With renovations of Sangamon Auditorium on the University of Illinois Springfield campus nearing completion, the May 1 finale of this season is likely to be the last time the Illinois Symphony Orchestra will perform at First United Methodist Church, which has served as home away from home for the orchestra since October 2025. The culmination of an ambitious season, Friday’s concert featured the debut of a brand-new, specially commissioned composition as well as a spellbinding turn by a renowned guest piano virtuoso, all leading up to an appropriately rousing and climactic finish.
The evening’s music got underway with the world premiere of “Reverie on the Mother Road,” the short but impactful new piece written for the ISO by Waukegan-born, Chicago-based composer Michelle Isaac, who was in attendance for the performance. The composition began with a jazzy propulsion, Aaron Copland-esque percussion driving the orchestra forward like a car flying down the legendary roadway. However, in 1956, a mere 30 years after opening, the passage of the Interstate Highway Act caused Route 66 to begin losing its popularity, and it was shut down permanently in 1980.
Isaac’s music reflected this decrease in momentum, becoming increasingly elegiac and nostalgic, morphing into something like a Midwest equivalent of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” At the conclusion, composer Isaac and ISO music director Taichi Fukumura stood together onstage to absorb the thunderous applause of an audience brought to its feet by the excitement of witnessing a new, Illinois-themed composition come to life for the first time.
After a brief pause while a grand piano was moved to center stage, the concert continued with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” featuring internationally renowned guest pianist Janice Carissa. The piece allowed for plenty of frenetic pyrotechnics as Carissa’s fingers moved at blinding speed across the keyboard, wringing every bit of emotion and melodic sumptuousness from the Russian-Italian amalgamation with a physical intensity that brought a thunderstruck audience to its feet for the second standing ovation of the evening,
Following intermission, Maestro Fukumura addressed the audience, reflecting on the season and previewing the final piece of the evening. “This season has been a kind of road trip,” he said. “We started with Beethoven’s ‘Eroica,’ which is all about justice and equality. And now we end with Sibelius, whose Symphony No. 2 is about freedom and independence. He reminds us that these are things that don’t just happen on their own. Culture, a sense of community – these are things that we have to fight for. This music delivers a feeling of struggle and, eventually, triumph.”
The Illinois Symphony Orchestra attacked the piece with a gusto befitting Fukumura’s impassioned introduction. Sibelius’ symphony provided many opportunities for individual sections and musicians to shine, with strings and oboe showcased strongly in the trio portion. The final movement was both bombastic and beautiful, leaving the music lovers in attendance fully satisfied and setting the bar high for next season.
