Music

Coming Attractions (or not) – September, 2023

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I was berated today for not telling people about events before they happen. So, for all of you out there who haven’t yet learned how to use your computer, and since I have a little time to kill, here are some ideas for things to do in September.

First, and foremost, and before you tire of my sarcasm, you must go to the Porchlight Music Theatre’s Icons Gala on the 8th at the Athenaeum Center. It will, as always, be a very entertaining evening and, if you buy one of the top-tier tickets, you get to mingle with me at the pre-show cocktail reception. Also, the guest of honor, Ben Vereen, will be in attendance.

As I alluded to in an earlier post, the Chicago Jazz Festival comes to town the first few days of the month. You’re on your own as to which acts might interest you. I stopped going years ago, as I tired of the modern, atonal nonsense they inappropriately call music, but there are a few acts on the calendar this year that I either have seen before and liked or am confident enough about to risk a trek down to Millennium Park or the Cultural Center for a look-see.

The Fourth Presbyterian Church takes its Noonday Concerts indoors starting this Friday, which seems premature to me, but allows them to put to use their big honking organ, though, fortunately for my tastes, not until the end of the month, so, again, why not keep things outdoors until then.

The Harris Theater for Music and Dance is celebrating its 20th Anniversary (seems like 40 years taking into account having to traverse all those stairs) on the 9th in Millennium Park. The unprecise schedule makes it hard to know when I might want to drop in, though the likelihood of families attending the afternoon sessions is fair warning to avoid those.

The Printers Row Lit Fest is that same weekend (both days). It always presents a plethora of interesting exhibitors and programs, if you can find them in the event’s labyrinth (watch out for the Minotaur).

And, not finally, but I’m tired, the American Writers Museum is hosting Get Lit: Grown-Up Book Fair on the 12th, which will feature refreshments, carnival games, and an Adult Spelling Bee, which, I assume, means either dirty words and/or easier ones than the obnoxiously well-prepared kids at the real one have to tackle.

Juan Pastor Trio – Fourth Presbyterian Church Noonday Concert – August 25, 2023

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The Juan Pastor Trio treated attendees to a wonderful last outdoor Noonday Concert of the year. This group was new to me, but I’m already hoping to see Pastor’s larger band, Chinchano, which adds two saxophones to the trio’s bass, piano and drums, at the upcoming Chicago Jazz Festival.

Chinchano is promoted as “Pastor’s modern instrumental jazz group that fuses the traditional North American jazz harmonic palette with exciting rhythmic concepts drawn from Central and South America.” Sounds good to me.

Pastor is Peruvian by birth, I assume from the Chincha Province, based upon his group’s name. Chincha means ocelot in Quechua (an indigenous language spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Peruvian Andes), which confuses me because chinchillas, historically, lived in Peru (and Bolivia and Chile), but are rodents, not felines, which makes me think about a different kind of fusion, that of two different orders of mammalia, rodentia and carnivora, which might produce a very atonal product.

Eschewing Dancing Shoes – MCA & St. James Cathedral – August 22, 2023

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I won’t dance, don’t ask me (it’s a knee thing), but I’ll watch, or listen. So I had to decide between the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Tuesday on the Terrace program featuring the Puerto Rican Bomba dance music of Bomberxs D’Cora of La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón, and Bongani Ndodana-Breen – Two Nguni Dances, the first piece being played by Trio Diorama at the St. James Cathedral Rush Hour Concert.

I decided to start with the outdoor event (knowing that I likely would be staying indoors most of the next two days due to the expected thousand degree temperatures).

I found joyful music and a fun atmosphere at the MCA once I talked my way in through the “wrong” door, but not before pointing out to staff all the flaws in their entry system, which, I’m afraid, left a sour taste in my mouth (and possibly my name on Santa’s naughty list), so, after 15 minutes, I headed for the church, not for absolution, but rather for Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, timing my arrival perfectly to catch the excellent performance in the venue’s last concert of the summer (groan).

Grant Park Music Festival – Millennium Park – August 16, 2023

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Despite further evidence of a new normal, extreme climate this summer that caused unprecedented concert cancellations and occasionally unfortunate, inhospitable conditions at the outdoor venue, I managed to make it to a fair number of events, all good, but none as good as this one, in part because of the first Grant Park Orchestra performance of a work by a composer previously unknown to me.

I went in assuming I was biding my time waiting for Sir Stephen Hough to entertain the audience with Mendelssohn’s concerto No. 1 in G Minor, as he did with great skill, when I was treated to six wonderful movements from Foreign Lands by the little-known Moritz Moszkowski, and to a picture of his magnificent mustache in the program.

By the time the evening rolled around to the last composition, after an encore by Hough, I thought my musical appetite might already be satiated, but I was able to find room for a delicious dessert of Les Preludes by Liszt.

Fourth Presbyterian Church Noonday Concert – August 18, 2023

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A 1986 Los Angeles Times review of a Marni Nixon album of George Gershwin songs called it “polished and professional, yet also sparse and dry.” It went on to say that “Nixon’s voice is not rich in its lower registers . . . . and that nearly all the songs . . . ask for more stretching and surging of tempo than the performers [including the pianist] allow.”

We’re talking Marni Nixon, ghost singer for the stars (Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood, Audrey Hepburn). So, you’ll excuse me if I say that soprano Kathleen Monson (and her accompanist Riko Higuma) did not provide fascinating rhythm for me in much the same way.

Monson’s voice is beautiful, but not for me. I left this summertime concert with plenty of nothing.

Higuma was given some solo time, including a shortened version of Rhapsody in Blue. This is the third performance of that classic I’ve witnessed this year. I previously raved about Sean Hayes and Michelle Cann. While I found Higuma’s work more entertaining that Monson’s, it didn’t rise to the level of the other two pianists, though, to be fair, they were playing grand pianos and she was playing an upright that may or may not have been made from Legos.

Cirque Returns – Millennium Park – August 9, 2023

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Cirque (specifically Troupe Vertigo) returned (this year performing to classical music, not Hollywood film scores), and so did I, although this time I sat in the cheap seats (read free) as opposed to the choral balcony behind the stage where I sat last year.

Also, this time I went early to check out the Family Fun in the Chase Promenade North Tent prior to the show, where I hoped to learn, from CircEsteem, how to juggle, spin plates and do hand stands with the other children in attendance. I’m proud to say that, quick study that I am, I can now juggle one ball, with the prospect of two looming in the near future.

I don’t know if it was my new vantage point or familiarity breeding indifference, but I wasn’t as enthralled by the theatrics as I was last year, not to say that there wasn’t great skill on display. But I concentrated more on the beautiful music and also found myself mesmerized by the coordinated movements of the crew working the ropes for the aerialists. To each his own.

Broadway in Your Backyard – Washington Square Park – August 8, 2023

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This is what is it should be like every night of the summer (or year for that matter) – perfect weather, breathable air, terrific performers and a large, lively crowd that included friends strewn throughout the park. And let’s not forget the Venezuelan-inspired Latin American street food la Cocinita food truck, from which I tasted the arepas, plantains and churros.

It’s the second time and place this summer I’ve seen a production of the Porchlight Music Theatre’s neighborhood concert series, which over the years has never failed to please, and on this occasion was at its best.

It’s no secret that these are hard times for theaters (see the recent NY Times article), but that hasn’t stopped Porchlight from continuing to find ways to provide first-class entertainment.

Tonight’s presentation included Desiree Gonzalez, whom I recently saw in Pippin; Ciarra Stroud, whom I singled out for her performance nine months ago in The Apple Tree; Bryce Ancil, whom I’ve seen in another of Porchlight’s wonderful works, namely its New Faces Sing Broadway series; and Lorenzo Rush Jr., who is one of my favorite performers, and whom I’ve written about a number of times, most recently in Damn Yankees.

Last, but not least, a special shout out to Porchlight Artistic Director Michael Weber, whose spirited rendition of (Ya Got) Trouble from The Music Man was magnetic.

Fourth Presbyterian Church Noonday Concert – Peppermint Patties – August 4, 2023

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I’m guessing that it was just a wild coincidence that the Peppermint Patties, a self-described, genre-fluid trio specializing in tight harmonies appeared at the lunchtime concert one week after Libby York (whom I did not go to see), If she and this group combined and promoted themselves as the York Peppermint Patties, I imagine a lawsuit would ensue.

The confection was introduced in 1940, amid the height of the Andrews Sisters popularity, an act whose hits the Patties recreate and then some with their own beautiful, classically-trained voices.

But, as advertised, the ladies also sing other styles, including musical theater, though Nikki Krzebiot, joining Anna Caldwell and Daina Fischer, and filling in for a departed member for the first time in public, stopped during her rendition of Cockeyed Optimist, because she perhaps overoptimistically thought she had memorized the lyrics, cleverly complimented those in the front row mouthing the words, and then restarted, proceeding flawlessly.

Despite their moniker, the group did not sing the Peppermint Patty theme song, made famous by the Charles Schulz character, so I didn’t get to hear “My name is Peppermint Patty, I live in Cincinnati, With a freckle on my nose, And eighteen toes.”

Nevertheless, a very enjoyable show.

Grant Park Music Festival – Millennium Park and Lake Shore Park (String Fellows) – August 2 & 3, 2023

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The music was good, yada, yada, yada, so let’s get to the other things going through my head.

Millennium Park doesn’t allow dogs, except for service animals (which don’t include emotional support animals), so barking during the concerts there Is one of the few interruptive sounds you don’t hear. Keep in mind that I’ve heard all manner of disruptive noise during the music, but haven’t yet, though it’s probably only a matter of time, heard any of the people in the audience bark (as they have been doing in the Dawg Pound bleachers at Cleveland Browns games since 1985).

Even if they were permitted to come, the dogs might not be interested. Studies show that classical music reduces stress in dogs, but that, after a time, they become bored (as do many humans), and that in the long term they respond better to reggae and soft rock. It’s not clear what the time limit is on a dog’s attention span, but all but one of the numerous dogs at the one-hour Lake Shore Park concert held it together throughout and that one’s owner was kind enough to take it for a stroll as soon as the problem arose.

Now if we could only get concert ushers to take unruly human attendees for a walk.

Beatles Sing-Along at Lake Shore – Lake Shore Park – July 30, 2023

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The Restored to Sanity Singers’ Facebook page says they sing twice a year. Based on what I heard, I assume that includes rehearsals.

The page also says that they welcome non-singers to their Beatles Sing-Along. That apparently includes them.

They suggest that audience members bring various instruments, including guitars, I guess that’s because the “band” itself brought only two violins (and violinists), a couple keyboards that seemed to be there mostly as conduits for recorded backing tracks (why even pretend otherwise?) and, as the percussion section, an amp that someone sat on and banged in lieu of drums.

The singing reminded me of a broken clock that is correct twice a day.

To be fair, the attendees seemed to be having a good time. It was a beautiful evening, so I probably also would have been okay had I brought a bottle of wine and a very large bar of chocolate.

When the actor playing Neil Diamond in A Beautiful Noise on Broadway encourages the audience to sing along with Sweet Caroline, it’s a happening. At this event the extra voices were a necessity and I wish there had been more participation.

I stayed for about seven songs, leaving before they got to The End.