Welcoming Marianne Parker
As you have all heard by now, Carl Kennedy is stepping down as our Director of Music as of July 15th. Carl has been with us for a long time and has been such a wonderful part of our community. We all wish him the very best in his new ministry in DuPage even as we hold our own feelings of loss. As we prepare ourselves for an intentional, grounded, and focused search for a permanent Director of Music, we are blessed to welcome Marianne Parker to serve as Acting Director of Music starting July 10 through December 31st. Some of you will remember Marianne. Marianne was our Director of Music from 2010 - 2016.
Marianne Parker’s playing has been described as, “a cut above…her sympathetic fingers offering well-sculpted phrases and impassioned pealing” (Chicago Classical Review). Her work can be heard on several albums, including Dot : Line : Sigh (2024, New Focus Recordings), Pyano Sa (2020, Simi Klasiko), Currents in Time (2020, PARMA/Navona Records), and Pages intimes (2019, self-release). Marianne is curator for the Anthology of 21st Century Works for Solo Piano through NewMusicShelf Publishing.
In demand locally, regionally, and nationally as a collaborator and new music specialist, Marianne has performed with ensembles including The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Peoria Symphony Orchestra, Present Music, Access Contemporary Music, Fourth Coast Ensemble, Crossing Borders Music, and more. She served as the principal pianist for the Chicago Civic Orchestra from 2013–2015, during which time she worked with longtime Chicago Symphony pianist Mary Sauer and Creative Consultant Yo-Yo Ma.
Recent performances include being a featured soloist at Mirelle’s, New York’s premiere cultural event center for the surrounding Haitian community, to celebrate Haitian Flag Day; performing on the premiere recording of a newly commissioned solo piano work by Augusta Read Thomas; a guest appearance with the Decho Ensemble at Northwestern University’s NUNC! 6; and a featured performance on 6Degrees Composers’ Spring 2025 concert. Other highlights include performing the Clara Schumann Piano Concerto with the Fort Dodge Area Symphony Orchestra, premiering a new work by Fermilab Composer-in-Residence Roger Zare, and giving a sold-out solo recital of Haitian classical music in Montreal for an audience that included several Canadian dignitaries. In spring 2024, she appeared as guest pianist with CHAI Collaborative Ensemble, curated and performed a set of art songs with Fourth Coast Ensemble, and performed AMP, a piano concerto by Alan Theisen that she commissioned, with the University of Chicago Wind Ensemble.
She is the recent past-President of New Music Chicago, an organization that supports the city’s vast ecosystem of new music creators, and a 2022 graduate of the Global Leaders Program, an executive arts leadership initiative preparing musicians to become socially impactful organizational leaders.
Marianne has been a featured performer at the Bowling Green State University New Music Festival, James Madison University Contemporary Music Festival, Nief Norf Summer Festival, and others. In 2023, she commissioned and premiered AMP: Concerto for Piano and Wind Ensemble by Dr. Alan Theisen with the University of Illinois-Chicago Wind Ensemble. She teaches at the Chicago Academy for the Arts.
Marianne’s work is driven by her passion to communicate the vibrancy and variety of classical music—especially to those who have yet to discover it.
