Music

Lakeview Orchestra – On the Lawn at St. Michael – July 25, 2021

Posted on by admin

I arrived, chair in hand, five minutes before the scheduled starting time, at the hottest part of the day, and saw no one I recognized, not even the people who had invited me, among the throng of 10-15 people. I waited around for 15 minutes, entertained by the erection of a gazebo canopy for the musicians. Gazpacho and canapes for everyone would have been better.

Finally, a single guitar player took his position and was, I think, introduced by a woman whose voice carried maybe five feet, at best. Still no one there I knew, so I decided to take a walk, the obvious destination being the Dairy Queen just under a mile away, for a chocolate milk shake.

I took my time and got back 40 minutes later, just in time to see that the orchestra had grown from one to five, and was preparing to play a Mozart clarinet quintet. Attendees now numbered 40, about 10 of whom had instrument cases with them, but still no one even remotely identifiable to me.

I stayed long enough to hear the church bells provide percussion for the group at the top of the hour, though, disappointingly, not with the quintessential Westminster Quarters ditty, and then decided to head back to air conditioning, now indifferent to finding anyone or listening to any music.

Grant Park Music Festival – July 23, 2021

Posted on by admin

The program said “Blow, Fly, Pop!!’s orchestration is unlike any other. “ That, my friends, is truth in advertising. It looked like a kids’ party (sans scary clown) gone terribly wrong, with the string section starting the piece by waving plastic pencil boards through the air.

And yet, though the sound of the gym ball being thumped didn’t have quite the gravitas of that of a bass drum, and the third balloon the percussionist popped was out of tune (perhaps suffering from an inflation problem, like the economy), the selection wasn’t terrible.

So I got over any disappointment that the piece was not, as I had wrongly anticipated from a too quick reading of the website, “Pop the Cherry” by Blowfly.

The evening moved from a selection reminiscent of minors to two classical pieces in minor keys, Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 (New World Symphony), which is familiar to movie fans, perhaps for its use in films like Clear and Present Danger and The Departed, but more likely for its place in Killer Tomatoes Eat France!, the fourth sequel to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

Grant Park Music Festival – July 16, 2021

Posted on by admin

Part of the crowd started leaving during a fine rendition of Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5. (I stayed all the way through the Finnish.) Their departure would have been understandable earlier in the evening during Brouwer’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, which was forgettable, hopefully.

It wasn’t raining. Three different weather services told me so. And yet, I and the other attendees were getting wet.

What I hadn’t taken into account was the definition of rain.

Rain is composed of water drops with diameters greater than 0.02 inches (.5 mm), whereas drizzle is defined as water drops with diameters less than 0.02 inches. Who knew. I didn’t have anything with me to measure the drops, in either the metric or imperial system, but they apparently didn’t rise to the necessary level to be predicted by any local or national bureaus.

So It didn’t rain. It drizzled. But I still got wet.

 

 

Grant Park Music Festival – July 14, 2021

Posted on by admin

Once again I skipped the first half of the concert, and the correctness of my decision was supported by others telling me upon my arrival that what I had missed had been “painfully awful.“ Then they left.

No matter. I then had the pleasure of listening to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1. Unfortunately I also had the displeasure of listening to Beethoven’s biggest fan, an obnoxious guy, with the lungs of an opera singer, sitting a few rows behind me.

Mr. X, as I will call him, apparently was a drop-in (and, I’m guessing, a dropout) who didn’t know ahead of time what the program was, as suggested by his war whoop, ala an over-served soccer (excuse me, football) hooligan who was far less civilized than the Geico Neanderthal-like cavemen who were offended by their characterization in the 2004 commercials, when the conductor introduced the piece and then again after the first movement.

I then quickly moved to the other side of the seating bowl, as I fully expected him to shout out “let’s get ready to rumble” before the next movement started, which might make sense at the next concert, given that the program includes three dance episodes by Leonard Bernstein, albeit not from West Side Story, but rather On the Town, (the play, not the movie, so I will be able to visualize real dancers, not Frank Sinatra).

Grant Park Music Festival – July 9, 2021

Posted on by admin

I timed it perfectly to arrive at a seat just as the chorus was departing its upstage loft after the first piece, as I saw no reason to have their voices interfere with the pleasure of listening to the symphony, just as I don’t like it when people in the theater talk during a performance.

I did get to see that the departing singers were masked, though not in the style of those on the television show, such as Nick Lachey as the winner Piglet in the recent finale, and probably not, unfortunately for the purpose of muting their voices like one of the brass players, whose current “normal’ placement on stage is in the same loft, so that they won’t spew viral particles on the rest of the orchestra.

I still got to listen to Barber and Brahms, without a hint of rain or the siren accompaniments of two days earlier, replaced this time by the off-key sound of overhead helicopters, and also without the hint of a cicada chorus, Chicago seemingly having been spared this year despite the fact that we have reached, per Climate Central, the necessary ground temperature and rainfall to cue their emergence.

On the way home I saw a sign for a psychic, with walk-ins welcome, and considered it for a moment, but, after peeking in the doorway, I dismissed it as a scam, as a real psychic would know that no one would want to climb two flights of steep stairs for a reading.

Grant Park Music Festival – July 7, 2021

Posted on by admin

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).

Rush Hour Concert – The Romantic Piano Trios – June 15, 2021

Posted on by admin

Having survived last week’s brave new world experience of an indoor concert with masks and limited capacity, I went back to St. James Cathedral, where MingHuan Xu (violin), Alexander Hersh (cello), and Winston Choi (piano) serenaded us with lovely pieces from Robert Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel.

I’m told that the restrictions may be taken off for next week’s concert. I’ll be pleased to go without a mask, but have a fondness for the current attendance rules, as it means that I don’t have to mingle with too many people, especially those who have come out of hibernation with an apparent insatiable need to shake hands, which is so 2019, the last time I (or anyone else?) had a cold.

I wonder if the cicada that may, depending on the weather, soon be emerging from their own dormant state (the app Cicada Safari states that periodical cicadas emerge in large numbers when the soil temperature reaches 64º F and often after a soaking rain) also will want to shake hands (or legs in their case). I might prefer that.

Chen String Quartet – Rush Hour Concert – June 8, 2021

Posted on by admin

This week, at the St. James Cathedral, for the first time since March 10, 2020, when a scientist walked into the bar I was at and started talking about thermodynamics, I attended an indoor event at a site that wasn’t a vaccinated friend’s residence.

Clearly, the Chen family had kept practicing during The Great Lull. Even world-class musicians might lose their edge spending 16 months just sitting around eating bonbons and catching up on old episodes of My Mother the Car.

Attendance was limited to 100, in a space that can accommodate, I am told, over 400. And masks were required, though a very few people decided that the rules didn’t apply to them, and pulled theirs down when no one, except me, was looking. Apparently these attendees were special, though they looked much like anyone you might encounter on the street, just as do the aliens among us who are posing as humans and small puppies.

I must admit that wearing a mask throughout the concert did cause me to grow somewhat sleepy as I breathed in my own fumes. Perhaps I should have brought a mask from home, rather than use one I found in the garbage receptacle on the corner.

You Know Things are Getting Bad When . . .

Posted on by admin

You have to remove all your injury ice packs from your freezer to make room for food.

Your choices for television you haven’t seen yet are down to The Masked Singer and reruns of videos from your lobby showing the mail person delivering the mail.

The guy in line in front of you at the store pulls out a measuring tape, gives you a dirty look, and makes a chalk line on the floor six feet behind him.

You don’t bother to pick the lima beans out of the vegetable medley you bought because they were out of real food.

You’re training your dog to go to the store for you.

You’re making a collage out of all the CEO messages you’ve received regarding company responses to COVID-19.

You live in a multiunit building and are considering saying hello to your neighbors.

BUT, DON’T PANIC YET – here’s some good news from a couple subscribers.

The 92nd Street Y in New York will live stream Garrick Ohlsson’s piano performance tonight at 7:00 Central time. 

The Berlin Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall is offering a free month of high quality audio and video—including different angles and closeups of the solos. (And the instructions are in English.)

Finally, thanks to all of you from whom I’ve heard about my recent post-apocalyptic posts. If my brain doesn’t give in to cabin fever, I’ll try, with your help, to keep them coming.

The Theory of Nothing

Posted on by admin

Just because the world has ground to a halt doesn’t mean that I should stop writing, or does it? Have I misinterpreted the signs? Anyway, to help us all pass the time, here are some notes about some of the things I’m not doing.

Speaking of signs, and the stealing thereof, I’m not watching baseball games. I wouldn’t anyway, but my class on the Literature of Baseball at Northwestern’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute will be held online, instead of in person, which means I don’t get to indulge in the delicious home-made brownies that a member of the class, who is a baker, brings each week.

I’m not watching March Madness or running my pool, which is a shame because I concocted some bizarre rules this year in the hope that no one else would understand them. In that vein, in the absence of games, I have declared myself the winner of the pool.

Despite having been the Wizard of Oz in Wicked on Broadway, Joel Grey apparently does not have the power to make everything right and so is not going to the 25th Anniversary Porchlight Music Theatre Icons Gala honoring him and neither is anyone else, including me, at least until it gets rescheduled.

I’m not going to the postponed Newberry Library Associates Night, where I was hoping to cop some free wine and cheese and then sneak out before the staff droned on about research that would have bored me to tears.

I’m not going to the American Writers Museum to listen to Gene Luen Yang talk about his new graphic novel Dragon Hoops, as he cancelled his in-person book tour, and instead, according to his website, is touring as a cartoon.

I’m not going to the Civic Orchestra of Chicago’s 100th Anniversary Concert, which was to feature Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, which also was performed at the orchestra’s first-ever concert on March 29, 1920. I missed that one too.