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!

Tickets to Festival events are $25 general and $10 for students of any age, and are always available at the door, or in advance by mail using the order form on the SIFest brochure. A $150 All-Festival Pass provides admission to all concerts (except the French Serenade), and includes a free SIFest program booklet ($250 value). Festival Passes are also available in advance by mail using the order form on the SIFest brochure.

Schedule of Events:

Saturday, May 25, 2024

7pm: French Serenade: Poor People of Paris and SIFest Musicians at ArtSpace304 ($75)
Drinks, Hors d’oeuvres and a night in Paris

Sunday, May 26, 2024

2pm: Antigone String Quartet at First United Methodist Church of Carbondale ($25/10)
String Quartets by Haydn and Mendelssohn

Tuesday, May 28, 2024

7pm: Quartets and Arias at Carbondale Community Arts ($25/10)
Bach, Shostakovich and Young Artist Arias

Wednesday, May 29, 2024

6pm: Chamber Music at Harold Jones Fine Arts Center in Cairo (Free)
Antigone String Quartet

7pm: Chamber Music at Anna Arts Center ($10)
Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8; Ibert and Farkas Wind Quintets

Thursday, May 30, 2024

4pm: Brahms Chamber Music in Morris Library 3rd Floor Rotunda (Free)
All Brahms Concert: Horn Trio and String Quartet No. 3

Friday, May 31, 2024

7pm: Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake at Shryock ($25/10)

Saturday, June 1, 2024

7pm: Eroica Symphony at Carterville High School ($25/10)
Mozart: Symphony No. 32, Verdi: Quartet from Rigoletto, Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto with Kiril Laskarov, Beethoven: “Eroica” Symphony
Pre-concert lecture by David Tuttle at 6pm

Sunday, June 2, 2024

2pm: Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake at Shryock ($25/10)

Tuesday, June 4, 2024

7pm: Beethoven and Borodin at First United Methodist Church of Carbondale ($25/10)
Beethoven Quartet Op. 59/3, Borodin String Quartet No. 2, Telemann Quartet

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

4pm: Chamber Music at Morris Library 3rd Floor Rotunda (Free)
Haydn: London Trio, Shostakovich: Waltz, Hindemith: Three Pieces, Mozart: “Kegelstat” Trio

Thursday, June 6, 2024

3pm: Fermi String Quartet at Liberty Estates, Carbondale (Free)

7pm: D-Day 80th Commemoration at Carterville High School ($25/10)
Orchestral music from the liberating countries, including Rhapsody in Blue and Enigma Variations

Friday, June 7, 2024

7pm: Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at Shryock Auditorium ($25/10)
Perhaps the greatest opera ever written, sung in Italian with English dialogue and supertitles
Pre-concert lecture by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais at 6pm

Saturday, June 8, 2024

Noon: Klassics for Kids at Artspace 304 (Free)

6pm: Chamber Music at Harold Jones Fine Arts Center in Cairo (Free)
Fermi String Quartet

7pm: Mozart and Schubert Quintets at ArtSpace 304 ($25/10)
Mozart’s Piano and Wind Quintet and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet

Sunday, June 9, 2024

2pm: Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at Shryock Auditorium ($25/10)
Pre-concert lecture at 1pm

Date: May 25-June 9, 2024

Location:

Artspace 304, 304 W. Walnut Street, Carbondale, IL 62901
First United Methodist Church of Carbondale, 214 W Main Street, Carbondale, IL 62901
Carbondale Community Arts - 304 W Walnut St, Carbondale, IL
Harold S Jones Fine Arts Center - 815 Commercial Ave, Cairo, IL 62914
Anna Arts Center, 125 W Davie Street, Anna, IL 62906
Morris Library, 605 Agriculture Drive, Carbondale, IL 62901
Shryock Auditorium, 1050 South Normal Avenue, Carbondale, IL 62901
Carterville High School, 1415 West Grand Avenue, Carterville, IL 62918
Liberty Estates, 501 N Westridge Drive, Carbondale, IL 62901

Buy Tickets

Click Here For More Information