Music

Grant Park Music Festival – Millennium Park – July 19, 2023

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Two things drew me to the park for this concert, the beautiful weather (as opposed to the previous two Wednesday evenings, which featured flooding one night and a tornado warning the other, both of which shut down the concerts), and the Gorchakov, as opposed to the more commonly played Ravel, orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, which I had never heard before (not that I can tell the difference).

But neither was the main attraction (well, maybe the weather, as evidenced by the largest crowd of the year).

The first piece, the one-year-old Profiles, an homage to Harlem, was introduced by its composer, Carlos Simon, who told the audience that the sound of nearby sirens during rehearsal, given the subject matter, seemed entirely appropriate for the music, and that we should accept it as such if it happened during the performance. I couldn’t help but wonder whether the musicians had a different viewpoint.

After Profiles, the orchestra gave us Alexander Glazunov’s Concerto in A Minor, featuring solo violinist Esther Yoo. What followed that was the highlight of the night, as Yoo played a solo encore of . . . wait for it . . . Yankee Doodle Dandy that displayed her exceptional talent and artistic whimsey.

For a joyful five minutes, listen to the version I found online of her playing it at the 2022 Copenhagen Summer Festival.

Chicago Duo Piano Festival – Nichols Hall – July 16, 2023

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Eleven days ago I saw Michelle Cann rock Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on the piano at a rehearsal with the Grant Park Orchestra (no Oscar Levant impersonations involved). In addition to her virtuosic playing, she flashed a radiant smile and an animated involvement with the music. I even was mesmerized by the way her feet danced with the pedals,

Unfortunately, I missed Joyce Yang performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 a week later, as did she, when a tornado warning shut down the Millennium Park concert. If I had been there I’m sure the closing of the large glass doors to protect the musicians from the elements would have reminded me of The Time Machine, when the doors at the sphinx’s base closed, trapping Weena and other Eloi inside.

But Joyce escaped (as did Weena with the unnamed inventor’s help) and I was there to hear her work her magic on Franz Lisa’s Totentanz three days later in the park.

My stroll through the world of piano got topped off the next day by watching the Millennium Park soloists of the future play in the Music Institute Of Chicago’s student recital portion of its annual Chicago Duo Piano Festival, highlighted by the play of the already-acclaimed, brother-sister, young-teen-team of Eric and Katie Koh.

As great as they were, however, my fancy was struck by three of the young artists playing Rachmaninoff’s 2 pieces for 6 hands waltz; three others playing Kevin Olson’s Outstanding, which features one of them walking back and forth behind the other two to play different parts of the piano; and the four-person, two-piano rendition of Take Five.

According to UPI, the Guinness World Record was set in 2018 when 40 pianos were played on a stage in China in unison with 599 pianos in a nearby square, for a total 639 played at the same time. I can’t believe I missed that one.

Meghan “Big Red” Murphy – Wells Street Art Festival – June 10, 2023

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The Wells Street Art Festival should really be called the Wells Street Drinking and Eating Disgusting Fried Foods Festival, but there was art on display.

This was a different kind of Big Red performance than what I have seen in the past, and I’ve seen quite a few – a bawdy holiday show with her and The Boys at a couple different theaters, a tour de force performance as The Lady of the Lake in Spamalot, a solo cabaret show, a third of a We Three trio of ladies at Steppenwolf of all places, a musical guest at the Green Mill’s Paper Machete, a private birthday party performance in the courtyard of my building during the pandemic and, originally, a turn as the star of a production of Woman of the Year.

This time there were no risqué songs, no double entendres, no scatting, and no live music, as if she were David Byrne trying to break the Broadway rules requiring pit musicians. (He finally agreed a couple days ago to use 12, instead of the normal minimum of 19 the union wanted).

There was only great singing and engaging banter in an outdoor street fair setting that is less than perfect for performers, though Red managed to get members of the milling crowd to dance and sing along, all while drinking along (Red stuck to water, I think).

My only disappointment with Murphy was when she sang a disco version of “If You Could Read My Mind” and said how surprised she was to learn that it was originally a Gordon Lightfoot song. I was surprised that there was a disco version.

Totally unrelated, I feel required to mention that I saw former Bears and Illinois head coach Lovie Smith walking around at the festival, one of the few people there who was old enough to know Lightfoot had written the song.

Chicago Blues Festival – Millennium Park – June 9, 2023

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You don’t even have to enter the park to hear the music. It was so loud it made my throat hurt and my skin flaked. But the couple acts I heard induced a lot of head-bobbing in the audience and sounded great – Lightnin’ Malcolm, representing his birthplace on the Visit Mississippi Juke Joint Stage, and Stephen Hull, from that hotbed of blues, Racine.

Unsurprisingly, I have no interest in visiting Mississippi, but who doesn’t love a juke joint, which, in turns out, is a term derived from the Gullah word juke, which means bawdy or disorderly. What that has to do with a basketball player juking a defender, I’m not sure.

Besides the music and the everywhere-you-turned, blues-related merchandise, including items from the foundations of Muddy Waters, Eddie Taylor, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon, in case you need something from one of them to fill out your collection, the big draw at the festival is the smokehouse meat, which, I’ve found, has its own section concerning emission factors on the EPA website, which seemed like a good reason for taking a wide berth from where the cooking was taking place.

The Stradivari Society Recital – A Private Club – April 26, 2023

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I slipped past the woman checking names unnoticed, which was a good thing, as there’s no telling what a background check might have revealed, and I didn’t want to miss the concert at the “private club”.

A word of explanation. According to its Social Media Policy, as stated on its website, “The Club’s name and location may not be used in post-event coverage in any format . . . whether in print, online, or in social media posts. In post-event coverage, the Club may be referred to only as “a private club.” Nothing about walking down the street shouting out its name.

While I doubt the club would have any recourse against me, a nonmember, for violating this policy, it amuses me to comply and keep the name and location a secret from my readers, who probably couldn’t care less, and, to put a spin on Groucho, probably wouldn’t want to join this club that probably wouldn’t want them as members.

That said, look for a building that is well over 100 years old, and apparently never got the memo about ventilation being important. There was none. The only oxygen in the room was provided by the spectacular 22-year-old violinist, Julian Rhee, on an instrument, the Antonio Stradivari, Cremona, 1699 “Lady Tennant,” much older even than the building, and by pianist Chelsea Wang, whose considerable talent was also on display.

The program included works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Camille Saint-Saéns, Igor Frolov (the composer, not the road cyclist), and Howie Frazin, in the premiere of his Elegy and Rondo, which nicely held its own in this illustrious company.

UIC Wind Ensemble – Logan Center for the Arts – April 16, 2023

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The composer, Alan Theisen, did such a great job of describing what we were about to hear in the six movements of the world premiere of AMP, his piece for piano and wind ensemble, that we weren’t overly (just a little bit) distracted by what appeared to be LED running lights on his shoes.

But the shoes weren’t the main glittering attraction. Nor were the interspersed red and blue strings on the harp, which signify, respectively, C and F notes (had to look that one up). Rather it was the guest artist, piano soloist, Marianne Parker.

I’ve written glowingly about Parker’s concerts before, but this was different, another level. This commissioned piece featured not only great artistry on her instrument, her hands flying across the keys in a relentless, graceful, rhythmic manner, like a championship prizefighter pounding a speed bag into submission, but also talents not normally associated with the piano.

In one movement, per the arrangement articulated by Theisen up front, Parker led the audience in providing a finger-snapping pulse for the band, playing the piano with one hand while snapping with the other, and then switching, back and forth, forth and back, while also waving encouragement to the participating attendees, showwomanship at its height.

Leading into another movement, which was reminiscent, energy-wise, of the USC marching band performing Tusk, Parker leaned back like a drum major, and let rip a loud, pure tone on the whistle she had surreptitiously placed in her mouth during a moment when she had a hand briefly available to do so. I could only envision the Trojans running onto the field, but I could actually see the UIC band members bouncing in their seats, and, in response to Parker’s solos, wiggling their fingers and shuffling their feet as a way of saying “great job”.

Porchlight Sings Broadway Pop – House of Blues – March 27, 2023

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In the 26-plus years of the House of Blues, I’d never before been to it for a performance, unless you count my embarrassing, enraptured, emotional reaction to the restaurant’s jalapeño cornbread at many a lunch.

My absence ended with a bang, and some fiery crab cake appetizers, as I watched Porchlight Music Theatre’s Chicago Sings Broadway Pop erupt with performances from 22 explosive singers and dancers and a rocking seven-piece band.

It was so much fun that I almost forgot about my ongoing internal struggle over whether I prefer the spelling theater over theatre.

I had the good fortune to view the show from one of the boxes, which only augmented the experience, and made me wonder why Statler and Waldorf were always so cantankerous while watching the Muppets from their box.

Then I thought about the scene in the box in Pretty Woman and was grateful that this show was about Broadway pop, not Broadway opera, which made me think that opera would be so much better with tap dancing (think Hot Mikado), though sadly there also was none on this night, its only shortcoming.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra – March 17, 2023

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Winston Churchill or Mark Twain or Jonathan Swift or somebody we never heard of, first said that “everything old is new again,” though Peter Allen said it best. In any event, I found Banner, a 2014 tribute to the Star Spangled Banner, to be more fun to listen to than the original. I have to admit, however, that, in the middle of the eight-minute piece, there was a lot of seemingly random stuff going on that reminded me of the bag of leftover Lego bricks I keep in a drawer that fit in somewhere, but not necessarily with each other.

Banner was followed by Cantus arcticus, Op. 61, or, more descriptively, Concerto for Birds and Orchestra. Again, surprisingly, I liked it, though the extended silences did make me want to take that opportunity to tell the woman in front of me to stop looking at her phone.

I wondered whether the composer first wrote the music or recorded the birds. And did the birds get a chance to rehearse? Moreover, can this piece be performed outside, just using random bird sounds in the park, birds scatting, for the musicians to react to, a jazz version if you will.

Last, and in my mind, least, came Carmina Burana. To be fair, I loved the music, just, as always, not the chorus or operatic soli. For my money, the earlier bird chorus was more pleasing.

Trio Gaia – Dame Myra Hess Concert – February 8, 2023

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This is the first Dame Myra Hess Concert I‘ve attended since Classical Music Chicago (CMC) switched venues three years ago, from the Chicago Cultural Center to the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, which I previously had walked past more times than there are stars in the sky, but had always been hesitant to enter, for fear that I would be struck down by lightning.

The sky’s were clear today so I took a chance. I was a little late, so I had to take the elevator, instead of the stairs, up to the back of the auditorium, lest the presumptuously-named, but nevertheless talented, Trio Gaia (the mother of all life if you’ve forgotten your Edith Hamilton) become the Quartet Cacophony by my inadvertent addition.

The concerts at the Cultural Center were always packed. This one was not. According to the Church’s website, the auditorium seats 800 and “semi-circle seating enables audience to see and hear one another.”  Fortunately no one was testing the auditory part of that statement, but I was pleased to be able to see everyone, as it allowed me to count the nicely spread-out crowd at 165 while enjoying the Beethoven.

Friday Noon Concert – Fourth Presbyterian Church – January 6, 2023

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When you can’t tell the difference between the musician warming up and the performance itself, you know you’re in trouble. Imagine watching NBA players taking three steps, without dribbling, before dunking. Surely you wouldn’t confuse that practice routine with game action, when they take four steps, without dribbling, before dunking.

Anyway, I didn’t stay for the whole concert, but still appreciated the fact that I can cross two more composers off my imaginary list. I’m sure the cellist played Amy Heo’s When It Falls in the manner in which it was intended, but to me it sounded like a really bad version of the signals we might send to dissuade an unfriendly group of aliens attempting to land at Devils Tower National Monument.

As for Amy Wurtz’s Songs and Dances, I’m thinking about suing, based on false advertising, for the emotional distress caused me by hearing music that could not possibly be the foundation for any terpsichorean movement I’ve ever seen. The second part, entitled Spitfire, was anything but. Perhaps I was oblivious to an ironical message, but ran for the door anyway, which was perhaps unfortunate, as my later research revealed that the two closing selections I missed, by other composers, I might have enjoyed. They shouldn’t have buried the lede, just the opening music.