Repertoire

The Chicago City Wide Symphony Orchestra repertoire maintains a studied selection of serious and challenging classical works, accessible classic and light classic genre, uniquely American pieces, and less well known orchestral music deserving a hearing by modern artists and audiences.

Below is a sampling from past concerts.

Guest Artists

Anthony Arnone, Cellist

Professor Anthony Arnone joins the orchestra in a performance of Joseph Haydn's "Cello Concerto No.1 in C Major". The concerto was presumed lost until a score was discovered by musicologist Oldrich Pulkert at the Prague National Museum in 1961.

Called "A cellist with rich tonal resources, fine subtlety and a keen sense of phrasing" (Gramophone magazine), cellist Anthony Arnone is an active soloist, chamber musician, conductor and teacher throughout the country and around the world. Mr. Arnone is currently associate professor of cello at The University of Iowa School of Music. He is on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he teaches, conducts, and performs chamber and orchestral music during the summers. He is also on the faculty of the Preucil School of Music in Iowa City, where he conducts the Preucil School String Orchestra. An active clinician as well, Mr. Arnone has given master classes throughout the country. Recent master classes include Cleveland Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, University of New Mexico, Oklahoma State University, Texas Christian University, and the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

As a cello soloist and chamber musician, Mr. Arnone was a founding member of the Meridien Trio and the Sedgewick String Quartet, which performed regularly at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. More recently, he has been part of the Matisse Trio, faculty trio at the University of Iowa. The Matisse Trio has played throughout the United States and at international conferences. Mr. Arnone also has performed as soloist with orchestras including the Madison Symphony, Muscatine Symphony, Clinton Symphony, Newton/Mid-Kansas Symphony, and the Wichita State University Orchestra, and regularly performs solo and chamber music recitals around the country.

A native of Honolulu, Mr. Arnone received his bachelor of music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music where he studied with Colin Carr. He left graduate studies with Bonnie Hampton at the San Francisco Conservatory to accept a position with the Orchestré Philharmonique de Nice, France, where he remained for 2 years, continuing his studies with Paul and Maude Tortelier. He later returned to the United States to complete his master's degree in conducting at Wichita State University.

In addition to the Orchestré Philharmonique de Nice, Mr. Arnone was the principal cellist of the Madison Symphony in Wisconsin. He was also a member of the New World Symphony and the Wichita Symphony, as well as principal cello in the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Charleston, South Carolina and the Festival dei due Mondi in Italy.

Before coming to The University of Iowa, Mr. Arnone was professor of cello and conducting at Ripon College in Ripon, WI, in addition to being principal cellist of the Madison Symphony. Mr. Arnone started the Iowa Cello Society in 2002, and has had yearly "Cello Daze" weekends with such prominent guests as Colin Carr, Bonnie Hampton, Richard Aaron, Hans Jensen, and Tanya Carey.

Lindsay Mecher, Mezzo-Soprano

Lindsay Mecher, a Chicago native and graduate of Loyola Academy, is a frequent guest soloist with the Chicago Citywide Symphony Orchestra. At North Park University, she has been a member of the Lady Vikings Dance Team, the Chambers Singers, and currently is a member of University Choir. Lindsay recently won 1st place in the College Classical Division of the Chicago National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) competition. Also this season she was a semi-finalist in the prestigious Bel Canto Foundation Opera Contest, and received her third Bravo Award for Outstanding Performance. In 2012 she was the first place winner of the North Park University Music Performance Awards, and was also a semi-finalist in the Classical Singer Competition. Lindsay is also a winner of the Des Plaines Idol, and the Norwood Park Idol. Roles performed include the third spirit in Mozart's The Magic Flute, and The Mistress of the Novices and The Abbess in Puccini's Suor Angelica. She has performed in the North Park Opera Scenes program in scenes from Little Women, The Rape of Lucretia, Rodrigo and Così fan tutte. She was an alto soloist in Messiah this past April with the North Park University Choir. Lindsay looks forward to the opera scenes program at North Park this fall, where she will be in scenes from The Crucible, Eugene Onegin, Into the Woods, Falstaff, and The Barber of Seville. Lindsay currently studies Vocal Performance on scholarship at North Park University with Dr. Philip Kraus of Northwestern University, who has been on the artistic roster of the Lyric Opera of Chicago for over 20 years.

Philip Kraus, Baritone

Philip Kraus is currently one of the most versatile artists on the American music scene today, having appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States in a wide variety of standard and adventurous repertoire.

Mr. Kraus has been on the roster of the Lyric Opera of Chicago since 1990 performing numerous roles including Dulcamara in L'Elisir d'amore, Dr. Bartolo in The Barber of Seville, Harashta in The Cunning Little Vixen, the Sacristan in Tosca, Elder MacLean in Susannah, Antonio in The Marriage of Figaro, Benoit/Alcindoro in La Boheme, Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby, Baron Duphol in La Traviata, Ratcliffe in Billy Budd, Abe Kaplan in Street Scene, and the Mayor in Jenufa as well as featured roles in The Gambler, Candide, The Bartered Bride, Tristan und Isolde, and Andrea Chenier. Additionally he created the role of southern Senator John Calhoun in the world premiere of Anthony Davies' Amistad at Lyric.

Mr. Kraus made his debut with the Minnesota Opera in 1995 in the title role in Verdi's Rigoletto and made his Cleveland Opera debut in 1994 as the Vicar in Albert Herring. Most recently he joined the roster of the Los Angeles Opera repeating Duphol in La Traviata opposite René Fleming and Elizabeth Futral. The performance with Ms. Fleming will receive a Decca DVD release. Additionally, he has performed Germont in Traviata and Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana with the Missouri Symphony, Scarpia in Tosca with Chamber Opera Chicago and the Battle Creek Symphony, the title role Gianni Schicchi in both the Puccini Opera and Michael Ching's Buoso's Ghost at Chicago Opera Theater and Taddeo in L'Italiana in Algeri with both the Hawaii Opera Theater and the Pamiro Opera.

Comfortable in both the serious and comic repertoires, Mr. Kraus has made a specialty of two title roles, Verdi's Falstaff and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, performing both roles on numerous ocassions to enthusiastic reviews. No stranger to unusual repertoire, Mr. Kraus performed Mangus in the American premiere of Sir Michael Tippett's The Knot Garden and portrayed the tortured Salieri in Rimsky Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri with Concertante di Chicago and the Fort Wayne Philharmonic.

Also comfortable in the Baroque repertoire, Mr.Kraus has made yearly appearances with the Handel Week Festival singing solo work in The Dettingen Te Deum, Esther, Judas Maccabaeus, and the roles of Cosroe in Siroe and Varo in Ezio. Kraus has also made a specialty of the Purcell masques appearing in The Fairy Queen and King Arthur with Music of the Baroque.

Mr. Kraus is equally at home in the light opera and Broadway repertoire. Considered a specialist in Gilbert and Sullivan, Mr. Kraus received high accolades from the press for his performances of Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore at the Cleveland Opera and Major General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance at Michigan Opera Theater. Also adept in the Viennese repertory, Mr. Kraus has portrayed leading roles in The Gypsy Baron, Weiner Blut, The Merry Widow, and One Night in Venice. He scored a critical coup in 1989 with his acclaimed portrayal of Russell Paxton in the first major revival of Kurt Weill's Lady in the Dark at Light Opera Works. Mr. Kraus has also been featured on numerous pops concerts with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra featuring the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Stephen Sondheim.

Solo engagements with conductor Margaret Hillis led to his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut in 1975 in Handel's Dettingen Te Deum and Russell Woollen's In Martyrium Memoriam after which Sir Georg Solti engaged him for Carnegie Hall performances and recording of Fidelio. A frequent concert artist, Mr. Kraus has appeared as soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dallas, Milwaukee, Omaha, Colorado, Santa Barbara, Richmond, Roanoke, Grant Park, South Bend, Owensboro, Jacksonville, and Madison Symphonies, and the Rochester and Fort Wayne Philharmonics under conductors Erich Leinsdorf, Eduardo Mata, Zdenek Macal, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, Claudio Abbado, James Levine, James Paul, Mark Elder, Anton Coppola, Gisele Ben-Dor, Eduard Tchivzhel and Marin Alsop. His wide concert repertoire includes a quartet of Requiems; the Verdi, Brahms, Faure and Mozart; Orff's Carmina Burana, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Handel's Messiah, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass, Bach's B Minor Mass and Magnificat, Vaughan Williams' The Sea Symphony and Shostokovitch's Fourteenth Symphony.

Mr. Kraus has also been a frequent guest of choral ensembles including the Bel Canto Chorus of Milwaukee, Chicago's Apollo Chorus, the Bach Festival of Winter Park, Music of the Baroque, the Handel Week Festival and the Calvin College Oratorio Society.

Mr. Kraus holds three degrees including a Doctor of Music from Northwestern University. He taught both in the voice and opera programs at De Paul University. Additionally, he headed the opera department at Roosevelt University. Mr. Kraus is also a highly regarded stage director and composer. He founded Light Opera Works in 1980, a professional company devoted to operetta and was Artistic Director for 19 seasons. He also served as resident stage director of Pamiro Opera from 1988 through 1996.

Fall Concert
Sunday, October 19, 2014 at 3:00 PM

Guest Artists

Bahn Frei / Polka schnell, Op. 45 - Eduard Strauss (1835 - 1916)

Ballet dancers Hannah Brennan, Kaleigh De la Cruz, Delaney Haas, Maura Haas, Britt Hoover, Gabriella Lujan, Kate Moorhouse, Jordan Novy, Julia Novy, and Isa Sanchez from Chicago's Dance & Music Academy join the City Wide Symphony Orchestra in a special performance of Eduard Strauss' "Bahn Frei" (Clear Track) Polka - with choreography by Krissie Odegard Geye.

By the time Bahn Frei was composed in 1865 railroads had crisscrossed much of Europe and the United States, Chicago's George Pullman was introducing his new sleeper car, and Chicago was well on it's way to becoming the undisputed railroad center of North America. The railroads afforded a new commerce and passenger travel that profoundly affected the lives of everyone touched by them.

From the rhythms of the opening bars and the whistle pitches of the flutes and piccolo there is little question that Bahn Frei is about steam locomotives and railroads. Subtitled a "polka schnell", the tempo and orchestral characteristics exhibit playfulness and exhilaration, and its melodies are vibrant and colorful. The mood is ecstatic and festive, and no doubt offers a glimpse of what it was like to travel at high speeds for the first time.

In 1892 Chicago's first elevated train was powered by a steam locomotive and ran from Van Buren to 39th Street, and shortly was extended to Jackson Park for the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Some of the same route exists today and is known as the Green Line. In 2005 Chicago Tribune readers voted Chicago's "L" rail transit system one of the "seven wonders of Chicago". CTA's 1,356 rail cars operate over 224.1 miles of track making 2,250 trips each day and annually provide 229.12 million rides.

Chicago's Dance & Music Academy and the City Wide Symphony Orchestra celebrate Chicago's rich railroad history and its future to the music of Eduard Strauss - Bahn Frei! (Clear the tracks).

Krissie Odegard Geye, Choreographer

Krissie graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse with degrees in Vocal Performance, Public Relations and International Studies, was "Tapadictorian" at the American Tap Dance Institute, and is a certified teacher in the Cecchetti Ballet Method through the Cecchetti Council of America (CCA). She has been on staff for Goliard Concerts in New York City, The Ethnic Dance Theatre in St. Paul, MN, and Barbi Lee Dance Arts Center in Minneapolis, MN as well as clinician at the ATDI "Spirit of Tap" Conference, faculty member for the New York City Public School system, and Director of Dance at Island Lake Summer Arts Camp. She was the runner up in the National Choreography Competition sponsored by Ovation TV. She is the nine-time winner of the prestigious "Most Outstanding Choreography" award from Cathy Roe's Ultimate Dance Competition, and has also received the "Excellence in Choreography Award" from American Dance Awards, and Chicago Dance Connection. Her dancers and choreography were also chosen for the Dance Chicago "Choreographer's Showcase" in 2012. She has served as the Assistant Director for Cathy Roe's "Dance Spectacular" for two years, working with top students from all over the United States to put together a contemporary dance concert at the Ultimate Dance Nationals. This will also be her second year as the Director of the National "Heart and Soul" Dance Company at Cathy Roe's Ultimate Dance Natinoals, and is excited to be a judge for Caty Roe's Ulitmate Dance for the upcoming season. She has served as a faculty member for the Jayson Michael's Energy Source National Intensive, working with 60 students from around the nation in all styles of dance. She is currently the proud Owner and Artistic director of the Dance and Music Academy.

Dance & Music Academy
  Chicago-Edgebrook
  5347 W. Devon Avenue
  Chicago, IL 60646
  (773) 763-5759

Winter Concert
Sunday, March 8, 2015 at 3:00 PM

Guest Artist

World Premiere
Adagio and Scherzo - Sarah Wald

Sarah Wald, composer

Sarah Wald was born in Chicago. She attended Columbia University in the City of New York for her bachelor’s degree in music with a focus in composition. While at Columbia, Sarah studied composition with Tristan Murail and Arthur Kampela, as well as with Robert Lombardo in Chicago. She also studied flute with Sue Ann Kahn. Sarah then studied with Conrad Susa and David Garner at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for her master’s degree in composition. For her master’s thesis, she composed and produced Elegy for a Lady: a Music Drama in One Act.

Over the past several years, Sarah's music has been featured at various festivals and other programs, including the Composer-Performer Collaboration Workshop (California State University, Fresno), the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival, the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, the New York Youth Symphony’s Composition Program, the nief-norf Summer Music Festival, and the Atlantic Music Festival.

Sarah has also received several honors, awards, and commissions. She graduated from Columbia magna cum laude and also received Columbia’s Rapaport Prize in 2012. In 2014 and 2016, she was a finalist in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. In 2015, she was awarded professional development grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency and Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Her percussion quartet, Pas de Quatre, was selected by the University of Tennesee Knoxville for performance at PASIC 2015's New Literature Showcase Concert. Finally, Sarah has received several individual commissions as well as commissions from Access Contemporary Music, the University of Tennesee Martin Contemporary Music Group, and the Saint Xavier University Flute Choir.

Sarah will begin her doctoral studies in composition and music theory at the University of California, Davis in September 2016.

Sarah Wald

Spring Concert
Sunday, June 7, 2015 at 3:00 PM

Guest Artists

The Chicago City Wide Symphony Orchestra is proud to welcome Andrea Amdahl Taylor as guest soprano and Mark A. Taylor as guest conductor for a performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4 "Das himmlische Leben".

Andrea Amdahl Taylor, soprano

Andrea Amdahl Taylor has sung with companies throughout Illinois and Wisconsin, including Chicago Folks Operetta, Bowen Park Opera, Milwaukee Opera Theatre, Chamber Opera Chicago, Intimate Opera, and Light Opera Works. Favorite roles include Fiordiligi (Così fan Tutte), Miss Titmouse (Too Many Sopranos), Lucy (The Telephone), Miss Silverpeal (The Impresario), Ann Putnam (The Crucible), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Miss Wordsworth (Albert Herring), and the Princess (L´Enfant et les Sortilèges). Ms. Taylor earned her MMus at Northwestern University and her AB at Stanford University. She is a member of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and the Grant Park Symphony Chorus and was an original member of the Chicago Symphony Singers.

Mark A. Taylor, conductor

Mark A. Taylor is the Music Director and Conductor of the Milwaukee Festival Brass. Mr. Taylor made his Wisconsin debut with the band in 2011 as a guest conductor, and is now in his third full season as the ensemble's artistic leader. A conductor, educator, and performer in demand throughout the Great Lakes region, Mr. Taylor served five years as director of bands and coordinator of ensembles at Loyola University Chicago prior to beginning his doctoral studies. He was also a member of the music education faculty for the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.

Mr. Taylor attended the University of Notre Dame, receiving BA degrees in music and mathematics. While there, he performed as a percussionist in the Concert Band and Chamber Orchestra; sang in the Liturgical Choir, Collegium Musicum, and Men’s Glee Club; served as a cantor in Sacred Heart Basilica; led the Band of the Fighting Irish as drum major; and studied conducting with Walter Ginter and Carl Stam.

After a period working in advertising in Chicago, Mr. Taylor pursued graduate studies at Northwestern University. His master of music degrees in instrumental music education and wind conducting concluded studies with renowned education specialists Bennett Reimer and Peter Webster and conductors John P. Paynter and Stephen G. Peterson. Before joining the music faculty at Loyola University, Mr. Taylor taught band at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels in Chicago’s northern suburbs. His bands have received numerous superior ratings and awards.

As a percussionist, Mr. Taylor performs with the Chicago Brass Band, named North American Brass Band Association champion in 2004 and runner-up in 2008. He is a member of the National Band Association, College Music Society, College Band Directors National Association, and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. He and his wife and son reside in Lake Forest, IL.