Chicago Sinfonietta Announces 2012-13 Season

The Chicago Sinfonietta, the nation's most diverse orchestra, celebrates its 25th Anniversary Season, and its second under the leadership of Music Director Mei-Ann Chen, with five concerts that each highlight music's ability to connect people of different tastes, cultures and even hemispheres.

Highlights of the season include a World Premiere in partnership with the Chicago Architecture Foundation, a collaboration with New York-based ensemble PROJECT Trio, annual tributes to DR. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead, and a musical salute to the Arab Spring. Guest artists include Uruguayan conductor Gisele Ben?Dor, bandoneón master Raul Jaurena, distinguished clarinetist Anthony McGill, award-winning vocalist Eric Owens (who will both sing and make his professional conducting debut), the Waubonsie Valley High School Mosaic Choir, and composer and oud virtuoso Simon Shaheen.

"Music is the universal language, something you hear not only with your ears, but also feel with your heart," said Maestro Chen. "What better orchestra to celebrate that fact than the Chicago Sinfonietta, the country's most diverse orchestra? Music connects us, no matter who we are or where we come from. Throughout my second season with the Sinfonietta, I want to celebrate and showcase these universal connections with selections that come from different cultures and genres, continuing Maestro Paul Freeman's legacy of innovative programming that steps outside the boundary of classical music."

For the first time ever, the orchestra is performing all five of its subscription concerts in the western suburbs as well as in Chicago. The Sinfonietta's suburban home is the Wentz Concert Hall of North Central College, 171 E. Chicago Avenue in Naperville. Downtown Chicago concerts take place in Orchestra Hall of Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Avenue, and the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph Drive.