Under the baton of its conductor Tom Hall, the DePaul Chamber Orchestra presents a spring program pairing a little-known work, Idyll for String Orchestra, by one of the 20th century’s musical pioneers, Leos Janácek, with one of the landmark works in the classical repertory, the Violin Concerto by Felix Mendelssohn. The featured soloist is critically acclaimed violinist Ilya Kaler, a DePaul faculty member. The concert begins at 8 p.m. March 8, in the DePaul Concert Hall, 800 W. Belden Ave., Chicago. Admission is free of charge.

Established in 2001 primarily as a string ensemble, the DePaul Chamber Orchestra was expanded in 2004 to include winds for selected works. Tom Hall, a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s violin section since 1970 and an adjunct faculty member at DePaul, has led the ensemble since 2002. As conductor, his aim is “to program works of various musical styles including compositions by fellow DePaul students.”

Violinist Ilya Kaler, a member of the music faculty since 2003, came to DePaul with degrees from the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied with the legendary Leonid Kogan. Gold medalist in several prestigious European competitions including the Tchaikovsky (1986), Sibelius (1985), and Paganni (1981), Kaler has since performed to critical acclaim in major music centers throughout Europe and beyond. He was the concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra from 1996 to 2001.

Not until the last decades of his life did the Czech-nationalist composer Janácek achieve recognition as one of the most original and compelling opera composers of the 20th century. His Idyll for String Orchestra is one of his earliest compositions, written when his nascent creative life was heavily influenced by that of Dvorák. In music, an “idyll” is defined as a composition evoking the quality of pastoral or rural life. The DePaul Chamber Orchestra performs four movements from this 1878 score.

The E minor Violin Concerto was Mendelssohn’s last orchestral work. It is a concerto as popular as any ever written, and for the composer, it would silence the claims that his career was in decline. From the start, the work was intended to be played by his longtime friend, violinist Ferdinand David. Together, through lengthy correspondence, they consulted on the technical details of the composition. This marked the first in a series of working partnerships between composers and violinists in writing concertos; other composers who followed in Mendelssohn’s footsteps include Bruch, Brahms, Dvorák, Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Szymanowski, Stravinsky, Bartók and Shostakovich.

For more information about DePaul School of Music events: 312/362-7260 or music.depaul.edu.