The Lake Forest Civic Orchestra will celebrate heroic tales as interpreted by Beethoven and Brahms in its latest show, “Heroes,” which will be held Nov. 13 at the Gorton Community Center in Lake Forest.
It will also be the second in a series of concerts this season that features high school soloists joining the orchestra — in this case, John Lee, a 17-year-old senior from Vernon Hills High School.
“We started doing this during COVID,” said Musical Director Christopher Ramaekers. “We invited students from the area who had concert performances canceled by the pandemic, and it was really popular, so we decided to continue it.”
Lee will be performing the first movement of Brahms’s Violin Concerto, one of three pieces that comprise the program.
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The concert will begin with Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, which first premiered in 1810.
“The two works by Beethoven we’re doing are overtly heroic,” Ramaekers said. “The Egmont is the overture to incidental music for a play by Goethe. The Netherlands had been subject to Burgundian kings and Spanish Hapsburg emperors since the 15th century. Serious unrest began in the Netherlands in the 1560s, and in August 1568, the Duke of Alba was sent to bring the country under control, at all costs and by any means.
“Count Lamoral van Egmont, a popular military leader, was one of Alba’s first victims. Egmont was beheaded in 1568 for joining the rebels. The execution of such a beloved leader did not quell the resistance as was hoped, but instead inspired the people to stand up to their oppressors,” Ramaekers said.
Next in the will be Brahms’s Violin Concerto.
“The first movement begins lyrically; however, the orchestra builds tension and energy throughout the introduction,” Ramaekers said. “The initial entrance of the soloist is heroic if nothing else. The violin bursts through the orchestral texture with a loud, fast, arpeggiated figure and gradually leads the orchestra back to the lyricism of the beginning.”
Lee was recommended by his teachers for one of the three solo spots available this season. He’s been playing the violin for 12 years and studies under Almita Vamos and Injoo Choi, and he’s received awards from the Society of American Musicians Competition, the DePaul Concerto Festival and the Vancouver International Music Competition, among other prizes. Lee is also a part of the Midwest Young Artists Conservatory and has been playing in its symphony orchestra.
The final piece of the performance will be Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, better known as “Eroica.”
“While originally dedicated to Napoleon, there is no specific hero that is alluded to in this piece,” Ramaekers said. “However, the sound of the horns is critical to this work. That, combined with the key of e-flat major (the key of the hunting horns of the day), gives it a regal, strong, heroic quality.”
‘Heroes’
When: 4 p.m. Nov. 13
Where: Gorton Community Center, 400 E. Illinois Road, Lake Forest
Tickets: Adults: $20/Students and seniors: $10
Information: lakeforestcivicorchestra.org
Jeff Banowetz is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.