Chicago Classical Review

The massive silver pipes of the Norman and Hilda Ozinga Organ have towered imposingly over performances by the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra for years like a great silent sentinel.

For the orchestra’s final season concert Saturday night at Trinity Christian College’s Ozinga Hall in Palos Heights, the silent beast came to life as a full participant in the IPO’s “Organ Spectacular” program with the instrument on display in three of the evening’s four works.

Yet it was the sole non-organ work that made the strongest impact on this occasion with the world premiere of Oswald Huýnh’s Nước.

The 27-year-old Huýnh was the IPO’s composer in residence last season, and Saturday’s premiere was his final commission following previous IPO works. Last month Huýnh was awarded the prestigious Rome Prize in composition and will begin his full-time residency at the American Academy in Rome this fall.

In his program note, the Vietnamese-American composer states that 2025 is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War (noting that in Vietnam the conflict is called the “American War”). Nước means “water” as well as “country” or “homeland” and Huýnh says his work centers on the relationship between those two meanings and “the contradiction of the Vietnamese diasporic experience.” The work derives its thematic material from the song “Biển nhớ” (The sea remembers) by the prolific pacifist songwriter Trịnh Công Sơn. 

Nước begins in arresting fashion with percussion sounds and string rustles that suggest Vietnamese folk music, captured in an allusive, fragmented form. A wah-wah trumpet sounds a satiric note yet the music is dominated by a sense of tense mystery and concentrated power in an unsettled sonic landscape. The sounds swell to a loud brassy outburst and three forceful chords lead to a shimmering, majestic climax. A solo cello threnody sounds a tragic, elegiac expression as it is continually attacked by violent interjections from the orchestra. Eventually the intense conflict is quelled and the music slowly descends to a quiet close in the strings.

Nước is a powerful and haunting work, finely crafted with real individuality and skill, that packs a lot of incident into its 11-minute span. Music director Stilian Kirov led an atmospheric, acutely balanced performance that highlighted Huýnh’s evocative scoring and percussion writing. The final decrescendo of the violins was beautifully rendered and principal cellist Jacob Hanegan’s affecting solo sounded uncannily like a Vietnamese folk instrument. The composer was in the house and received an enthusiastic if unprolonged ovation from the audience.

The IPO seems to get plagued more than most ensembles by last-minute soloist cancellations. And so it proved again, with the scheduled organ soloist Peter Richard Conte bowing out earlier in the week. Fortunately, Alcee Chriss III was available and the young Fort Worth native proved a superb replacement in the evening’s spotlighted organ works.

Written in 1938, Francis Poulenc’s Organ Concerto is an engaging mashup of styles. Crafted in seven brief alternating sections, the music proceeds from Hammer horror film chromatics to baroque dotted rhythms and richly harmonized lyricism, all deftly laid out for organ soloist, string orchestra and timpani.

If not the most blazingly virtuosic rendition one will ever hear of this work, Chriss proved a largely inspired soloist. He appeared to jump the gun early at one transition point and at times one wanted more focused expression in Poulenc’s lyrical sections where the young organist’s phrasing was a bit foursquare.

Still, Chriss brought the requite musicianship, dexterity and sonic punch to the solo assignment, nicely highlighting the color and capabilities of the 46-rank Ozinga organ. Kirov deftly balanced the ensemble against the soloist and showed an easy grasp of the composer’s Gallic style. The IPO strings were superb, nimble and surely articulated in the quick sections and bringing out the luminous quality of Poulenc’s writing in the lyrical episodes.

The Poulenc concerto was preceded by Eugène Gigout’s Grand chœur dialogué. Originally written for solo organ, the Guy Ropartz transcription for organ and string orchestra tends to accentuate the thin invention of the composer’s call-and-response writing. Still, with Chriss drawing out the imposing might of the Ozinga organ, Gigout’s showpiece made a festive opener to the program.

The evening closed with Elgar’s Enigma Variations. From the warm, lovingly phrased opening statement of the theme and first variation (“C.A.E.”,  Elgar’s wife), it initially seemed like this was going to be an Enigma for the ages.

Alas, it was not to be. While Kirov had the general outline of Edgar’s brilliant showpiece in hand, too many sections failed to come off with sufficient contrast and character. The fast variations (“W.M.B” and “G.R.S.”) were heavy-footed, lacking in wit and headlong energy, and the bland playing of the IPO winds found little sparkle or piquant charm in Elgar’s affectionate portraits of his friends. The sole exception was Trevor O’Riordan whose clarinet solos in the penultimate Romanza ideally painted the sense of distant longing and plaintive ambiguity.

One suspects that the rehearsal necessary to prepare Huỳnh’s complex piece took away time to hone and polish the Elgar. Even so, Kirov built “Nimrod” to a worthy nobilmente, and Elgar’s own confident closing variation—with Chriss making a final appearance in the optional organ part— came off with the requisite whirlwind energy and panache, eliciting premature applause and shouts from the excitable IPO audience.

Following intermission the 2025 Leo Michuda IPO Award for Lifetime Service was presented to Lois and Stanley Birer, longtime supporters of the south suburban orchestra.

The Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2025-26 season opens October 25 with an all-Beethoven program including the Fifth Symphony, Creatures of Prometheus Overture and Violin Concerto with Adé Williams as soloist. ipomusic.org

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