EUREKA – Eureka College will hold a Summer Strings Festival for community orchestra string players and advanced student string players June 29 through July 1 on the campus.

The festival will include rehearsal and performance of chamber music and string orchestra repertoire. It also will include sessions on instrument care and acquisition and healthful playing.
Eureka College artist-in-residence and cellist David Commanday is the festival’s director, conductor and one of the faculty members. Commanday is artistic director and conductor of the Heartland Festival Orchestra. Other festival faculty members will be Heartland Festival Orchestra’s principal strings players Sarah Gentry, violin; José Valencia, violin; Diane Wuthrich, viola; and Barbara Hedlund, cello.
The orchestral repertoire will include Edward Elgar’s “Introduction and Allegro,” Benjamin Britten’s “Simple Symphony” and other selections. Chamber music repertoire will be selected by agreement among participants and faculty.
A chamber music performance will be at 8 p.m. June 30 and a string orchestra performance will be at 2 p.m. July 1, both in the Eureka College Chapel. Both concerts will be free and open to the public.
String musicians may participate on a resident or day-student basis. Resident participants will stay in the college’s new, state-of-the art Ivy Hall residence hall.
For more information and application materials, go to www.eureka.edu/stringfest or call (309) 467-6408.