Donna Herula – Navy Pier – August 30, 2025

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After seeing Donna Herula at the Old Town Art Fair, and good to my word (see my June 14 blog), I went to see her at the Navy Pier Beer Garden, or, in my case, the bottled water garden.

As before, she played some classic blues numbers and a bunch of songs from her award-winning Bang at the Door CD, adding some recently-recorded ones that are part of a forthcoming release, including Backseat Driver, not to be confused with the three other songs of the same name I found online.

The biggest difference from June was that her husband Tony was in attendance, resulting in Herula calling him up to the stage to sing Can’t Wait to See My Baby with her. Thankfully he then went back to his seat. The duet was better (and amusing) last time when he was absent and she sang both parts.

There was a short interruption at one point for Herula to adjust her guitar (one of four she had on stage), whereupon she apologized by saying “we tune because we care.” I’m guessing she’s used that line before. I’ll be waiting for it next time I see her play.

Last Week Today, Musically – August 24, 2025

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I went to my first, and last, since the season is now over, Rush Hour Concert of the year at St, James Cathedral. I went for the Florence Price Concert Overture No. 2 (Iso trendy) and stayed for the Dvořák Wind Serenade, Op. 44, not just because it was so good, but also because it allowed me to exercise my skill at putting the appropriate accents over the letters in the composer’s name. I would tell you the name of the group, but it didn’t have one, apparently being an assemblage of a dozen top-flight musicians who found themselves together in a rehearsal hall at some point and decided to put on a show.

The week took a downturn with the Noonday Concert at Fourth Presbyterian Church, where I suffered through about 20 minutes of Carla Gordon’s attempts at humor and less-than-fulfilling vocal presentations of what she inaccurately described as early 20th-Century Broadway show tunes. One attendee used the time to do deep knee bends. On the other hand, to paraphrase Julius Caesar, and perhaps quote Sid, Veni, Vidi, Verti (I came, I saw, I gave up).

Order was restored on Saturday, starting with the two guys who entertain every week on the sidewalk by the Green City Market Lincoln Park, playing a combination of the blues and Motown on guitar, keyboard and kick drum. Next time I need a small band for an event (which will be the first time) they’re my choice, though I have no idea what their names are or if they are in witness protection.

Finally, I topped off the week’s musical adventure at the Thirsty Ears Festival, which I wrote about three years ago and returned to once again to see pianist Marianne Parker, whom I’ve written about many times before, this time paired with violist Michael Hall, who, among many other things, is the co-founder of the first professional orchestra in Indonesia.

Before that excellent duo, I saw a fun performance by the Chicago Sinfonietta and a weird one, by my standards, by pianist Alex Reyes, who not only played some with his elbow, though not in an entertaining Jerry Lee Lewis way, but also, at times, with the aid of what appeared to be an old rag or dish cloth, perhaps due to either a fear of germs or the sudden urge to clean. Fortunately Parker and Hall followed, so as to calm my otherwise urgent need to depart, as if Gordon had followed me to the event.

If I Only Had a Brain – Grant Park Music Festival – August 13, 2025

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As explained in the program, composer Chelsea Komschlies’s Mycelialore combines her interests in neuroscience and fungi. I would have preferred something that combined interests in timbre and rhythm.

Komschlies starts from saying that mushrooms have a root-like structure that can function like a human brain, and then wonders whether, if they “can remember and tell their own stories, what would they say and how would they sound?” Her musical answer led me to conclude, I don’t care. I wish conductor Giancarlo Guerrero had not waited for nearby sirens to die down before giving the down beat.

Fortunately, after 10 minutes of this fungal brain scan, pianist Clayton Stephenson and the orchestra cleansed the auditory cortex and nucleus accumbens with a terrific rendition of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.1 that left Guerrero bouncing with joy at its conclusion.

Stephenson earned his standing ovation, but didn’t stop there, giving the audience a delightful encore with his performance of Art Tatum’s jazzy Tea for Two.

Last, but not least, we were treated to Saint-Saen’s Symphony No. 3, wherein, I am happy to report, an organ (not the brain) is used well as an accent, and not as a droning focal point, and certainly not as a representation of the communication skills of something related to athlete’s foot or fungal meningitis.

Forever Young – August 13, 2025

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I still remember the first time someone called me sir. It was a high school student. I was only 19 at the time, but must have exuded an aura of maturity beyond my years.

Today I experienced the other end of the spectrum when an apparently down-and-out guy at a street corner called me old-timer. Ouch!

I’ve heard boss, chief, captain and various other sobriquets in these situations, none of which led me to reach into my pocket for cash I don’t carry, but what could he possibly have been thinking by using the OT moniker that is normally reserved for long-known contemporaries?

Nonetheless, it got me thinking. Should I call Wayne Newton for a referral; go to the dermatologist for a full range of treatments, including dermal fillers, chemical peels, laser resurfacing, microneedling and dermabrasion; and start shopping for clothes at Forever 21 (or perhaps Forever 50, if there is one, as a less startling change)?

Double knee replacement might increase my speed, though I should point out that I already outpace anyone who is simultaneously walking two dogs, pushing a baby cart and talking on the phone, which represents a surprisingly large number of people in my neighborhood.

In lieu of surgery I might opt for a t-shirt that says “My parachute didn’t open but I survived the fall,” which would not only be an excuse for any lack of speed, but also a great conversation starter.

One thing I know for sure, I’m not walking past that corner any more.

That’s What Friends Are For: Gladys, Dionne, and Patti – Black Ensemble Theater (BET) – August 10, 2025

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Another final performance. My way of avoiding any readers saying that they relied upon my “review.”

I hadn’t been to the BET in almost 6 years, but some things never change. Though she has turned a lot of the creative work over to Daryl Brooks, who wrote and directed this production, Jackie Taylor is still the driving force behind the theater. And it was her birthday! Following the performance, the audience joined the cast in a joyful version of Happy Birthday I had never heard before. Unfortunately, no cake was served in the lobby, as had been the last time I was there, for The Other Cinderella.

There was a lot of emotion during the finale – That’s What Friends Are For – as the mature and young versions of the three leading ladies gathered together one last time. All six are good actresses, but they weren’t acting, the tears were real.

The crowd was engaged and enthusiastic throughout, including one woman in the front row doing lot of chair dancing. But the highest energy of the day was provided by Tamara Batiest, as the mature Patti Labelle, pushing both the vocal and physical edges of the envelope in her take on Labelle. Just when you thought she had taken it as far as she could, she would find another layer and milk it for all it was worth.

I won’t be waiting so long to return to the BET, going back in the fall for Blue Heaven, also written and directed by Brooks, which was on display in 2022, when a lot of people, myself included, were not yet back to normal theater-going. I’ll be going out on a limb, attending before the final performance, so I’ll have to stall writing about it for a day or two afterward.

The Emperor’s New Clothes – Millennium Park – August 6, 2025

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This is not a piece about a fashion show, although I did go to one once at an El Crab Catcher restaurant in Kaanapali on Maui in the 1980’s, before blogs were invented.

The Price Quality Heuristic (PQH) suggests that the more expensive something is, the higher quality people will attach to it. I believe I saw this principle in action at the Joshua Bell concert at the Grant Park Music Festival.

The event was not on the original Festival schedule, which, along with higher prices for the paid seating, apparently thrust it into PQH territory.

The seats and lawn were filled by a crowd enormous enough to suggest the possibility of an underlying ploy to set up an immigration raid, but park security was unmasked, so I think not, especially since some potential attendees were turned away.

When Bell completed his playing with the, as always excellent, orchestra (augmented not by an encore, but rather by an endless string of curtain calls that strained credibility), he was given a rousing standing ovation, which I confess may have been people just wanting to stretch their legs, or in some way related to a new Presidential fitness test.

As for my thoughts about Bell’s performance, it was fine, worthing of a sitting ovation. It was not, in my opinion (and some others I spoke with) as good as that of Augustin Hadelich, who earlier in the season had thrilled us with his artistry in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (and played a fun encore).

Bell has been praised and criticized for his body movements while playing. He did remind me a little of the way Elaine Marie Benes dances, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Lunch Theater – State Street – August 5, 2025

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I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my semi-outdoor, express lunch came with entertainment, at no extra charge, in the form of watching a guy try to park his Tesla Cybertruck in front of the restaurant.

It was performance art at its best, a scary presentation with comedic overtones, worthy of the Scream franchise (but without the slashing), and causing me to wait with great anticipation, but no payoff, for Neve Campbell or Courtney Cox to appear.

I was able to eat my entire meal in the time it took him to squeeze into the spot, and was tempted to, but did not, linger in the hope of observing him try to extricate the 18.6 foot monster (approximately six feet longer than a Mini Cooper) at the end of his family’s repast.

He obviously had the advantage of a park assist system, but also had the good sense (not to buy the thing in the first place) to aid and abet it with his own calculations. To that end, halfway through the process, which at that point seemed to be in considerable danger of failing, the truck having already on several occasions come within an inch or two of the car behind, to the thrill of the dining audience, the driver stepped out into the street and accessed his progress, or lack thereof.

I’ve already spoiled the ending – he eventually succeeded, though not until he accidentally started his four-foot long windshield wiper on a day without a cloud in the sky – but I swear that his young daughter, who emerged from the back seat, had grown three inches during the show.

Author Talk: “The Invisible Spy” by Thomas Maier – American Writers Museum – July 29, 2025

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Having enjoyed listening to Thomas Maier at the 2024 Printers Row Lit Fest, I looked forward to hearing about his new book. He did eventually get around to discussing it, but first I had to sit through 20 minutes of the same things I heard about last year.

The Invisible Spy is the moniker he gave to Ernest Cuneo, who played 2 years in the NFL before becoming a lawyer, a congressman and a liaison officer between the OSS, British Security Coordination, FBI, the U.S. State Department and President Franklin Roosevelt.

One of his close connections was with Ian Fleming, who credited Cuneo with the basic plot for Thunderball, which he dedicated to Cuneo as his muse.

Maier discussed the work of Fleming and other Englishmen in the U.S. in 1940 and Cuneo’s interactions with them and Walter Winchell and Drew Person, both of whom he fed stories to.

What wasn’t clear to me was why, other than for marketing reasons, Maier refers to Cuneo as a spy. As far as I could tell, none of the presumably confidential information he leaked was inherently damaging to the U.S. Nonetheless, Maier made it clear that Cuneo led a very interesting life before, during and after the war.

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.