Something for everyone at Southern Illinois Music Festival

The Southern Illinois Music Festival returns to Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus on June 17.

In its sixth year, the festival is featuring a "Romeo and Juliet" theme for this year's performance.

The performance "is a mix of different composers, but it is all orchestral," said Bob Cerchio, assistant director at the River Campus. This concert will feature Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet," as well as George Gershwin's "American in Paris" and Leonard Bernstein's "Symphonic Dances" from "West Side Story."

"It's a very accessible program," Cerchio said. "It is wonderful music to listen to, a very nice summer program."

He said the concert will entertain fans of both classical and more modern compositions.

"The core of the group is the Chicago Chamber Orchestra. Of course, that's not a big enough group for this type of festival orchestra, so they hire people in," Cerchio said. "They have people from all over the world; some international, national, and then a few people from our region."

The Southern Illinois Music Festival is a 20-day festival that continues through June 26.

"Even though the Chicago Chamber Orchestra is the core of this group, all of the performances are in the Southern Illinois and Southeast Missouri region," Cerchio said. "About an hour's drive and you can see all of the stuff they are doing all over the area."

The festival covers a variety of musical styles to appeal to a range of people.

"It's everything; there are performances specifically for children, and they're even mounting a ballet this year, which I think is the first time they have done that," Cerchio said.

"They have jazz performances and they do small recitals, and they are even playing the movie 'Romeo and Juliet' as part of the festival."

Attendees at the River Campus concert will receive a master program that lays out the entire festival. A full schedule and ticket sources can be found on the festival website at www.sifest.com.

This will be the last chance to catch a symphonic performance at the River Campus until the fall. The first Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra performance will be "Rhapsody in Blue" on Oct. 12.

Southern Illinois University-Carbondale "has a two-week resident music camp up there every summer," Cerchio said.

"They try to coordinate the festival to be here at the same time as those camps, and then they use some of those musicians from the Chicago Chamber Orchestra as part of those music camps."

The musicians do clinics with the students, helping them to be better performers themselves.

Tickets for the June 17 River Campus concert are $20 for adults and $6 for children. Tickets may be purchased from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays at the River Campus box office or by calling 651-2265. Tickets will also be available the night of the performance at the box office.