the fourth movement returns to a lively atmosphere, influenced by song and dance from Andalusia, notably Flamenco.

Orion's 20th Anniversary Season

Orion's 2012–13 season continues in November and December with "A Night at the Opera," featuring guest violist Roger Chase and violinist Stephen Boe and including works by Weber, Liszt and Verdi; in March with "A Voice from Heaven," featuring guest soprano Patrice Michaels and works by Schubert, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Shostakovich; and, in May with "Folk Inspirations with a Mexican Flair," featuring special guest pianist Miguel de la Cerna contributing his second work commissioned for Orion on a program also including Márquez, Ponce and Brahms and welcomes back Stephen Boe on viola.