Sinfonia da Camera Returns to Headline The ILLIAC
On Saturday, August 22, Sinfonia da Camera returns to headline The ILLIAC. Now in its third year, The ILLIAC is a free outdoor event, featuring live musical performances, food trucks, and more in Champaign’s Hessel Park. This year, the festival expands to other venues in Downtown Champaign, with additional stages located in the Neil Street Plaza, Watson’s Shack & Rail, The Space, and Cowboy Monkey.
The ILLIAC was first launched in 2014 by Seth Fein, the producer of the annual local music festival PYGMALION. The name pays homage to “The Illiac Suite,” considered the first piece of computer-composed music. In 1957, two composition professors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign programmed the ILLIAC I computer to generate musical material for a string quartet, which became “The Illiac Suite.”
The ILLIAC took a hiatus after its inaugural year, coming back in the summer of 2024 and relocating from the streets of Downtown Urbana to Hessel Park. It has also been rescheduled for move-in weekend in late August to capitalize on the return of students and faculty to the University of Illinois campus.
Sinfonia da Camera, the professional chamber orchestra in residence at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, has headlined the event since its rebirth in 2024. The ILLIAC has since become an integral part of Sinfonia’s community outreach and has yielded tangible results in the concert hall. Last year, when we spoke with Sinfonia’s executive director, Elizabeth Churchya, she said they witnessed a demographic shift in their audiences at Krannert Center the following season, owing to the positive experience people had on the Hessel Park lawn the previous summer.
This year, Sinfonia’s ILLIAC program celebrates the impending 50th anniversary of the release of the first Star Wars film (A New Hope, released in 1977). John Williams’s Star Wars Suite brings together the memorable themes from his iconic score, including Princess Leia’s theme, the Imperial March, Yoda’s theme, the Throne Room theme, and title music.
Also on the program will be Franz Liszt’s Les Préludes, the most famous of his twelve symphonic poems, as well as “Anitra’s Dance” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, op. 46. Tchaikovsky’s bombastic 1812 Overture, and audience favorite from last year’s program, closes out the concert, with cannons provided by the ROTC for the 16 cannon shots notated in the score. Maestro Ian Hobson will conduct.
Alongside Sinfonia’s headlining concert at 7:30 pm at Hessel Park, this year’s ILLIAC boasts an extensive lineup of musical groups across genres, including Tray Wellington’s Heart on the Table, Garrett Boys, David Nance & Mowed Sound, Afro-Caribbean Jazz Collective, Big Daddy Pride and The East Side Five, Meadowhawk, Mariachi Libertad, Brain Sex, Granny Square, and Red Heart Revolution.
Centennial High School’s Chamber Orchestra will also play at Hessel Park at 4 pm. Their 30-minute set will feature Persephone’s Revenge by Jeffrey S. Bishop, El Gaucho by Bob Lipton, Swamp Thang by Richard Meyer, Forever Joyful by Brian Balmages, Fantasia on a Theme from Thailand by Richard Meyer, Hoe Down by Aaron Copland (arr. by Stephen Bulla), and Nimrod by Edward Elgar (arr. by Michael Bender).
For more information, head to The ILLIAC's website: theilliac.com
Illinois Classical/Illinois Public Media is a partner of The ILLIAC.
