This evening, IPO honors Lois and Stanley Birer, two longtime stalwarts of the orchestra, by awarding them the 2025 Leo Michuda IPO Award for Lifetime Service. One of the highest honors IPO can bestow upon an individual, the qualifications for the Michuda Award include Excellence in Leadership, the Securing of Resources vital to the success of IPO, and the Application of Extraordinary Efforts to enhance the image or promote the artistic mission of IPO in the greater Chicago metropolitan area.

Lois and Stan have been involved with IPO for nearly 40 years. After moving to Chicago’s south suburbs from the east coast around 1982, Stan began donating to the orchestra even before regularly attending the concerts. As the IPO has grown and developed, their connection to the orchestra has strengthened as well.

Over the years, they've enjoyed phenomenal music and friendship through IPO, and they've each held long-standing leadership roles with the organization. Stan was a member of the IPO Board of Directors for 26 years, including three as board President, and now serves as a Life Director, together with his wife Lois. Lois was Friends of the IPO President for three years, and remembers when the Friends group, which now regularly donates $25,000 to the orchestra annually, was thrilled to raise $1,000 at a fundraiser. 

As they continue to be cornerstone members of the IPO family, Stan continues to come up with groundbreaking ideas, such as the one he brought to life in May of 2022 when he and Lois hosted the Stan and Lois UNmemorial Concert. 

Deeply committed to IPO’s education program, Lois and Stan believe all children should have the opportunity to experience live orchestral music and the power and grace it brings to all our lives.

Lois and Stan want future generations to experience that power and grace, as well. Their legacies, and the artistic legacy of the IPO, are important to both of them. Lois and Stan have both remembered the orchestra in their wills, as members of the IPO Encore Society, to help ensure the organization can continue to serve as an artistic and cultural force in our community.

IPO is proud to recognize Stan and Lois for their lifetime of service and friendship and looks forward to many years to come.

Leo Michuda was an Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra benefactor, board member, and 30-year member of the violin section. He was the proud patriarch, along with his wife Anne, of a family dedicated to the musical performing arts and hosted many benefits and receptions for the IPO family in their beautiful home, the “Villa di Musica.” After Leo’s death in 2014, the IPO Board of Directors created this award to honor his memory and those who showed similar sustained, outstanding contributions and exemplary service to the orchestra. The first honoree was Helen Silvia in May 2015.

Stilian Kirov, Conductor 
Alcee Chriss III, Organ

Opening Act Lobby Performers
Homewood-Flossmoor High School Viking Orchestra
Conductor BJ Enrav: Bjengrav@hf233.org
Program and artists subject to change