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Articles tagged with: Mei-Ann Chen

Sinfonietta unfurls evocative musical tapestry of a Langston Hughes African-American epic

Jan 14, 2018 – 3:14 pm
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Preview: Chicago Sinfonietta’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. tribute concert is consistently the orchestra’s best-attended event of the year, says music director Mei-Ann Chen. But this year’s MLK affair – Jan. 15 at Orchestra Hall — will also be Sinfonietta’s most ambitious enterprise: composer Laura Karpman’s musically multicultural setting of Langston Hughes’ epic poem about the African-American experience, “Ask Your Mama.”

Chen leads Chicago Sinfonietta, vocal forces through exuberant, sensual ‘Carmina Burana’

Mar 24, 2015 – 9:56 pm
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Review: The singular community spirit of Chicago Sinfonietta was on proud display March 23 at Orchestra Hall in a stylish, disciplined and roundly entertaining performance of Orff’s “Carmina Burana” conducted by the organization’s music director, Mei-Ann Chen. Featured with Chen’s chamber-size ensemble were two Chicago choruses, both prepared to a fare-thee-well: the choir of Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts and the Anima Young Singers of Greater Chicago.

Sarasota Aisle: Chicago maestro Mei-Ann Chen captures audience and accolades in Florida

Mar 11, 2014 – 11:02 am
Mei-Ann Chen, music director of the Chicago Sinfonietta, was guest conductor of the Sarasota Orchestra.

Review: There’s an infamous jest that if you ask six reviewers about the same event, you’ll get seven different opinions. As there is more than a grain of truth in that, conductor Mei-Ann Chen surely is entitled to put a notch in her baton after winning a consensus of enthusiasm from a dozen arts writers from across the U.S. and Canada following her guest appearance March 9 with the Sarasota Orchestra.

Davis’ ‘The Chicago River’ is a natural tributary of Chicago Symphony’s diverse Rivers Festival

May 26, 2013 – 9:13 am
The excursion boat Theodore Roosevelt heads east under the State Street bridge in 1910 credit The Lost Panoramas by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams

Review: Each year in the late spring, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra embarks upon themed programs that seem to be as much about reaching deep into the community, and becoming energized by the community in turn, as they do about any particular theme itself. This year’s festival, called “Rivers,” features the world premiere of “The Chicago River” by Orbert Davis. Inspired by late-19th and early-20th century photographs of the elaborately engineered reversal of the river’s flow, it underscores the notion that a cultural landscape is indeed much like a river — alive, ever present and ever changing.

CSO Rivers Festival explores the enchantment of waterways, their impact on human history

May 9, 2013 – 4:29 pm
Chicago Symphony music director Riccardo Muti at the Chicago River 2013 Rivers Festival credit Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Preview: Literally and metaphorically, rivers seem to flow in every direction across our lives; indeed, across life. It’s not hard to see how the Chicago Symphony Orchestra might have hit on the concept of its Rivers Festival, a multifaceted month-long exploration and tribute that opens musically May 9 at Orchestra Hall.