DuPage Symphony Orchestra celebrates local talent with ‘Beyond Beautiful’
This concert program will take place at 3 pm on Sun., Feb. 16 and will feature award-winning local violist Rose Armbrust Griffin.
“Music possesses much richer means of expression and it is a more subtle medium for translating the 1000 shifting moments of the feelings of the soul,” wrote Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Maestra Barbara Schubert and DuPage Symphony Orchestra, a beloved community orchestra that consists of volunteer musicians, know exactly how to demonstrate various feelings of the soul through the means of classical music.
The DuPage Symphony Orchestra has prepared a wonderful concert program called ‘Beyond Beautiful,” which will take place at 3 pm on Sunday, February 16, 2025, at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville. This celebration of local talent and musical masterpieces will feature award-winning local violist Rose Armbrust Griffin of Wheaton who will perform Cecil Forsyth’s rarely heard and delightfully lyrical Viola Concerto.
“The DuPage Symphony Orchestra proudly features Rose Armbrust Griffin as part of our commitment to deepening connections with classical music in our community,” said Maestra Barbara Schubert. “Her inspiring artistry and community involvement create a truly Beyond Beautiful event.”
Rose is a music educator and violist. She received her Bachelor of Music from The Juilliard School, her Artist Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music, and her Master of Music from Indiana University. Rose was awarded a Performers Certificate at the conclusion of her Masters for “recognition of her outstanding musical performance.”
As a chamber musician, Rose has collaborated with renowned artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Pamela Frank, Vadim Gluzman, Peter Wiley and the Amernet String Quartet. Her chamber music performances include concerts at The Kennedy Center, Avery Fischer Hall, Music from Angelfire, Zankel Hall, Ravinia’s Steans Institute and The Musica Bella Concert Series. She has also performed with The Chicago Ensemble, The Jupiter Chamber Players, The Pilgrim Chamber Players, The Chicago Chamber Musicians, The Rembrandt Chamber Players and the Chicago Symphony’s MusicNOW series. Currently, she performs with the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, substitutes for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and enjoys performing chamber music with the Omnibus Quartet.
The DuPage Symphony is happy to introduce Cecil Forsyth’s rarely heard Viola Concerto with Griffin playing an extremely touching solo on her beloved musical instrument - a 1989 Marten Cornelissen viola. Rose borrowed it during her time at Curtis and later purchased it after she realized she couldn’t live without it.
Cecil Forsyth was an English composer and violist. He received his general education at the University of Edinburgh and then studied at the Royal College of Music in London. After the outbreak of World War I, he moved to New York, where he remained for the rest of his life.
It’s not a secret that classical music can affect our mind and emotions, and Forsyth’s Viola Concerto in G minor is one of those compositions. This masterpiece premiered at the London Proms in1903. Its passages are full of drama, its melodies are expressive and rich, its overall texture is full of beautiful harmonies and various rhythms. The concerto’s wonderful orchestration requires true ensemble playing between orchestra and solo viola. Under the baton of Maestra Schubert, the DuPage Symphony Orchestra and a talented violist Rose Griffin will demonstrate the whole depth and charm of this composition.
Another masterpiece that the orchestra prepared for this concert is Overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor, an 1849 opera in three acts by Otto Nicolai with a German libretto by Salomon Hermann Mosenthal based on Shakespeare's play. Nicolai was a German composer, conductor, and one of the founders of the Vienna Philharmonic. He spent many years in Italy where he took lessons with Italian masters. As a result, his opera The Merry Wives of Windsor, which is written in German, has elements of Italian opera buffa and early German romanticism.
In this work, the composer united German depth and Italian lightness and called it “a comic-fantastic opera.” The overture opens slowly and quietly, but then it develops into a happy picturesque ‘big tune,’ which is sometimes blended with the themes from the opera, but the ‘big tune’ belongs only to the overture. Its enthusiastic mood and humor will impress the audience.
This carefully prepared concert program will also include a great work by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, also known as ‘Pathétique.’ It was Tchaikovsky’s final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. He conducted its premiere himself in St. Petersburg on October 28 of the same year. Tchaikovsky died only a few days after the premiere of his Symphony No. 6.
He wrote to his brother Modest about this symphony: “I am now wholly occupied with the new work ... and it is hard for me to tear myself away from it. I believe it comes into being as the best of my works. I must finish it as soon as possible, for I have to wind up a lot of affairs and I must soon go to London. I told you that I had completed a Symphony which suddenly displeased me, and I tore it up. Now I have composed a new symphony which I certainly shall not tear up.”
It’s great that this masterpiece survived up to our days, as well as the other two compositions that Maestra Schubert carefully selected for this concert. Once again, the DuPage Orchestra will demonstrate its devotion to classical music, its audiences, and its community. And it’s beyond beautiful!
To enrich the concert experience, Anima – Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus, under the direction of Artistic Director Evan Bruno, will perform a special pre-concert and intermission program in the Wentz Concert Hall lobby. “At Anima, we are inspiring the next generation of musicians and consumers of the arts. Our mission is to get more young people singing, in more ways, and in more places,” said Bruno.
Tickets for "Beyond Beautiful" start at $5 and are available now at https://www.dupagesymphony.org/sunday-february-16/ or by calling 630-778-1003. Veterans and active-duty military can take advantage of the Symphony of Service program, offering a 25% discount on single tickets and VIP seating options.
Natalia Dagenhart
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