Spooky Strings at Barrington's White House

An ESO String Quartet Presents: Spooky Strings Saturday, October 29, 2022, at 1:00 PM

SAINT-SAENS arr. Lynne Latham

Danse macabre, op. 40

JOHN WILLIAMS arr. Loretta Gillespie

Theme from Jaws

RAY PARKER

Theme from Ghostbusters

GRIEG arr. Lynne Latham

In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt, op. 46

HERMANN arr. Loretta Gillespie

Driving Scene from Psycho

MUSSORGSKY arr. Christian Morris

Night on Bald Mountain

SHOSTAKOVICH

Quartet No. 8 IV. Largo

MICHAEL JACKSON arr. KMG

“Thriller”

CHOPIN arr. KMG

Funeral March

JOHN WILLIAMS arr. Loretta Gillespie

Harry Potter Medley

This program in sponsored, in part, by the Barrington Area Community Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council Agency

ESO MUSICIANS Cristina Buciu is a native of Bucharest, Romania and comes from a family of well-known musicians. She has soloed extensively with several orchestras in Romania and the U.S., including the National Radio Orchestra of Romania, the Concerto Chamber Orchestra on its European tour, and the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. She was twice the winner of the National String Competition in Romania and the International Violin Competition in Stresa, Italy. Cristina lives in Chicago and plays with the Elgin Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, and is a frequent substitute with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra & the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Violinist Helen Kim Lee was born in Toronto, Canada. She began her musical studies at age 4 on the piano, and the violin soon after. Her primary teachers were Zvi Zeitlin, Syoko Aki, and Robert Mann. Other important teachers were Robert Lipsett and Sylvia Rosenberg. She grew up in Maryland and studied at the Preparatory division of the Peabody Institute of Music through high school. She went on to graduate from Yale University as an English major.

She holds a Doctoral degree from The Juilliard School where she completed a thesis on Elliott Carter’s Fourth and Fifth String Quartets.

Helen began her professional life in New York City where she maintained a diverse and active freelance career, and performed in such venues as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Merkin Concert Hall and Carnegie Hall. As an orchestral musician, she played with some of the city’s most interesting groups such as Riverside Symphony and Jupiter Symphony, and was also a member of the first violin section of New Haven Symphony Orchestra. As a student at Juilliard School she pursued her interest in new music, performing with the New Juilliard Ensemble. Her commitment to chamber music also led her to be a founding member of the Modigliani Quartet.

She performed on numerous recordings, commercials, film soundtracks, and television spots. On Broadway she was a member in the orchestra for Mel Brooks’ hit shows “The Producers” and “Young Frankenstein,” and served as concertmaster for the Broadway touring production of “Jekyll and Hyde”.

Having spent years training in the Suzuki method and violin pedagogy, Helen also spent over a decade of her life in music education. She served on the faculty of The School for Strings founded by Louise Behrend and The Diller-Quaille School of Music both in New York City, and later at Western Springs School for Talent Education in Illinois.

Currently Helen lives in Chicago with her husband and two children, where you will see her onstage frequently with Music of the Baroque, as a member of the first violin section in Elgin Symphony, and as a performing member of Chicago Philharmonic.

Susan Posner has been a freelance violinist and violist in the Chicago area since 1979. A native of Iowa, she holds a Bachelor of Music from Drake University and a Master of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music. In the fall of 2000, she officially rejoined the viola section of the Elgin Symphony after an eleven-year hiatus.

Ms. Posner has performed with the Chicago Symphony, Lyric Opera, Grant Park Symphony, Chicago Opera Theater, American Chamber Symphony, Chicago String Ensemble, Lake Forest Symphony and other ensembles; ballet companies such as Bolshoi, Kirov, Joffrey, Moscow, Cleveland-San Jose, as well as in pit orchestras for the Broadway musicals “Phantom”, “Les Misérables”, “Miss Saigon”, “Showboat”, “Joseph…”, “Beauty and the Beast”, and many others.

Ms. Posner resides in Geneva with her husband, Rick.

She maintains a private teaching studio of twenty-five violin and viola students.

Sara Sitzer, whose playing has been described as “rich” and “lustrous” by the Chicago Classical Review, leads a varied life as an orchestral, chamber, and solo cellist, as well as entrepreneur, administrator, and music writer.

She has performed recitals all over the world, from Frank Gehry’s New World Center in Miami Beach to the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Her performing career has taken her to Israel, Japan, England, Australia, as well as throughout the United States Ms. Sitzer’s dedication to connecting with communities through live chamber music performance led her to found both the Gesher Music Festival in St. Louis, Missouri (2011), as well as Chamber Music on the Fox in Elgin, Illinois (2014). As a writer, she has been published in the St. Louis Beacon and NewMusicBox (the blog of New Music USA).

Ms. Sitzer is a member of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra and regularly performs with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Chicago Opera Theater, among other ensembles. Ms. Sitzer has had the opportunity to perform alongside the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, as well as with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra in Sydney, Australia. Additionally, she travels to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia each summer to perform and to serve as cello and chamber music faculty at the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival. Other festivals she has attended include Tanglewood Music Center, Pacific Music Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival.

A champion of chamber music and new music in Chicago, Ms. Sitzer is a former member of Chicago Q Ensemble, with whom she recorded two albums, gave a TEDx presentation, and was presented by organizations including the Chicago Loop Alliance, Frequency Series, (Un)Familiar Music Series, Chicago Home Theater Festival, City of Chicago, and American Music Project.

Ms. Sitzer holds a Master of Music Degree from the University of Wisconsin, where she attended on a Collins Fellowship. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from Boston University as a Trustee Scholar. She also completed a 3-year fellowship with the New World Symphony in Miami under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas.