CARBONDALE, Ill. — The Southern Illinois Chamber Music Society will present a concert featuring SIU School of Music faculty and guest artists on Tuesday, April 21, in the Old Baptist Foundation Recital Hall at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
The program, which begins at 3:30 p.m., will highlight both contemporary and chamber music that was a cornerstone of the 19th-century Romantic era repertoire. Tickets are $15 at the door for adults; $5 for general students. The performance is free for students and faculty in the School of Music.
Performers will include Michael Barta and Ching-Yi Lin on violins, Andrew Braddock and Rossana Cauti on violas, and William Cernota and Wei Liu Denton on cellos. SIU School of Music faculty performers are Barta, a professor of violin and chamber music; Cauti, an assistant professor of practice and SIU String Orchestra music director, and Cernota, an assistant lecturer in the SIU School of Music. Lin is a professor of violin at Western Kentucky University; Braddock is a faculty member and co-director of Western Kentucky University’s String Academy, and Denton is a member of the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra.
The concert opens with “To See the Summer Sky” for violin and viola, written by Helen Grime and performed by Lin and viola. The four-movement work offers a vivid and atmospheric exploration of color and gesture, moving fluidly between lyricism and rhythmic energy, Cauti said.
“Helen Grime’s writing is both refined and expressive,” she said. “This piece invites the listener into a sound world that is intimate and evocative, where the dialogue between violin and viola becomes a narrative of shifting moods and textures.”
The second half of the program features Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70,” a richly textured sextet that combines the elegance of chamber music with the emotional breadth of symphonic writing. Composed in 1890, the work is celebrated for its lyrical intensity, vibrant rhythms, and virtuosic interplay among all six instruments, Cauti said.
“Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence is one of the most beloved works in the chamber repertoire,” she said. “It brings together warmth, brilliance, and extraordinary energy, allowing each performer to contribute equally to a dynamic and cohesive musical experience.”
Cauti noted that the concert reflects the mission of the Southern Illinois Chamber Music Society to foster artistic collaboration and engagement within the region.
“Our goal is to bring high-level chamber music performances to the community while supporting the next generation of musicians,” she said. “This concert exemplifies the collaborative spirit of SIU’s faculty and guest artists, offering a program that is both intellectually engaging and deeply expressive.”
The Southern Illinois Chamber Music Society promotes chamber music through regional concerts and provides scholarships to outstanding students pursuing music studies at SIU Carbondale.