The Grant Park Music Festival reopened its figurative doors after over a year off, and though I chose not to attend the Fourth of July concert, which quixotically took place on July 2nd and 3rd, I declared my independence from Covid incarceration by wending my way to the park for the first “real” concert , which featured Joyce Yang entrancing the audience with her masterful rendition of Grieg’s popular Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, which even I attempted, fairly unsuccessfully, to play as a child, though, for years I would pound out the first three bars, and only that, whenever I had the opportunity, as a way of pretending, for anyone within earshot, that I might actually know what I was doing. (I take the preceding 123-word sentence as evidence that my brain has not completely atrophied during my forced layoff, though not necessarily evidence of any writing skills.)

The concert closed with a rousing version of Rossini’s Overture to William Tell, the conclusion of which was timed perfectly with the onset of the rain, such that the crowd’s standing ovation began with 20 seconds left in the piece, as the attendees, so unaccustomed to being in such a situation, flailed about, with no direction home, like a group of rolling stones, getting spit upon from on high.

As happy as I am that things are opening up, the timing is somewhat unfortunate, as I have just discovered Netflix’s apparently unlimited number of Turkish soap operas (dizi for the aficionados).