Music Institute to Present Free Performance of PINOCCHIO SUITE, 5/22

The Music Institute of Chicago presents "The Pinocchio Suite," a chamber opera created and performed by accomplished musicians Ron and Ann Surace, Sunday, May 22, 2 p.m. at the Music Institute's Lake Forest campus at Dickinson Hall, 100 East Old Mill Road. Admission is free and open to the public.

A chamber opera for duo piano, narrator and singer, "The Pinocchio Suite" was featured at the 2015 Illinois State Music Teachers Conference in Chicago.

Ron said, "After setting Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a chamber opera, I reviewed other texts for possible use. I was attracted to Pinocchio because at one level, it's a brilliant and entertaining children's book, but at a deeper level, it is a morality play about human nature and the inclination to ignore wise counsel and make bad choices. So I turned my musical theatre interest to the Pinocchio story in 2008 as a possible chamber opera setting using a small orchestra and a few singers performing multiple roles. I finally settled on two acoustic pianos as the orchestra. In the past, I've either written strictly jazz style works or-on the other hand-classical pieces without reference to jazz at all. However, with this new work, I felt that my firsthand experience with American jazz and Classical Western music should unabashedly merge and become one.

"Actually the original Pinocchio text inspired the creation of the music. I found that 'words-to-music' became more or less the act of writing down the music suggested by the text. Songs seemed to leap off the page along with the text."

The Music Institute of Chicago is dedicated to transforming lives through music education. Founded in 1931, the Music Institute has grown to become one of the largest and most respected community music schools in the nation. Offering musical excellence built on the strength of its distinguished faculty, commitment to quality, and breadth of programs and services, the Music Institute is a member of the National Guild for Community Arts Education and accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Pre-collegiate Arts Schools (ACCPAS). Each year, the Music Institute's teachers reach thousands of students of all ages and levels of experience. Music Institute locations include Chicago, Evanston, Winnetka, Lincolnshire, Lake Forest, and Downers Grove. In addition, the Music Institute is proud of its longstanding partnership with the Chicago Public Schools through its Arts Link program. The Music Institute offers lessons and classes, and concerts through its Community Music School, Academy, and Nichols Concert Hall. For more information, visit musicinst.org.