Southern Illinois Music Festival

Professional singers and instrumentalists from across the United States converge in Southern Illinois to perform orchestral and chamber music, opera, jazz and educational programs, along with select SIU faculty and students. The Festival promotes our region’s reputation for cultural activity on a national scale. Symphony magazine listed it as the only professional music festival in Illinois south of I-80, AAA magazine described it as a Midwest Travel Treasure, and the Chicago Tribune cited it as one of 24 top summer activities (musical and otherwise) in an eight-state region.

Major highlights of SIFest 2025 are tragic and comic operas by the early 19th century Italian master opera composer, Gaetano Donizetti, starting with the Southern Illinois premiere of Anna Bolena, which tells the tragic tale of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII’s new love, Jane Seymour, in a rare outdoor presentation in the shadow of SIU’s Altgeld Hall castle. The Festival will close with Donizetti’s delightful opera, Elixir of Love, set in the Shawnee Wine Trail. Both works are chock full of beautiful melodies, arias and choruses, and feature internationally acclaimed singers and the Meredith Young Opera Artists, all of whom will also appear at an “Opera Teasers” concert at Alto Vineyards.

Our orchestral programs will feature the music of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert, among others. Several longtime Festival artists will be featured instrumental soloists, including violinist, Amelia Korbitz, cellist David Peshlakai, and flutists Kelly Sulick and Abby Simoneau.