Grant Park Music Festival

Grant Park Music Festival – July 14, 2021

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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

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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

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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).

Grant Park Music Festival – Millennium Park – August 8 and 11, 2018

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This week’s guest soloists at the Grant Park Music Festival were pianist George Li, showing off Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and cellist Pablo Ferrández, treating us to Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante. But neither could hold a candle, so to speak, from an entertainment, if not talent, viewpoint, to the guest soloist bagpiper on the Michigan Avenue bridge, whose music was so hot that he had flames shooting from his instrument as he played, which apparently is not uncommon for street bagpipers.

I wonder whether the city knew about the fiery nature of his act when they gave him a street license. The application form only seems concerned with noise and congestion, not possible loss of life.

Nevertheless, getting a license to be a street performer, also known as a busker (news to me), can be a challenge, which has led to numerous legal challenges across the country.

It’s unlikely that Li or Ferrández will have to resort to playing in the street for tips, but that doesn’t mean that they are without their challenges. For instance, in particular in regard to a pianist, what about one’s height?  I read that 6 foot, 4 inch Bruce Hornsby hunches over the keyboard. and doesn’t use the pedals.

So what about Li, who, from a distance, appeared rather short. Li’s height, or lack thereof, was a topic of concern when, as a ten-year-old prodigy playing with a trio, he could barely reach the pedals.  I wonder if he used a pedal extender.

This also led me to wonder whether bicycle manufacturers make toe clips for piano pedals, so that you can play faster? Ukrainian Lubomyr Melnyk claims that he is the world’s fastest playing pianist, at 19 piano notes on each hand every second. It strikes me that a tuba player might have trouble keeping up with him.

 

Grant Park Music Festival – Millennium Park – July 27, 2018

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I don’t write about every GPMF concert I see because it would get boring to say I loved the music and the orchestra sounded great. So here’s a twist. The orchestra sounded great throughout the evening, and I loved two of the pieces they played (Ralph Williams’ Norfolk Rhapsody No. 2 and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3), but I hated Andrew Norman’s Switch. It is for moments like this that they should have two overhead signs, one that lights up for Applause for the Orchestra and one that lights up for Applause for the Music, so that we can show our appreciation for the musicians’ efforts and our disdain for the music.

Actually, if you could filter out the sounds created by the guest percussion soloist and just listen to the orchestra’s backup, there was music to be heard. But I thought I was watching a symphonic version of This Is Spinal Tap, with Michael McKean as the percussionist, acting the part by pretentiously parading around the stage in anticipation of the next singular (as in one, not as in special) note he would tap out on a variety of paraphernalia on the front of the stage that blocked our view of half the orchestra.

To be fair (as much as it pains me), of the four of us together at the concert, one appreciated the composer’s efforts. So our group rating was above the musical equivalent of the Mendoza Line. But to me, what I was hearing wasn’t music (much like, I concede, some of our parents thought of rock and roll). Perhaps, however, it could be described as some non-electronic form of noise music (a term I had not heard of before looking up the definition of music).

Project Inclusion String Quartet – July 17 and 26, 2018 – Washington Square Park and Lake Shore Park

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If you didn’t get a chance to see the wonderful Project Inclusion String Quartet this summer at one of their outdoor concerts in various city parks, don’t worry, you can see them next summer, except it will be a whole new quartet, made up of new Fellows.

“Project Inclusion is a unique training opportunity for singers and string players from diverse backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the symphonic orchestral and choral world.” That description certainly applies to this year’s quartet, one of whom is from Havana, and another of whom, perhaps more impressively, made it to Chicago from rural Texas.

Their last concert, in Lake Shore Park, highlighted a couple of challenges of playing in the elements. First, one always has to deal with the wind. A website I found about playing outdoors notes that “[y]ou can never have too many clothespins for the wind.”

And, indeed, the quartet used the largest clothespins I’ve ever seen to hold their music in place. They could have held Shaquille O’Neal’s clothes out to dry on the line with them. This led me to find a website that lists 15 smart uses for clothespins, none of which involve clothes.

Second, while the music was delightful, the background to the Lake Shore Park performance suggested to me a Fellini movie with a John Cage soundtrack. There were children doing cartwheels on the lawn, runners doing wind sprints on the track, and dogs catching frisbees, while other dogs barked, and buses roared by.

The quartet was exposed to other Chicago ambient sounds as they introduced and performed with the Grant Park Symphony in Millennium Park on July 18. There one has to deal with sirens, cicadas, the occasional helicopter, and, in the audience, the guy sitting behind you who thinks he’s whispering.

 

Grant Park Music Festival – Millennium Park – June 23-29, 2018

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The weather was perfect on June 23rd. The guest soloist, Natasha Paremski, pounded the piano like she was trying to hurt it (it was, after all, Rachmaninoff), but it sounded great. Her hands were a blur. And she even played an encore, showing another side of her skills on some Chopin.

On June 27th, the weather was perfect again, just like it always is in Chicago. The guest flute soloist, Adam Walker, sported a neatly-trimmed beard, which made me wonder whether it created any playing problems. I couldn’t find anything about floutists, but did find some suggestions about facial hair from a professional trumpet player, who says, for example, that a soul patch pads the bottom of your lip and an untrimmed mustache is going to hurt. I played the trumpet, badly, for about ten minutes when I was a kid who was on the verge of starting to shave. Perhaps there was some incipient stubble that held me back from stardom.

June 29th was yet another perfect day, if you enjoy a heat index over 100 degrees, and who doesn’t? So I wasn’t going to let the unbearable heat stop me from seeing Johannes Moser, the guest cello soloist, perform Dvorak’s cello concerto, some other time, when my eyelids aren’t sweating.

So we instead opted for the air conditioning at Andy’s Jazz Club and sat through two sets before they kicked us out two hours after our two-hour limit at the table had expired, which was just as well as we already had lost some of our hearing thanks to an overeager trumpet player, unencumbered by facial hair.

Five Venues – Seven Programs – Eleven Days – June 5-15, 2018

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In anticipation of the upcoming Make Music Chicago day on June 21, here’s a recap of the musical performances I’ve seen recently (not counting the Porchlight Revisits 1975 I already wrote about).

On June 5th I got a taste of the Rose Colella Quartet, along with the Cajun shrimp risotto, at Andy’s Jazz Club.

On June 8th I attended the noonday concert at Fourth Presbyterian Church, featuring pianist Mio Nakamura. I hadn’t been there in a while, in part because some recent programs were organ music. Other than people who play the organ, the phantom of the opera, and Johann Sebastian Bach (and he’s dead), who likes organ music?

The next evening I stopped by Millennium Park to check out the Chicago Blues Festival. The sound of a harmonica lured me, like a sailor to the Sirens, to the Wrigley Square stage to watch Chicago Wind, featuring Deitra Farr and Matthew Skoller. I wasn’t injured, but I thought there was a faint smell in the air that suggested that others around me may have [been] wrecked.

The next afternoon I went to see a Crossing Borders Music program Honoring Refugee Composers at St. James Cathedral, featuring music of composers from Syria, Armenia, Iran, Croatia, Germany, and Uruguay, the number of whom, unfortunately, about equaled the attendees.

Two days later I went to the Rush Hour Concert at St. James, where John Macfarlane (violin), Anthony Devroye (viola), Brant Taylor (cello), and Kenneth Olsen (cello) performed Anton Arensky’s String Quartet in A Minor. Wonderful music, but I longed for the folding chairs they used to add in the back, which I find more comfortable than the pews.

Afterward I went to Jazz on the Terrace at the Museum of Contemporary Art, getting there during the break between sets. Sadly, I liked the recorded music they played during the break better than the live band, so my stay was short.

Finally, on June 15th, I enjoyed the Grant Park Music Festival at Millennium Park, featuring music of Gluck, Mozart, von Weber, and Elgar. This year’s new security measures were painless, as I didn’t bring any laser pointers, drones, or firearms with me.