Paul Joe Vest admits there is a deeply personal motive behind the writing of his Requiem. The former Chicagoan, who has AIDS, composed the work for chorus, soloists and orchestra partly as a life-affirming gesture in the face of his own mortality.
Vest’s Requiem will receive its Midwest premiere as part of an AIDS benefit concert, presented by Lake Forest College and co-sponsored by the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, at 3 p.m. Feb. 27 at First Presbyterian Church, 700 N. Sheridan Rd., Lake Forest. Artists include the Lake Forest College Singers and Orchestra, and the North Suburban Symphony.
A Lake Forest College alumnus and composer for local ballet performances, the 48-year-old Vest says he took his inspiration from Walt Whitman’s famous poem “Leaves of Grass.” He says he intends the piece to give consolation to others living with the disease, their friends and loved ones.
A goodwill donation will be accepted for the Chicago AIDS Foundation. For ticket information, phone 708-735-5210.
– Most people think of Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” as a lushly romantic, sugarplum opera for children, or adults who love children. Rhoda Levine thinks it’s a political work. In fact, she thinks all opera is political.
Levine, the high-profile international opera director who joined the Northwestern University faculty this year as professor of music performance studies, is turning revisionism into reality for a new production-very politically correct, if you please-of “Hansel and Gretel,” opening this weekend at Northwestern.
In this updated version, Hansel and Gretel are homeless kids lost in a contemporary urban park. The scary things in the woods are the dispossessed seeking shelter in the park. The witch imprisons Hansel in a giant shopping cart.
“Sure, we could set it in a German forest, but that’s a little distancing,” Levine explains. “By shifting the landscape, we avoid being locked into what too often turns into a lot of `cute kid’ behavior. If you need to see witches that cackle, this production is not for you or your children.”
Levine, who turned the New York City Opera stage into a squalid urban ghetto for her staging of Anthony Davis’ opera “X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X” seven years ago, is directing the premiere June 10 of Bruce Saylor’s new opera, “Orpheus Descending,” for the Lyric Opera for American Artists.
“Hansel and Gretel” plays at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Feb. 26 in Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St., Evanston.
– Duain Wolfe, whose appointment as director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus was announced last week, will be formally introduced to the local concert public in a big way. His first duty once he arrives June 1 will be to prepare the chorus for a Chicago Symphony Orchestra performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony June 24 at Ravinia. The program will open the CSO’s summer residency at the festival. Wolfe succeeds Margaret Hillis as the second chorus master in the 37-year history of the chorus.
– Composer Elliott Carter, whose Partita will receive its world premiere by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at this weekend’s subscription concerts, will conduct a master class for composition students at 10:30 a.m. Friday in the De Paul University Concert Hall, 800 W. Belden. The class is free and open to the public.
Partita is Carter’s first orchestral score since his 1990 Violin Concerto. The composer has referred to his 18-minute work as a “game” of frequent musical changes and oppositions. After their CSO performances, Daniel Barenboim and the orchestra will give the New York premiere of Partita May 15 at Carnegie Hall and the European premiere May 27 in Frankfurt, Germany.
– Up to 18 young area instrumentalists will audition for places in this year’s Illinois Young Performers Competition between 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday at Orchestra Hall. These Sudler Finals, sponsored in part by the Sudler Foundation for Musical Arts, are open to the public and no tickets will be required. Finalists will perform with the CSO in the 1994 competition, to be broadcast live from Orchestra Hall April 26.
