CHICAGO SINFONIETTA
The Orchestra of Illinois was basically an effort on the part of the Lyric Opera Orchestra to extend its tiny season with symphonic programs. But little thought was given to filling programming voids left by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra or to bringing in strong conductors with vision and imagination. The Sinfonietta decided from its inception in 1987 to try tapping a market that had never really been investigated by the CSO: the city’s many ethnic groups and novice concertgoers. Choosing to make the orchestra a sinfonietta–a small symphony of about 45 rather than a massive orchestra of 100 plus–meant fewer than half the usual number of players had to be paid; it also meant the orchestra could pick from the repertoire of chamber-orchestra pieces as well as perform many works in the standard repertoire in their original proportions. (Large orchestras only began appearing in the late 19th century, but the large-orchestra aesthetic is still often forced onto earlier music by organizations such as the CSO, so that the full orchestra has something to do, even if the music often dictates against such large forces.) The Sinfonietta also has a gifted music director, Paul Freeman, who has loads of recording credits and numerous successes with the Grant Park Symphony, the CSO, and other major orchestras. His programming blends the familiar with the unfamiliar in an unintimidating way for the concert novice, and he has an individual vision of how that music is to sound as well as the ability to transmit that vision to an orchestra. That’s a formula for success. Three seasons are hardly sufficient to tell whether the Sinfonietta will become a permanent local fixture, but its success so far should mean it will be around a long while.
