KVSO to host 4th concert of season

KANKAKEE – The Kankakee Valley Symphony Orchestra will be performing the fourth concert of its 2024-2025 season this Saturday at Kankakee High School.

The KVSO will be joined by the internationally acclaimed violin soloist Andrew Sords for a performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s passionate and virtuosic Violin Concerto in D Major.

Sean Paul Mills, the KVSO’s artistic director and conductor, will lead the orchestra as it continues its 57th season.

The program features works by Franz Schubert, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Robert Schumann.

Returning to its season-long theme of “Music Speaks” (Hans Christian Andersen), this KVSO concert is titled “Music Speaks of Amour” (Love).

The KVSO will bookend the concerto with Franz Schubert’s Rosamunde Overture and Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 “Spring.”

The concert will be at 7 p.m. Saturday in the auditorium of Kankakee High School, 1200 W Jeffery St.

Tickets are available through the KVSO website at www.kvso.org and at the door beginning one hour before the performance. Adults are $30 and children are $5.

There will be a free light reception after the concert to meet and greet the performers.

The KVSO will continue to offer its series of free pre-concert discussions this season.

These will take place 45 minutes prior to each performance and provide audience members with an opportunity to learn more about the composers, selections, orchestra and soloists as well as ask questions of and interact with Sean Paul Mills and guest artists.

More About Sords

Born in Newark, Delaware, Andrew Sords was raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and currently lives in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.

At age 5, he asked for piano lessons and shortly thereafter commenced violin lessons.

His studies led him to the ENCORE School for Strings, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Southern Methodist University.

As a teenager, Sords garnered prizes from concerto competitions (including the NFMC National Competition and the Pittsburgh Society Career Grant), signed with management, and cultivated a media and audience following from innumerable interviews, profiles and appearances.

In recent seasons, Sords has appeared with the Greensboro Symphony, El Paso Symphony, Flagstaff Symphony, Brevard Symphony, Pueblo Symphony, Spartanburg Philharmonic, Southeastern Ohio Symphony, Des Moines Orchestra, Grand Junction Symphony, Durham Chamber Orchestra, Salisbury Symphony, Longmont Symphony, Guatemala’s “Festival Bravissimo”, Oakland Symphony, Chattanooga Symphony, Cleveland Philharmonic and Toronto Philharmonia.

As a prolific recitalist, Sords has appeared in La Jolla, Washington (D.C.), Maui, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and St. Augustine (FL), Canada, Mexico, and throughout the Caribbean.