This story ran on nwitimes.com on Friday, August 11, 2006 12:27 AM CDT

Fusing music with passion

BY WALTER SKIBA
Times Correspondent

As part of their 60th anniversary season, the award-winning Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra will perform Saturday for the first time in Schererville's Redar Park .

The summer CYSO consists of about 60 top-notch high school students and alumni ages 15 to 20 from the Chicago area, guest conductor Stephen Burns said.

As artistic director of Fulcrum Point, one of Chicago 's most cutting-edge ensembles, Burns has led exciting, superbly executed performances of innovative programs fusing diverse musical traditions, sometimes incorporating multimedia.

Burns leads the CYSO in a program of classical and neo-classical pieces ranging from Mozart to music with a Latin connection, Rossini's overture to "The Barber of Seville" and Bizet's "Carmen, Suite No. 1." The concert will run approximately 90 minutes with a 15-minute intermission.

Mozart, who died at age 35 (1791), is paired with the "Spanish Mozart," Juan Crisostomo Arriaga, who died at age 19 (1826), in overtures to operas. While Mozart wrote the overture to "The Magic Flute" in the last year of his life, Arriaga wrote the overture to "Los Esclavos Felices" ("The Happy Slaves") at age 13.

Both works give evidence of the "liberal, experimental and daring," Burns says, and their structures are similar.

One of the most popular Spanish composers, Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), is represented with the concert suite from the ballet "El Amor Brujo" ("Spell-bound Love"). In the story, a sorcerer uses his powers to keep a young woman away from her boyfriend, Burns says, but the youth finds a way to drive the sorcerer away and love ultimately conquers all. The suite includes the "Dance of Terror" and the "Ritual Fire Dance."

Having studied with pupils of de Falla, Burns can be expected to impart an authentic feel to the music.

Three of the sections will feature mezzo-soprano Elizabeth De Shong from the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, singing about the cruelty and deceptions of love. A Master of Music degree recipient from the Curtis Institute of Music, De Shong most recently performed the role of Mercedes in Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of "Carmen." She received the 2006 RoseAnn Grundman Award of the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation competition in Chicago .

The Argentinean composer Astor Piazzola (1921-92) is represented with the tango "La Mufa," which Burns describes as "raw, savage, yet elegant."

Arturo Marquez (born 1950 in Sonora , Mexico ) transports a popular Mexican dance to the concert stage in "Danzon No. 4."

"Marquez treats this dance in a manner similar to what Stravinsky did with the waltz and ragtime," Burns says. "The result is charming, suave and sexy."

Burns loves working with young musicians. He stops more frequently than he would with professionals, he says, to work on fundamentals such as posture and breathing and details of harmony, rhythm and melodic focus.

During a rehearsal for this program, he discussed the meaning of "pining" and raised such questions as what is romanticism and does it have a place in the 21st century.

Great music, he says, is able to probe into the essence of the human condition, generating multiple levels of meaning, sophistication, detail and structure.

onstage

Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra outdoor concert

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Redar Park, just north of U.S. 30 on Austin Street , Schererville. Rain location is Lake Central High School Gymnasium, 8400 Wicker Drive , St. John .

Cost: Free