One of the highlights of the 2024 Southern Illinois Music Festival was the finale from Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” at Shryock Auditorium. Two operas are planned at this year’s SIFest. (Photo by Kara Benyas)
May 09, 2025
SIFest’s 21st season promises magical operas, tribute to Haydn and more
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Powerful operas by Italian master composer Gaetano Donizetti, along with celebrating the first two of Austrian composer Joseph Haydn’s “London Symphonies,” are among the highlights for the 21st Southern Illinois Music Festival (SIFest), May 23-June 8.
Over 12 days, the nationally recognized festival will offer the region an opportunity to enjoy the finest professional singers and instrumentalists from the United States and Europe, along with a mix of select Southern Illinois University Carbondale faculty and students. The festival will once again feature orchestral and chamber music, opera, jazz and educational programs that promote the region’s cultural activity on a national scale.
Edward Benyas, SIFest artistic director and founder, and professor emeritus of oboe and conducting with the SIU School of Music, is looking forward to presenting this year’s festival.
The Southern Illinois premiere of Donizetti’s “Anna Bolena” will be outdoors. Recounting the tragic tale of Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII’s new love, Jane Seymour, the opera will be presented in a rare outdoor venue in the shadow of Altgeld Hall on the SIU campus at 8 p.m. May 31, with a June 1 rain date. The festival will close with Donizetti’s delightful opera, “Elixir of Love,” at 7 p.m. June 6 and 2 p.m. June 8, both in Shryock Auditorium.
“Both works are chock full of beautiful melodies, arias and choruses, and feature internationally acclaimed singers and the Meredith Young Opera Artists,” all of whom will appear at an “Opera Teasers” semi-outdoor concert at Alto Vineyards at 7 p.m. May 30, Benyas said.
Media availability
Reporters, photographers and news crews interested in covering the Southern Illinois Music Festival may arrange interviews with Edward Benyas, SIFest artistic director, founder and conductor, at benyas@siu.edu or 312-560-2094.
Celebrating Haydn
Benyas noted the festival will present the first two of Haydn’s 12 London Symphonies this season with the goal of completing the cycle of all 12 by 2032, in the time for the 300th anniversary of Haydn’s birth. Haydn composed the symphonies between 1781 and 1795.
In addition to Haydn, the orchestral programs will feature the music of Austrian composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Schubert and German composer Ludwig van Beethoven and others. Several longtime festival artists will be featured instrumental soloists, including violinist, Amelia Korbitz, cellist David Peshlakai, and flutists Kelly Sulick and Abby Simoneau.
Other festival highlights include:
- An orchestral program with music by Haydn, Mozart and German composer Max Bruch at 7 p.m. June 3 at John A. Logan College’s O’Neil Auditorium. The works include Haydn’s first two London Symphonies (93 and 94), Bruch’s “Kol Nidre,” featuring Peshlakai, and Mozart’s “Exsultate Jubilate” with soprano Diana Higbee.
- The final orchestral program at 7 p.m. June 7 at Carterville High School features Beethoven’s violin concerto with Korbitz as soloist, Domenico Cimarosa’s Concerto for Two Flutes featuring Simoneau and Sulick, and Schubert’s 2nd Symphony.
- Two exclusive evening chamber music soirées, with drinks and hors d’oeuvres, open the festival over Memorial Day weekend, May 23-24, featuring violinists Michael Barta and Kiril Laskarov, and the ensemble Some Strings Attached.
Artist biographies, ensembles and the full schedule of concerts are available on the festival website, sifest.com.
Performances throughout the region
The Klassics for Kids and Jive with Jazz performances, which feature events in Anna, Carbondale, Ina, Marion and Murphysboro for children of all ages are free, and reservations are not needed. There also will be numerous chamber music performances at Artspace 304, First United Methodist Church of Carbondale, SIU’s Morris Library, Anna Arts Center, the Harold Jones Fine Arts Center in Cairo, the Rend Lake Event Center in Ina and other venues.
Tickets available now
Tickets to many festival events are $25 for general admission and $10 for students of any age. A season pass is available for $150 (excluding the May 23 and May 24 soirées) and includes an SIFest program booklet. Tickets and festival passes will be available at the door.
Benyas, who is executive director of the Cascade Symphony Orchestra in Edmonds, Washington, said he is grateful for the continued support of sponsors for contributing to the festival’s success through the years. He will receive a Distinguished Service Award in association with the College of Arts and Media at SIU Carbondale commencement exercises at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 10.
“I will always be back for the Southern Illinois Music Festival — it is my most important creative activity,” Benyas said. “We have several endowments that will support SIFest in perpetuity and several other longtime patrons have made the festival part of their planned giving, so SIFest will continue as long as SIU continues.”