Music

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.

My AARP Culture Tour – December 10-18, 2022

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It had been four years since I’d seen the Joffrey Ballet’s much-heralded production of The Nutcracker, so I decided to go for a double dose of Tchaikovsky, through the good graces of the retiree’s best friend, AARP, though online, not in person.

First I watched The Royal Ballet’s very traditional version. Everyone was extremely talented, ho-hum. Then I watched The Hip Hop Nutcracker. OMG. So much more fun. And while I acknowledge the fact that the ballet dancers showed off an impressive variety of leaps and jumps (or whatever they’re called in French), the “contemporary dance spectacle” was, well, spectacular (though I could have lived without the mercifully short DJ scratching at the beginning and end of the program).

I remember being in New York years ago, and coming upon a group of break dancers on one of the corners leading into Central Park. I was mesmerized by their athleticism. And they were “just” street performers, ad libbing for spare change (now everyone on the street takes Venmo). The members of the Hip Hop Nutcracker troupe showed off not just their gymnastic abilities, but also their dance moves, and acting, including comedic, chops.

Speaking of which, I also need to mention the AARP online presentation a week earlier of Jane Austen’s Emma: The Musical. I’ve never read the book (or any of Austen’s others), but I have seen the movie Clueless (sort of like Forbidden Planet in lieu of The Tempest). Anyway, the play was quite entertaining, featuring a charming score and a couple of dynamite leading ladies.

If any of this sounds interesting, register to watch Swan Lake at the Bolshoi on February 5.

Access Contemporary Music – Thirsty Ears Festival – August 13, 2022

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Promoted as Chicago’s only classical music street festival, this annual two-day event, now in its seventh year, is not quite on the scale of Lollapalooza, but has two important things in common with that and every other outdoor music happening – you can buy a beer and a tee shirt.

I came for Crossing Borders Music, represented on this occasion by the talented duo of violinist Jennifer Leckie and pianist Marianne Parker. I wasn’t disappointed, as their engaging selections crossed numerous borders, including music by composers from Cuba, Uruguay, Armenia, Colombia, and Arkansas.

I also was pleased with the sound system, the ease of parking, and the availability of seating, though I chose to stand, which if I understand the research correctly, caused me to burn up an extra 75 calories.

It also enabled me to hang out in front of the Mathnasium, Math Learning Center, and try to respond to the half dozen, grades K-12 questions on their windows, while simultaneously listening to music and breathing. Since the answers were not shown, I’m going to assume I got them all right, except, okay, maybe one of them.

Grant Park Music Festival – Millennium Park – August 5, 2022

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The guest soloist, Andreas Haefliger, deftly played Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. In case you were wondering, as I was, there are pieces for the right hand only, and, this one was really on my mind during the concert, a series of books with music that can be played with either hand alone.

I also wondered what Haefliger would be doing with his right hand during the performance. If he didn’t know the piece by heart he could have used it to turn the pages. If he had a page turner, would that person have to use only their left hand?

But he just let the right hand sit idle. Seemed like a waste. He could have used it to text. Isn’t that what everyone does when they have a free hand, especially while driving?

I wonder if next year the festival will include a clarinet concerto for the lower lip.

Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique closed the evening. Everything I could hear was good but there were some parts that were so soft that I only knew the orchestra was playing by watching the conductor wave his baton. He could have been faking it, but not during the fourth movement’s hallucinatory March to the Scaffold, which told a story supported by the percussion section that was both symbolic and cymballic.

Chicago Storytelling in Bughouse Square – Washington Square Park – July 30, 2022

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“Things aren’t what they used to be and probably never were.” – Will Rogers

The ACLU was handing out flyers, but there were no soap boxes in the park. No anarchists in sight. No spectators shouting down speakers.

There were people hanging around, perhaps waiting for an argument to break out, but, times being what they are, the Newberry staff had to be happy to have a docile event, where the biggest controversy was the position taken by Northwestern professor Bill Savage that it was okay to put ketchup on hot dogs. Even I booed at that.

Savage had some interesting, less hot-button things to say about Edward Brennan and his years-long effort to successfully rename many streets and renumber addresses throughout the city, accomplishing things that many mistakenly credit as being part of Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago.

The only other speaker I heard any of was Katie Prout, a freelance-writer, who, amazingly, had a lot to say about pigeons, a fairly safe topic.

I then headed over to the Documents Bureau table where Society of Smallness clerks listened to a random complaint I came up with for the moment and issued me a certificate granting me the authority to do something about it. I was going to snap a photo to attach to this piece, but when I got home I discovered that they, ironically, had given me somebody else’s document. Next year’s complaint.

Back to the main stage for Sheryl Youngblood and her blues band, who did a sweet half hour before more talking heads appeared and I disappeared.


Jonathan Zeng – Music by the Fountain – Fourth Presbyterian Church – July 22, 2022

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The concert was promoted as Jonathan Zeng, voice and piano. Zeng sang, but someone else, who was introduced, but not promoted, and didn’t speak, but did wave to the audience, played the piano.

Zeng’s voice was fine, but I found him boring. I would rather just have listened to the piano and heard in my head the voices of the performers who made famous the mostly Broadway show tunes he led us through. I was not surprised to learn, afterwards, that his resume includes a lot of work with opera companies, and not one musical theater credit I could find. Note to self, next time look at the resume before going.

Zeng’s patter, so important in cabaret type acts, was lackluster, and less than spontaneous, as evidenced by him being guilty of misreading his notes to say that a song had been indicted into some hall of fame, before correcting himself to say inducted.

He also admitted to not knowing, prior to including a song from it in his act, that Kiss Me Kate was based on Taming of the Shrew, or why Judy Garland had such a large fan following, until a friend of his took him to see A Star is Born (there wasn’t one today).

Piece of advice, Don’t admit these kinds of things when trying to work a room (or courtyard), unless you know how to make them funny. He didn’t.

Lights on Broadway – Millennium Park – July 7, 2022

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Rehearsal. Almost any seat I want. Close enough so that I could see that the guest conductor, Kimberly Grigsby, wasn’t wearing shoes, but not close enough that I could tell whether her feet smelled.

It made me wonder what she would have on for the actual performance. Heels would change the angle of appearance of her baton from the musicians’ vantage point. Would they be confused? They were when she accidentally dropped her baton. She and the rest of us were amused.

Vocals were performed by Capathia Jenkins and Sam Simahk. Wait. I just saw him last weekend, playing Freddy in My Fair Lady. I hope he told someone he’s going to skip a couple shows.

Phew. They must know. Sitting a couple rows in front of me at the rehearsal were Colonel Pickering and the housekeeper Mrs. Pearce. But no sign of Professor Higgins or Eliza Dooliitle. Perhaps they’re at the races.

As listed in the program, the second half of the concert, except for one song, didn’t particularly interest me, so I left early, the operative rhyming couplet being “If I’d paid, I’d have stayed.”

Epilogue

The Grant Park Music Festival now informs me that Jonathan Groff (aka George III on Broadway) will be appearing to sing that one song, You’ll Be Back, my favorite song from Hamilton and one of only two from that show that I actually remember.

So, he was right, I’ll be back.

Cirque Goes to Hollywood – Millennium Park – July 6, 2022

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Hoorah for Hollywood, whose music the Grant Park Orchestra played as the backdrop for Troupe Vertigo, a dizzying group that creates an atmosphere, its website says, “where reality bends, expectations twist and the body embraces the imagination.”

I’ve given up on reality, as I hear it’s not so great, and try not to have any expectations, so as to avoid being disappointed, but I assure you that the manner in which the cirque performers’ bodies were bent and twisted into dangerous and sometimes painful looking positions, while hanging above the stage dangling from ropes or doing handstands on gymnastic equipment, transcended anything I routinely imagine.

The feats executed during the theme from Mission Impossible fit that bill. but, when three performers came out wearing horse heads while performing to the theme from The Magnificent Seven, I thought they should have done so for the prior number, the theme from The Godfather. I wonder if they were asked to do so but found the courage to refuse.

A little over three years ago I wrote about the Chicago Philharmonic playing classical music to accompany the Cirque de la Symphonie. How many more combinations like this do I need to see to complete a full cirque[it]?

Courtyard Concert – Fourth Presbyterian Church – July 1, 2022

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Eric Schneider and Andy Brown were back together again. Last year, while praising the music, I highlighted Schneider’s song introduction shortcomings. Maybe he read my piece, as this year he didn’t even try to tell us any background information, except that he did know that Hoagy Carmichael wrote the song New Orleans, but was from Indiana, which was a prime example of what Schneider thought was funny. I disagreed.

In my opinion, Brown is the better musician of the two. Perhaps I just don’t have a refined ear, but on a couple of occasions, Schneider’s playing this year reminded me of Commander Riker’s trombone issues in Star Trek – just never could hit that note in Nightbird.

Whereas Riker admitted it was his fault, Schneider, at one point, regaled us with his version of the creation of the clarinet, which, according to my research, was maybe 50% accurate, and why therefore it was so hard to play, which, in any event, would not explain the one particularly alarming note that emanated from his saxophone, rousing me from my contemplations in the church courtyard’s idyllic setting.

Still, the rain held off, and thanks to Brown the concert was well worth its free price of admission. I will go back to see him performing solo in a couple weeks.