Lake Shore Park

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.

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.