Campanella Choir returns to Northbrook Library’s Parisian Salon series

On February 5, the Campanella Children’s Choir returned to the Northbrook Public Library to take part in an evening of Latin-American music and jazz.

Just like last year, the concert is part of the Parisian Salon concert series. Founded by Didier Lepauw, a former First Violinist of the Paris Symphony, the series was designed to evoke the Paris salons of the old, where composers played privately for select group of patrons. Originally hosted in Chicago, the concert series made its home in Northbrook Library for the past few years.

For the February 5 concert, we performed a selection of jazz pieces, pieces of from American musicals and Latin-American songs. Some of the selections were performed included music by George Gershwin, Harry Morgan and Mack Gordon, Heitor Villa-Lobs, Albert Hernandez, as well as original compositions by Chicago area musician Michael Sytchev.

The piano duet Natalia Kogan and Diana Kofman,.who have frequently collaborated with Campanella in the past, performed Gershwin’s "Rhapsody in blue". Sytchev performed pieces by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos.

We are happy to say that we got an enthusiastic response. Dr. Patricia Scherer, head of the Rolling Meadows based International Center on Deafness and Art Through Education, said that she was impressed with the quality of the performance.

“Children performed so passionately and so melodically,” she said. “The music poured out from every performance. The kids’ singing was truly heartfelt and soulful.”

Campanella also got a nice e-mail from resident Jack Jalove. He wrote that he realized that our choir would be performing, but he was pleasantly surprised by what he heard.

“The youngsters were marvelously professional, and I took from them every bit the appreciation any "grown-up" could have presented, indeed.,” he wrote. “And I know just enough about piano to have been VERY impressed by the accompaniment contributed. Plus the classical guitarist was quite simply quite impressive as well. All in all, a quite unexpected treat, the only regret being I left early but the time spent til was as I say, a treat. Thank you and continued success teaching tomorrow's artists today.”