Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra presents ‘Orchestral Landscapes’
By Don Snider January 11, 2012 3:27PM
David Danzmayr will be the guest conductor for Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra's "Orchestral Landscapes" concert on Jan. 14. | Ken Sharp photo
ILLINOIS
PHILHARMONIC
ORCHESTRA’S
‘ORCHESTRAL
LANDSCAPES’
♦ 8 p.m. Jan. 14
♦ Lincoln-Way North Performing Arts Center, 19900 S. Harlem Ave., Frankfort
♦ Tickets, $30 to $50, or $15 for
students with identification and those who are younger than age 18
♦ (708) 481-7774; ipomusic.org
♦ This concert features guest conductor David Danzmayr and violinist Marie-Christine Klettner as the featured soloist.
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Updated: February 14, 2012 8:07AM
The search for a successor to maestro Carmon DeLeone continues Jan. 14 with the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra inviting a guest conductor from one of the world’s music capitals.
Salzburg, Austria, is the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Josef Mohr (“Silent Night”), the Von Trapp family (“The Sound of Music”) and many other noted musicians.
The new generation from Salzburg includes David Danzmayr, who is regarded as one of the most exciting and talented young European conductors.
The 32-year-old Danzmayr will lead the IPO for a full evening of Felix Mendelssohn music that includes another even younger Salzburg talent as his guest violin soloist.
Marie-Christine Klettner is only 19 years old but a winner of many European awards as well as the international Louis Spohr Competition for Young Violinists in February in New York City.
She will perform Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64” on Jan. 14.
Klettner played the same concerto with Danzmayr five years ago at age 14 in Salzburg. She was attending Salzburg’s Mozarteum, the same school from which Danzmayr is an alumnus.
“Maestro Danzmayr highly recommended her,” IPO artistic manager Linda Veleckis Nussbaum said. “We’re thrilled to hear this exciting young artist make her U.S. (concert) debut.”
“She’s a wonderful violinist,” Danzmayr said by phone from Glasgow, Scotland, where he returns frequently after having served three years as assistant conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
He has been acclaimed by critics for his “exciting energy and pace” and has been a sought-after guest conductor for many internationally renowned orchestras.
Both Danzmayr and Klettner professed their love for Mendelssohn’s works.
“Mendelssohn is a true Romantic-period composer,” Danzmayr said. “He brings the emotional side of music to the foreground.”
The “Violin Concerto” is distinctive for two things: The soloist makes an immediate entrance at the beginning of the work, and all three movements are linked, with each following the previous one.
“Mendelssohn’s music is so passionate” is how Klettner described her own passion for the early 1800s composer. The SouthtownStar reached her in Salzburg, where she was living with her parents until this year. She now has her own apartment and is “very excited” about traveling to Chicago on her own.
“In America, I’ve only been to New York,” she said.
Danzmayr was in Chicago in February when he was the only European finalist in the prestigious Chicago Symphony Orchestra Sir Georg Solti Conducting Competition.
He also has been a guest conductor with the Duluth (Minn.) Superior Symphony Orchestra and is a candidate also to head that organization.
Other Mendelssohn works for Jan. 14’s IPO program include the “Hebrides Overture,” inspired in 1830 by his visit to the Scottish islands. The piece is considered a magnificent orchestral landscape of the Hebrides archipelago.
Fittingly on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, the IPO also will perform Mendelssohn’s “Symphony No. 5 in D Major/D Minor, Op. 107.” Called the “Reformation Symphony,” it honors the 300th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and Lutheranism.
Danzmayr and Klettner both cited Salzburg as their inspiration for musical careers. But interestingly, Danzmayr said he has never seen “The Sound of Music.” The classic 1965 Julie Andrews movie was filmed almost entirely around Salzburg.
“I love movies such as ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean,’ ” he said. “But in Salzburg they are usually dubbed in German. I prefer the original language.”
Danzmayr and Klettner, incidentally, both speak perfect English, virtually the universal language of globe-trotting musicians. But he speaks with a slight German accent and she with a British tone.
Don Snider is a local free-lance writer.
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