SI Fest at Artspace 304

Artspace 304 will host several SI Fest performances this year. The Festival, it its 20th year, brings together musicians from accross the US and Europe to perform in Southern Illinois. Please visit sifest.com for ticket information and purchasing.

Artspace 304 will host the following SI Fest scheduled events:

Saturday, May 25 at 7pm – French Serenade

Drinks, hors d’oeuvres, French Serenade by the “Poor People of Paris”. Special event, ticketed separately through sifest.com Reservations required: benyas@siu.edu

Tuesday, May 28 at 7pm – Quartets and Arias

Bach, Shostakovich and Young Artist Arias

Saturday, June 8 at 12pm – Klassics for Kids

Saturday, June 8 at 7pm – Mozart and Schubert Quintets

Mozart’s Piano and Wind Quartet and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet

Please read the following text for more information on SI Fest and visit sifest.com for a complete list of festival performances and ticket prices and packages.

“Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the 2024 Southern Illinois Music Festival runs May 25 through June 9, under the artistic and administrative direction of SIU School of Music Emeritus Professor Edward Benyas. Professional singers, instrumentalists and dancers from across the United States and Europe converge in Southern Illinois to perform orchestral and chamber music, opera, ballet, jazz and educational programs, along with select SIU faculty and students. The Festival promotes our region’s reputation for cultural activity on a national scale. Symphony magazine listed it as the only professional music festival in Illinois south of I-80, AAA magazine described it as a Midwest Travel Treasure, and the Chicago Tribune cited it as one of 24 top summer activities (musical and otherwise) in an eight-state region.

Major highlights of SIFest 2024 are Mozart’s masterpiece opera, The Marriage of Figaro (sung in Italian with English narration and subtitles), Tchaikovsky’s beautiful and fully staged ballet, Swan Lake (including dancers from Arabesque Studios), and a D-Day 80th anniversary concert featuring music from France, Great Britain, Canada and America, including Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in its own centennial year. Another orchestral program features Mendelssohn’s popular violin concerto, some of our young opera artists, and Beethoven’s monumental “Eroica” Symphony. The Festival kicks off with drinks, hors d’oeuvres and a French Serenade by the “Poor People of Paris,” accompanied by SIFest instrumentalists.  SIFest orchestra members will perform a wealth of chamber music—from Telemann to Mozart and Beethoven to Shostakovich—throughout the festival in a variety of locations. Festival venues include Shryock Auditorium, Carterville High School, ArtSpace304, First United Methodist Church of Carbondale, SIU’s Morris Library, Anna Arts Center and the Harold Jones Fine Arts Center in Cairo. We will also present our popular free admission Jive with Jazz and Klassics for Kids events at venues around the region. All in just two and a half weeks! Complete details on the artists and performances are at www.SIFest.com.”