There was a lot of excitement coming from the musicians of the Illinois Chamber as they prepared for their last and final concert of the tour at UW-Whitewater. The group had spent the past several days traveling to many places for their performances of the Illinois Chamber Festival Concert.

The event was held for an audience of many campus and community members in the Light Recital Hall Sunday, Sept. 22, who came to listen to the beautiful and dynamic music of the violin, viola, cello and piano.

Lisa Nelson is the executive director of the Illinois Chamber Music Festival and is the assistant professor of music at the School of Music in Illinois Wesleyan University.

“We organize certain groups, so we send out music to students, put them into chamber music groups, and organize the schedule. Since we have a concert series, we have to do publicity for the concerts and invite the community since they’re all free and open to the public but we do all the things that would go into having a concert series.”

Leanne League is one of the musicians and also a lecturer in violin and viola high strings at Whitewater. League was noticed for her playing by an audience member who was part of the Illinois Chamber Music Festival looking for a new violinist and liked League’s playing.

“It makes me feel really happy to bring friends from Illinois and meet faculty and students. It gives me a chance to play for friends,” League said.

There were three parts to the performance. During the first part, a cellist and pianist performed the first musical piece, as was explained by League, titled Kol Nidrei, composed by Max Bruch. The second part was performed by two violinists and a musician on the viola who played Terzetto in C Major, op. 74 composed by Antonin Dvorak. To conclude the night, all of the ensemble members came out to perform the last musical piece composed by Frank Martin which was Piano Quintet in A.

After the performance, Memo Silva, a sophomore majoring in music performance, had great things to say about the music that was played and the way the pieces were performed.

“Nothing too overwhelming, because it wasn’t like a master class or something like that, but it was definitely helpful to be able to see the different musicians communicating to each other through their performance, because that’s something that you focus on a lot in chamber music, so it was really nice to see that because you know, again, just to see someone doing it right,” Silva said.

Audience members left from a new experience that included musical diversity. To learn more, visit https://www.ilchambermusicfestival.com/.