Anthony and Demarre McGill are classical music’s Chicago guys.
The two brothers grew up within the metropolis’s Chatham neighborhood. Both pursued music and have gone on to main solo and orchestral careers, and now they’re coming again to their hometown for his or her first appearances on the Grant Park Music Festival.
“Growing up on the South Side of Chicago,” mentioned Anthony, 40, who’s ending his fifth season as principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic, “I could never have imagined that I’d be flying in from New York to perform in Grant Park. It’s kind of crazy when you think about it.”
Crazy or not, Anthony and Demarre, 43, principal flutist of the Seattle Symphony, will group up as soloists in two works with the Grant Park Orchestra in concert events Friday and Saturday night in Pritzker Pavilion.
The brothers will current the second set of performances wherever of the Concerto Duo by Joel Puckett, an affiliate professor on the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. It was commissioned for them by the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, the place the composer was in residence in 2010-12.
The two carried out the premiere with music director Allen Tinkham and the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2012, and so they recorded it with similar ensemble for “Winged Creatures,” an album that was launched in May on the Chicago-based Cedille Records label.
“It has a lot of references to some of Joel’s family connections,” Anthony mentioned, “so it feels like a little bit like coming home to my brother and me when we play it. It’s not only a really special piece, but it’s also fun and exciting.”
Featured as effectively can be Camille Saint-Saëns’ seven-minute Tarantelle for Flute Clarinet and Orchestra, Op. 6, (1857), which can be heard on “Winged Creatures.” The two first carried out the work on a phase of the celebrated public-television program “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” after they had been nonetheless youngsters.
“That really is and maybe will be for the rest of my life the most thrilling experience of my existence,” mentioned Demarre. “It was amazing.” The budding flutist enrolled at Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis Institute of Music when he was 17, and a classmate who knew Rogers was instrumental in getting the brothers on the present.
He started learning the flute at age 7, later taking classes from Susan Levitin in Hyde Park and attending the Merit School of Music within the West Loop. “It was and still is a wonderful, important institution in Chicago,” he mentioned. “Just the opportunity to be around like-minded kids was far more than beneficial for us.”
Demarre’s father was an novice flutist, and the boy found a flute round the home that his mom had bought for his father from Sears after they had been nonetheless relationship. “I loved it immediately,” he mentioned, turning into shortly “obsessed” with music and the instrument.
The story was largely the identical for Anthony, who was desirous to observe in his brother’s footsteps. Their mom was insistent that there not be two flutists within the household, so on the suggestion of the director, he selected clarinet in fourth grade, when he was signing up for band class in class.
Like his older brother, he took lessons on the Merit School, and he started boarding faculty on the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan at 15. The two spent some summers on the Interlochen Arts Camp after they had been youthful.
“We got along really well,” Anthony mentioned. “I basically wanted to do everything that my brother did, so I was trying to copy him in a lot of different ways. He was really into music, so I was. He was kind of my No. 1 supporter beside my parents growing up.”
Both brothers have gone on to spectacular careers, performing 10-20 concert events a 12 months along with their work with their respective orchestras. They attempt to carry out not less than a couple of concert events annually collectively, together with concert events with the McGill/McHale Trio, which incorporates pianist Michael McHale. The group…