20th annual SOUTHERN ILLINOIS MUSIC FESTIVAL
20th Annual Southern Illinois Music Festival
Edward Benyas, Artistic Director
May 25-June 9, 2024
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.
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.
