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Maxim Lando – Grant Park Music Festival – July 23, 2025

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Maxim Lando is a 22 year-old pianist who started playing when he was three years old and went on to win his first major competition when he was 13. I’m guessing that he didn’t have a normal childhood.

Nevertheless, it gives me hope that I may yet turn the corner in my playing, when I reach ten years of practicing, though I suspect that he put it more hours and didn’t spend time writing blogs.

He has a unique style, sitting very close to his instrument (against everything I have been taught) and hunching over the piano, almost never looking up. I guess he has the music memorized (another difference).

While delighting the audience with Manuel De Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain and Franz Liz Liszt’s Rhapsodie espagnole (arranged for full orchestra), Lando spent much of the time jerking his head all about, while playing, in a manner that suggested a likely future need for chiropractic services. At the end of passages, he would then practically jump up off the bench in dramatic fashion. Definitely a show within a show.

The evening opened joyfully with Rossini’s overture to The Barber of Seville, which the conductor, Lee Mills, acknowledged first drew his attention in Looney Tunes (as with all of us).

The finale was the ever-popular Bolero by Maurice Ravel, bringing a resounding climax to the evening, even for those of us who did not sit there counting the 18 repetitions of the melodic theme (as mentioned by Mills) or the 169 rhythmic repetitions by the snare drum (repeat after me – carpal tunnel syndrome).

Iraq, But Funny – Lookingglass Theatre – Final Performance July 20, 2025

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The title of this show reminded me of the pool party scene in La La Land where Emma Stone requests a song from the band. It was I Ran (but funny).

As to the play itself, I’d love to take my red pen to the script. It provides a lot of information and has quite a few funny moments, but it tries to do too much and winds up being a little inconsistent, scattered and too long for it’s own good, losing some impact along the way and drifting into nonsense near the end.

There really wasn’t a need for an out-of-place Jennifer Coolidge impression (there never is) and the penis joke scene could easily be snipped.

That said, Atra Asdou, the playwright and lead, is a force. Her character is memorable and her interaction with the audience is first rate.

There was some interesting staging, including the boxing match depicting the battle between Iraq and Iran and the British-devouring quicksand that included an allusion to Dune (also too long) Sandworms, though I thought the lightning sand from The Princess Bride might have been a better reference.

And the show made the best use of video backdrop maps since Spamalot. High praise indeed.

Ian Murrel and Jeremy Vigil – Fourth Presbyterian Church Noonday Concert – July 18, 2025

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Ian Murrel has a strong baritone voice that he put on good display while singing an eclectic selection of pieces (accompanied by Jeremy Vigil on the piano), ranging from some French thing to a sing-a long Take Me Out to the Ballgame, with stops in between for Lerner and Loew, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Elvis Presley..

But I had my issues, or rather he did. How could he not know that his iPad, with his lyrics, would overheat after 30 minutes in the sun? Fortunately, a move to the shade precipitated a fairly quick recovery.

Hasn’t anyone ever told him (I would have but left instead) that the correct lyric in Take Me Out to the Ballgame is “Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack” not cracker jacks? If you don’t believe me, look it up in the Baseball Almanac.

What possessed him to sing “The New Suit (“Zipperfly”) by Marc Blitzstein, which includes the lyric “Racka moochy wicky wachy and a woo haggedy goo,” which is not nearly as meaningful as “A-boogity-boogity-boogity-boogity-shooby-do-wop-she-bop Chang-chang, changity-chang-shoo-bop?”

Get Lit!: Game Changers – American Writers Museum – July 8, 2025

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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was a trivia star.

I have written about trivia contests in a few different contexts over the last several years – at bars, at New Faces Sing Broadway performances, at the Chicago History Museum and, of course, at my computer as part of my decades-long quest to qualify for Jeopardy (I took the online test again recently), which, if I did, I would, following in the declared footsteps of William Tecumseh Sherman, not accept, in my case for fear that I would totally embarrass myself and possibly become the worst contestant since Cliff Clavin.

In a less pressure-filled atmosphere, I went to the American Writers Museum’s Get Lit!; Game Changers event last week, where sports was the topic. My teammate and I correctly answered 11 out of 15 questions, unfortunately only good enough for third place (perhaps tied) out of six teams, all of which were comprised of at least four people (sour grapes).

I think my responses were ill-served by the three sips of a foul-tasting non-alcoholic beer that I took prior to the contest. Next time I’ll go with the night’s specialty cocktail (this time it was the MVP, described as “a sporty-twist on a ranch water cocktail.”)

Easing the pain of defeat was the evening’s speaker, who discussed three sports-related books related to game changers, one being Kathrine Switzer’s memoir about being the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.

August’s program – Get Lit!: Drawn to Life – is set to “celebrate the colorful world of animated movies and TV” with another “night of trivia, art-making, and nostalgia-packed fun.” I don’t know what the signature drink will be that night, perhaps the Flaming Moe from the Simpson’s or Blue Milk from a galaxy far, far away.

One Night Only: An Evening with Sutton Foster and Kelli O’Hara – Ravinia – July 13, 2025

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For those of you who might be interested in seeing this power coupling, they will be at Tanglewood on Friday with the Boston Pops (and in Utah and Virginia after that). The flight to Boston probably won’t take much longer than the drive to Highland Park.

Foster has seven Tony nominations for Leading Actress in a Musical, as does O’Hara (who also has one for Featured Actress in a Musical), though Foster kiddingly reminded the audience that she has two wins to O’Hara’s one.

Backed by the CSO, the program included only two songs from their nominated performances (I would have liked more), a duet from O’Hara’s turn in Light in the Piazza (which I actually saw in a pre Broadway run at the Goodman Theatre before I, and most anyone else, knew who she was), and, of course, the required Foster, change into her tap shoes, show stopper of Anything Goes.

I was very happy that O’Hara performed her show stopper They Don’t Let You in the Opera (If You’re a Country Star), which is well worth a YouTube visit if you’ve never seen it.

The rest of the show was rather eclectic, with the ladies demonstrating camaraderie and comedic skills to go along with their famed vocals. Personally, I would have rather heard more Broadway tunes instead of their 1990’s Medley, though, as they stated, they were emulating, in this and other ways, the legendary Carol Burnett-Julie Andrews television special that featured a 1960’s Medley. To that end, there was interaction with an audio recording of the latter two until it malfunctioned (oops), but Foster and O’Hara covered and quickly moved on, as professionals do.

I fully expect to see a video of this concert (probably the longer version done in Carnegie Hall in 2023) on some streaming service in the near future.

5th Wave Collective – Washington Square Park – June 28, 2025

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Wallace Shawn, as Vizzini, in The Princess Bride, reminded us that it’s a classic blunder to “get involved in a land war in Asia.”

I would add “never perform at an outdoor venue without a microphone.”

Inconceivable, yet, that’s exactly what the 5th Wave Collective chose to do. Perhaps that would have been okay in the middle of nowhere, but in Washington Square Park, no more than 30 feet from a street that wasn’t closed off to traffic, it wasn’t a great idea.

It also might be okay for a brass band, but not so much for an ensemble featuring five string and three reed instruments and a lonely French horn.

That said, the crowd could mostly hear well enough to very much enjoy the hour-long tribute to the music of Florence Price.

The song introductions that the group’s members took turns delivering were less audible, but fortunately, for me, I already had some knowledge about the rebirth of Price’s work, thanks to information gathered at other concerts over the last several years.

Perhaps next time the group will use a microphone, as I wish.

Winging It: A Brief History of Humanity’s Relationship with Birds – The Newberry – June 20 – September 27, 2025

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I haven’t been to a movie theater in quite a while, so I was pleased to watch the exhibit’s video – The Best Known Grouse of the Western States, which referred not to my attitude toward many things, but rather to the pinnated grouse, or as many call it, the greater prairie-chicken, or, you prefer, the Tympanuchus cupido.

It’s a tragic tale, or tail, if you wish, that there were 10 million of the birds in Illinois in the 1800s, but only about 200 by 2019. That original number might be taken with a grain a salt, as modern crowd estimation science only traces back to the 1960s, when it was used to count the number of people at University of California campus protests. Of course, placing the salt on the bird’s tails (or tales) might allow them to be captured and then counted.

One could also see poems about birds, miniature oil paintings of birds, the piano sheet music for The Whippoorwills Song and a page showing the Bounty Laws on Birds (1800-1899) from various states, all while being serenaded by bird sounds from above.

The coup de grâce, pouring salt on the wounds of extinction, was the Favorite Indian Recipe book, which includes mouthwatering instructions regarding the preparation of baked woodcock, crow casserole and, moving on from avian treats, roast beaver.

Donna Herula Trio – Old Town Art Fair – June 14, 2025

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I really got my money’s worth – there were four musicians in the Donna Herula Trio.

I’d never heard of the Independent Blues Awards (given out by Making the Scene!, the self-proclaimed #1 resource for the independent artist and the fans who love them), but winning anything is probably better than not winning it, so I figured Herula’s 2022 awards for Best Acoustic Blues Album (Bang at the Door) and Best Traditional Blues Artist might be indicative of someone I’d want to hear.

I was right, though, interestingly, this was not an acoustic performance (still, no earplugs necessary).

I liked all the songs the trio (quartet?) played from the album, starting with the title song, and followed by Can’t Wait to See My Baby, which, we were told, is normally a duet sung by Herula and her husband, Tony Nardiello (but he apparently could wait, because he wasn’t there, and she instead sang both parts herself).

Herula enlisted the audience to repeatedly repeat the hook in I Got No Way Home, a lyric that, perhaps, explained her husband’s absence.

The album contains two versions of Black Ice, a song Herula wrote based on the couple’s survival of a driving mishap. She originally wrote lyrics, but her husband told her that a blues song can’t have a happy ending, so she also recorded an instrumental version, which is what she played for us, even though hubby wasn’t there to know.

The hour and a half set also featured legendary blues songs, including Walkin’ Blues, Give Me Back My Wig and You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Dead and Gone.

The next good opportunity for me to see Herula will be in August at the Navy Pier Beer Garden. I’ll be there. I don’t know if Nardiello will make it.

Grant Park Music Festival – Opening Night – June 11, 2025

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Going in I was somewhat surprised to see that Andrew Litton would not only be conducting, but also playing the piano for Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The double duty seemed like too much to me. Litton assured us, however, before the piece, that, because the pianist and the orchestra play apart from each other during the composition, it wasn’t really a problem.

I think he was wrong. First, there certainly were, unsurprisingly, places in the music where there was overlap. (Did he think we wouldn’t notice?) Second, though it was amusing(?) to watch him sporadically rise from the piano bench for two or three seconds at a time to wave his hands at musicians who probably weren’t watching him before sitting back down and immediately resume his playing, I can’t help but think that it affected his concentration.

So, how did he sound? Next time the festival rolls out Rhapsody in Blue, please bring back Michelle Cann. Her rendition was much more dynamic. I’ll even go so far as to say that I preferred Sean Hayes’s interpretation in the play Good Night, Oscar.

As for the rest of the concert, I had not previously heard either Gabriela Lena Frank’s Three Latin American Dances or Manuel De Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat, though I had heard good things about the latter, before going, from a friend in the know, who remains credible, as I enjoyed it.

Kimberly Akimbo – CIBC Theatre – Through June 22, 2025

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Apparently there was a lot of action going on in the streets near the theater, but I was oblivious, lost in 1999 Bergen County, New Jersey, watching actors wearing ice skates glide across a stage coated with a solution of one part glycerin to seven parts water, on blades dipped in the same mixture, but not slipping when back in their regular shoes.

That might have been enough, but, oh yes, this show about a teenager with an extremely rare terminal disease was, amazingly, laugh-out-loud funny, and, of course, heartwarming.

The “kids” (five actors in their twenties playing 16-year-olds, not an uncommon occurrence in the theater) are great, especially, for me, Miguel Gil, who, as Seth, hit me directly in my not so inner nerd.

I wondered as the show progressed whether anything physical would happen between Gil and 62-year-old Carolee Carmello, also playing, with grace and skill, 16, but going on 70 thanks to her illness, in a role with an age gap even greater than 40-year old Mary Martin as Peter Pan. Fear not, there is never a moment of discomfort.

I apparently saw Carmello in 2009 in the pre Broadway run of the Addams Family, but don’t remember her (I will now) or most anything else about that show, except the wonderful Kevin Chamberlain, as Uncle Fester, singing The Moon and Me.

The Strawberry Moon was reaching full as I left the theater last night, which, appropriately, given the underlying cause of the earlier unrest, reminded me that the word “lunatic” derives from Luna, the Roman goddess of the moon.