Evanston's Own Harmonica Master

Two great local musical institutions – the Evanston Symphony and Howard Levy – are teaming up for the first time! Levy will perform his wonderful Concerto for Diatonic Harmonica and Orchestra with the ESO on 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14 at Pick-Staiger Hall in Evanston.

The three-movement piece was composed in 2000 on a commission from the Illinois Philharmonic. Each movement is written in a different church mode – Mixolydian, Dorian and Ionian – to give it a unique sound, and features improvisatory cadenzas for the soloist. Listen to the opening movement.

Levy has recorded the piece with the Czech National Symphony and performed it more than three dozen times in Europe, Asia and North America, including at Orchestra Hall with the Chicago Sinfonietta and in specially adapted versions with the Hohner Accordion Orchestra in Germany and the Hong Kong Harmonica Orchestra.

Both composer and concerto have strong Evanston ties. Levy grew up in Brooklyn and came to Northwestern as a music major in 1969. After returning briefly to New York in 1970, he has lived here ever since. While at Northwestern he also developed his celebrated “overblowing and overdrawing” technique, which enables him to bend the reeds to play every note across the entire spectrum of the instrument, like a chromatic harmonica, while retaining the soulful and hauntingly expressive quality of a blues harmonica.

“I felt like Columbus discovering a new continent,” he has said of the moment, in Evanston in September 1969, when he first developed the technique.

The composer has a long and distinguished musical background. He studied piano at Manhattan School of Music. He has appeared on piano and harmonica with numerous pop and folk icons such as Paul Simon, Steve Goodman, Kenny Loggins and Dolly Parton. He has played on more than 200 CDs, has won two Grammy Awards and has performed around the world.