University Park native Matthew Lipman travels from New York to the Southland to pay tribute to two people who shaped his life.
The violist performs with Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra April 15 at Trinity Christian College’s Ozinga Chapel in Palos Heights and for Suburban Youth Symphony Orchestra April 16 at Crete-Monee High School’s Milton Payton Performing Arts Auditorium in Crete.
“It’s going to be a very emotional homecoming,” said Lipman, who will play a viola he commissioned from Samuel Zygmuntowicz for the first time in the Chicago area.
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Lipman is featured violist for Soaring Strings: An Orchestral Celebration of Matthew Mantell, which honors Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra’s longtime principal violist, and also features his wife and current orchestra member, Emily Lewis Mantell of Orland Park, and daughter Sonia Mantell as featured cellists.
The late Matthew Mantell was Lipman’s first private teacher.
“I would consider Matt, Emily and Sonia family at this point. My family couldn’t really afford lessons so he, out of the goodness of his heart, would heavily discount my lessons. It was purely because he believed in my talent,” Lipman said.
“Matt stayed a huge figure in my life until the very end and was present at all the most meaningful moments in my career. He came to New York when I won the Avery Fisher Career Grant, when I soloed with the Juilliard Orchestra. He was a mentor and a father figure.”
Lipman, who first performed with Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra at age 15, said Soaring Strings includes Sonia Mantell performing Jose Bragato’s “Graciela y Buenos Aires,” which she played at Wisconsin’s Birch Creek Summer Music Academy, where her parents taught and which he attended at age 12.
The program also features Sarah Estilo’s Conflict Concerto, which Lipman said is by one of Matthew Mantell’s former students, and Paul Hindemith’s “Traudermusik,” the first piece Lipman studied with Matthew Mantell.
“It’s a really interesting and eclectic program,” said Lipman, 31, a professor of viola at New York’s Stony Brook University.
Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra education director Lindsay Fredrickson hosts Orchestra 101: Intro to Music History, a free preconcert talk highlighting Johannes Brahms and Symphony No. 3, at 6:30 p.m. April 15.
Lipman teams with Minnesota Orchestra cellist Sonia Mantell for a Welcome Home concert to benefit Suburban Youth Symphony Orchestra programs and the Robin Lipman Memorial Scholarship fund.
“It is meaningful in multiple ways — obviously the scholarship named after my mom, who passed now nine years ago, and also to reconnect with the people who were, pun intended, instrumental in my development at an early stage,” said Lipman, a former Suburban Youth Symphony Orchestra member.
“It’s going to be at my high school (which) also adds another layer of sentimentality.”
Welcome Home includes David Popper’s “Requiem.”
Lipman’s many accomplishments include recitals at New York’s Carnegie Hall and debuting as a soloist with Chicago Symphony Orchestra at 2021’s Ravinia Festival in Highland Park.
“I feel so grateful that I get to make a life and living doing something that’s a passion,” he said.
Soaring Strings
When: 7:30 p.m. April 15
Where: Trinity Christian College’s Ozinga Chapel, 6601 W. College Drive, Palos Heights
Tickets: $10-$64
Information: 708-481-7774; ipomusic.org
Welcome Home
When: 4 p.m. April 16
Where: Crete-Monee High School’s Milton Payton Performing Arts Auditorium, 1515 W. Exchange St., Crete
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Tickets: free; donations welcome
Information: 708-414-0431; facebook.com/SuburbanYouthSymphonyOrchestra/events
Jessi Virtusio is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.