In Celebration of Credo's 20 Years!

July 28 marked a beautiful culmination of Credo’s 20th Anniversary celebration. Orchestra Hall Chicago was the showcase for a concert that showed the full capabilities of the Credo ministry. Performers included Credo alumni, 2019 Credo students, talented youngsters from all over the Chicago area, young professionals, and world-famous performers. This considerable collection of talent combined frolicked in Credo’s atmosphere of joy and enthusiasm to create an afternoon that those in attendance will not soon forget.

As audiences entered Orchestra Hall, they had the opportunity to be delighted by special pre-concert music in two areas. A group of virtuosi performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons sizzled in the Orchestra Hall rotunda...

while guests seated in the balcony sections of the Hall had the opportunity to be inspired by students from the South Side Suzuki Cooperative, who performed in the Grainger Ballroom.

The concert began with a side-by-side performance of Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite incorporating students from programs designed to broaden access to musical training for gifted students from around Chicago. Credo students and alumni were paired with students from People’s Music School, Merit School of Music, and South Side Suzuki Cooperative students.

Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings was the vehicle to unleash Credo’s full string power! About a dozen alumni joined students from 2019 to give a stirring performance of this Credo favorite.

The first half of the concert offered an opportunity for a chamber orchestra to shine, along with soloists Matthew Lipman (Credo ’06, ’08) and Rachel Barton Pine. This work was the most intimate and virtuosic of the afternoon. The performance of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante was met with a resounding standing ovation.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade, led by Maestro John Nelson, ended the program. The sprawling tale is a masterpiece of detail, orchestration, and melody. Credo’s mass of strings combined with an exciting array of early-professional wind players to produce sounds that ranged from the personal and shimmery to dynamic and brawny.

The concert July 28 was a fitting exclamation point on Credo’s first 20 years. We have brought music to some of the country’s greatest concert halls (Severance Hall Cleveland, and Orchestra Hall Chicago), to college and conservatory concert halls across America and Australia, and to a multitude of more intimate settings where the special spiritual gift of music found audiences in need — prisons, hospice centers, hurricane-ravaged neighborhoods, right on down to individual homes.

Thanks for your part in Credo’s history. I appreciate you taking time to enjoy this summer’s Gala concert, celebrating our wonderful present. I look forward to the joy and peace we can create together by sharing inspired music with the world.

Please share the concert highlight page link with talented students in your area, or anyone who would be inspired by Credo's work: www.credomusic.org/blog/concerts.