Latest news with #ChicagoSymphony
Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: Grant Park Music Festival is lifted by an artist-in-residence and a poignant ‘Enigma Variations'
Everyone, it seems, needs to have an 'artist-in-residence' these days. Though lofty, the title, as interpreted in recent seasons by the Grant Park Music Festival and the Chicago Symphony, tends to overpromise. It's becoming industry parlance for 'has at least two bookings with us a season' — significant for the artist and presenter, maybe, but mostly a blip for audiences. Cellist Inbal Segev's residency with the Grant Park Music Festival, which concluded on Wednesday, felt closer to a fair billing. The Israeli-American cellist was here for just a week, but it was a packed one: a Pavilion concert on July 9 (playing Mark Adamo's 'Last Year,' a latter-day 'Four Seasons' inflected by climate change), a recital on July 13 which included some of her own music, and a masterclass on July 15, before concluding with another concert in the Pavilion on July 16. In grand-finale spirit, Segev dusted off Anna Clyne's 'Dance,' a calling card of hers, for the occasion. Not that she needed to do much dusting: Guest conductor Courtney Lewis noted in comments to the audience that, since Segev premiered the concerto in 2019, she has performed about half of its 80 performances since. That deep experience was manifest in Wednesday's performance. Like 'Masquerade,' another widely programmed piece by Clyne, 'Dance' dresses up centuries-old musical forms in 21st-century clothing — the placid round of the third movement, the striding ground bass of the fourth. But even amid more fervid movements like the second and fifth, Segev radiated calm confidence through their percussive chords and fingerboard-spanning dexterity. She often smiled encouragingly at Lewis, or, in the finale, at concertmaster Jeremy Black, with whom she swapped knotty, bluesy solos. Her coolheaded virtuosity soothed, even when the music didn't. As an encore, Segev brought the same tranquil command to the Sarabande from Bach's Cello Suite No. 3. Her sound was magisterial and rich, a full-bodied account — until the very end. On that final resolution, she quieted to a mere, otherworldly wisp, like a final wave from a distance. Lewis and the Grant Parkers were every bit as unflappable in their accompaniment. Voices in the orchestra step forth to double the cello here and there — a tricky alignment in any acoustic. But from my vantage in the Pavilion seating area, these all converged impeccably, most especially the ghostly bowed vibraphone supporting Segev's harmonics. Against 'Dance,' a frazzled 'Fledermaus' overture sounded like it might have gotten the short end of the rehearsal stick. Lewis's sudden, tensile beats left the orchestra guessing at subdivisions, nor did they give Strauss's beloved Viennese waltzes much freedom to bounce. Other gestures — scrunched shoulders, a finger to the lips to hush the orchestra — seemed patently superfluous for a group of Grant Park's caliber. But if Lewis spent Grant Park's blink-and-you-miss-it rehearsal time preparing his poignant 'Enigma Variations,' that was a worthy tradeoff. Lewis cultivated an entrancingly variegated ensemble sound, adding new dimension to even Elgar's most familiar strains. The yin-and-yang themes of 'R.P.A.' seemed somehow connected at the hip, rather than starkly juxtaposed. Later, the seafaring variation which Elgar laconically titled '***' — spurring avid speculation about whose initials, exactly, he was redacting — gained might the same way an ocean storm does: gradually at first, then all at once. Then, of course, there's 'Nimrod,' the piece's most famous excerpt. Strings played the opening with no vibrato, sounding for all the world like the stillness before daybreak. When the sun rose through mounting crescendos, the orchestra was bright but not blaring, the Grant Park brass offering sculpted support. The final variation, named for Elgar himself, likewise refused to be weighted down. The opening scampered with tricksterish levity; later on, when the movement cycles through vignettes from earlier in the piece, Lewis balanced the orchestra so that they sounded like flotsam bobbing in '***'s' surf. Now that's how you play the 'Enigma Variations.' A postscript: Inbal Segev's Grant Park week would have been even more packed, were it not for a day-of cancellation of her Monday recital repeat at the Columbus Park Refectory. Festival spokespeople explained the performance, co-presented by the Chicago Park District's 'Night Out in the Parks,' was canceled due to noise-bleed concerns from a 'Bike Night' hosted on the adjacent parking lot, an event they say the festival learned about that morning. In truth, Columbus Park has hosted hundreds for Bike Night every Monday all summer, complete with food-truck vendors, signage and traffic cops. The most generous read of the snafu suggests this was just an awkward breakdown in communication between the festival and the Parks District. It's worth noting, too, the Refectory building itself, where the concert was supposed to happen, was not double-booked, and was thus available on paper. But the broader cluelessness here from Grant Park strikes at a deeper issue, one certainly not unique to this festival. What, exactly, are arts organizations hoping to achieve through neighborhood events if they don't know all that much about the neighborhoods in question? The festival should take the fumble as a learning opportunity as its 'Night Out' partnership continues: July 17 at Olympia Park, July 24 at Indian Boundary Park, July 31 at Lake Shore Park, Aug. 7 at Jefferson Memorial Park and Aug. 14 at Lincoln Park Cultural Center. The Grant Park Music Festival continues July 18-19 with Augustin Hadelich playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, 201 E. Randolph St. Free; more information and ticketed Pavilion seating at
Chicago Tribune
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: CSO's season opens at Ravinia, egging on hopes for the Pavilion renovation
The Chicago Symphony's return to Ravinia? Make it double. On July 11 and 12, the orchestra and chief festival conductor Marin Alsop opened its season with two twinned programs. Both began with engrossing contemporary American openers: Carlos Simon's 'AMEN!' on Friday, Jessie Montgomery's 'Strum' on Saturday. Those were followed by gripping performances of piano cornerstones: Rachmaninoff's 'Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini' played by Bruce Liu, then Gershwin's Concerto in F, played by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Each ended, customarily, with a symphonic juggernaut: Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, 'Pathétique,' respectively. While the actual music varied between the two concerts, their overall takeaways did not. Prime among them: The Ravinia Festival's Pavilion renovation, to be unveiled next summer, cannot come soon enough. Thanks to a study commissioned by Threshold Acoustics, a consultant to the renovation, the festival is armed with more empirical data about the perils of its stage than ever before. Despite that, the pain points of an over-responsive Pavilion ached all weekend. Über-familiar repertoire works jiggering out of sync as often as they did is a sure sign orchestra musicians are having trouble hearing each other — and the same seemed to go for Alsop, sometimes twisting to get a straight sightline of both soloists' hands. All the while, nuclear brass and percussion sat somewhere on the spectrum between 'unbalanced' and 'unpleasant.' Of course, at Ravinia, CSO musicians are rarely just contending with a punishing acoustic. Lightning shuddered during the opening bars of Friday's 'Rite,' as though being conjured by the music itself. A mounting breeze rippled across the orchestra's music stands before a storm sprayed the Ravinia lawn. As though the weather was its own release, this very animalistic performance settled into more subtlety in its latter half, if never conquering those core ensemble issues. Thankfully, Liu and Thibaudet were undisputed peaks of a rocky weekend. Liu, 28, is a Chopin Competition winner of vertiginous agility, and he remained so on a sticky opening night. The young Canadian made Rachmaninoff's Olympian technical matters sound dégagé. Perhaps he lacked a sense of true sentimental abandon. Then again, hearing this heart-wrencher with its histrionics thoughtfully muted — even in the famous 18th variation — provided its own cool relief. For his encore, Liu followed the Rhapsody with yet another Paganini riff by a great virtuoso pianist-slash-composer: Liszt's superhuman 'La Campanella.' He doubled down on the savoir-faire that distinguished his Rachmaninoff, this time without emotional equivocation. The music poured from Liu unstoppered — as did the sweat from his temples, dramatically documented by Ravinia's mondo LED screens. Thibaudet brought the same troubadour spirit to the Ravinia stage the following evening. The best Gershwin accounts capture the effervescence of improvisation in the context of a wholly composed work. It's no surprise Thibaudet struck that balance, his phrasings feeling at once fresh and natural — this concerto is straight out of central casting for the French pianist. The transporting second-movement cadenza had the warming calm of a daydream. The movement ended with a tender moment between Thibaudet and guest principal flutist Minha Kim, locking eyes and swaying together for their duet. But for the most part, Saturday's was a harried meeting between orchestra and soloist, down to the bungled gong hit at the piece's climax. Afterwards, Thibaudet offered Brahms's Intermezzo in A Major as a salve, cutting through its buttery richness with the semplice touch of a lullaby. The ensuing 'Pathétique' wasn't exempt from the weekend's brass overzealousness, or the awkward fit of ensemble puzzle pieces. But on the whole, this was an interpretive highlight of the weekend, in keeping with Alsop's Tchaikovsky 5 two summers ago. She maintained the symphony's songfulness end-to-end, her tempos intuitive and often satisfying. An assured sense of super-structure gave Tchaikovsky's obsessive repetition direction and gravitas — discrete, punctuated utterances for woodwinds and brass at the end of the first movement, a weightier arrival in the last statement of the third. Oddly, though, that didn't apply to the most important moment of all: The trombone incantation and bass-led sighs ending the entire symphony passed more or less unremarked upon. Where Alsop excels consistently, however, is in her preparation of new repertoire, choosing pieces which unite popular appeal with striking craft. Simon's 'AMEN!' and Montgomery's 'Strum' are very much in that lineage. A rafter-shaking, crisply inventive tribute to the Black Pentecostal worship tradition, 'AMEN!' is the rare contemporary work that lives its name to the hilt. Blues harmonies sparkle under hammy, crooning trombones, blooming into a larger-than-life gospel cadence for tutti orchestra. The CSO's performance of 'Strum,' for string orchestra, was just as clean and confident — familiar fare for the ensemble, having played it before and worked with Montgomery for three seasons as its composer-in-residence. Even so, this was an impressive performance by any metric, sections sounding as unified as Montgomery's original version for string quintet, and featuring distinguished first-desk cameos aplenty. Now, if everything goes according to plan, imagine how all that could sound in a new Pavilion next summer. Amen, indeed.
Chicago Tribune
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: Muti returns to the CSO, principal trumpeter and Verdi's Requiem in tow
For a time, Chicago Symphony music director emeritus Riccardo Muti planned to end the 2024/25 downtown season with Hector Berlioz's 'The Damnation of Faust,' not heard at Orchestra Hall since 2008. But last summer, the CSO announced the Berlioz would be swapped out with a more recent throwback: Verdi's Requiem, which Muti last led in Chicago in 2018. A signature of Muti's tenure here, the Requiem was performed and recorded to wide acclaim, first through a Grammy-winning 2010 album and again via livestream in 2013, back when that technology was relatively novel. Despite missing out on a rare-going-on-rarer 'Faust,' the Muti/Requiem pairing is as sure a thing as they come. Thursday's concert was no exception, clinching a standout performance of the year with a quartet of superbly cast — and superbly matched — vocal soloists, three of whom were making their CSO debuts. Mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa and tenor John Osborn were both cast for the originally planned 'Faust,' but you'd think they were hand-picked specifically for this repertoire. Crebassa didn't just sing the mezzo part — she seemed to live it, from the throaty intensity of 'Liber scriptus' to a grief-stricken 'Lacrymosa,' her vibrato bubbling like tears. Her jewel-toned voice sat well in Verdi's lower vocal writing, but it also easily winged skyward when called for, like a glittering upward climb in 'Quid sum miser.' Crebassa has not sung at the CSO since 2015, at Esa-Pekka Salonen's invitation; her next visit ought to come far sooner. Osborn was every bit as sensitive, living proof that one doesn't need to muscle through this writing to captivate a hall. Between his dynamic and emotional range, and an uncommon transparency of tone — the top of 'Quid sum miser' would have given most sopranos a run for their money in its diamond-bright purity — his every feature cut straight to the heart. Elena Guseva's soprano staggers in its power and control, retaining its hue even at lofty peaks. But much like her colleagues, the soprano was even more astonishing in moments of balance and introversion, like her spick-and-span octaves with Crebassa in 'Agnus Dei' and the tender sendoffs to 'Domine Jesu Christe' and 'Libera me.' The young bass-baritone Maharram Huseynov stepped in last week for Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, also originally a 'Faust' hire. Where many before him have brought big-boned heft to this role — which might have helped Huseynov when he got swallowed by the orchestra's fire in the 'Confutatis' — I'm not convinced that's the point. Huseynov's lighter touch felt closer to the spirit of the text, his voice toned, vulnerable and sympathetically, grippingly human-sized. These performances mark Donald Palumbo's official debut as the new director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. It was an auspicious first outing, the choir sounding sculpted and notably unified in color and timbre. Basses rumbled in the 'Rex tremendae' like a voice from a fissure in the earth; sopranos entered on the final 'Libera me' canon with the precision of a single singer. Any ensemble issues mostly came from disagreement between the orchestra and the chorus. The chorus floated around the beat in the first 'Dies irae.' The 'Sanctus' was the opposite: they followed Muti's more leisurely tempo like a shadow, despite the orchestra itching to default to the sprightly pace of years' past. But these moments were few and brief in an inspired, brilliantly paced Requiem, its orchestral contributions sounding fresher than ever. Violins supported the 'Kyrie' crisply; later, Vadim Karpinos' timpani licked like flame in the 'Dies irae.' Onstage and offstage trumpet quartets drove a terrifying transition into the 'Tuba mirum.' And when Guseva and the chorus sang that 'the earth shall be shaken' in the 'Libera me,' a mighty rumble in the double basses made sure you really believed it. Elsewhere, Muti halted the action with moments of total silence, all to great, hair-raising effect. Deliverance, indeed. A week earlier, also under Muti's baton, principal trumpet Esteban Batallán — returning to the ensemble this fall after a season with the Philadelphia Orchestra and a summer parental leave — made his CSO solo debut on two 18th century concertos for piccolo trumpet, by Georg Philipp Telemann and Joseph Haydn's overlooked brother, Michael. The repertoire frequently played to Batallán's strong points. Both — especially the Michael Haydn concerto and its virtuosic cadenzas, devised by Batallán himself — gave the trumpeter a chance to show off his dazzling upper register. And for all his sheer power behind the horn, Batallán can certainly scale back when called for, balancing chamber-style against the ensemble throughout. Mostly missing, at least on June 12, was a certain sense of phrase and direction in legato sections. From the slow movements of the Telemann to floating refrains in the Haydn, notes felt over-articulated rather than part of a longer line. The CSO sound under Muti is nothing if not refined — everything shapely and in its place, never crass nor unruly. That made for an elegant yet reliable accompaniment in these concertos. But once the orchestra became the main focus for Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 48, 'Maria Theresa,' and Schubert's Symphony No. 4, 'Tragic,' that refinement sounded more like reticence. The stormy fake-out in the Haydn's first movement sounded defanged, and the finale rather polite. The Schubert was even more reined in, the orchestra clean but sounding like it was playing at half-verve. The overall impression was one of an ensemble walking on eggshells: little spark, little levity, little variety, too much weighty reverence. That's not to discount some fine ensemble work. Woodwind contributions in the Schubert from clarinetist Stephen Williamson, oboist William Welter, and outgoing flutist Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson were both impassioned and lucid. Mark Almond, sitting in the hot seat for the Haydn symphony's diabolically high horn part, wasn't always pristine, but he deserves serious kudos for deftly balancing the stratospheric register of his accompaniment so it dusted the harmonies instead of dominating them — all too easy to do. 'Muti Conducts Verdi Requiem' repeats 7:30 p.m. June 20-24 at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave., tickets starting at $79,
New York Times
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
He Reinvigorated the Met Opera's Chorus. Next Stop, Chicago.
When Donald Palumbo departed his post as chorus master of the Metropolitan Opera last year after nearly two decades, he could have easily taken a break. But Palumbo, 76, wasn't finished. 'I knew it was not a retirement situation for me,' he said. Now Palumbo has lined up his next position: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra announced on Tuesday that he would serve as its next chorus director — only the third in the choir's 67-year history — beginning an initial three-year term in July. 'I love this chorus,' Palumbo said in a telephone interview from Chicago, where he was rehearsing the chorus. 'I love this city.' Palumbo was a fixture at the Met from 2007 to 2024, helping turn the chorus into one of the most revered in the field. He could often be seen during performances racing around backstage, working with singers to refine bits of the score. He was chorus master at Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1991 to 2007. At the Chicago Symphony, he said, he hoped to work with the singers on 'creating an identity as a chorus from the way we sing, and the way we devote ourselves to the music.' Jeff Alexander, the Chicago Symphony's president, said that Palumbo had built a close relationship with the chorus during guest appearances over the years, creating 'an atmosphere of collaboration that yielded exceptional artistry.' 'We knew this would be the ideal choice to build on the legacy of this award-winning ensemble,' Alexander said in a statement. Palumbo, who lives in Santa Fe and will commute to Chicago, is already at work with the Chicago singers. He will serve as guest chorus director this month for Verdi's Requiem, working with Riccardo Muti, the Chicago Symphony's former music director. In July, he will begin his tenure as chorus director with a performance of Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony at the Ravinia Festival, led by the festival's chief conductor, Marin Alsop. While Palumbo has forged a close relationship with Muti, he said, he was still getting to know Klaus Mäkelä, the Chicago Symphony's incoming music director, who begins in 2027. (Palumbo said he has been watching videos of Mäkelä on YouTube: 'Everything he does musically is exciting,' he said.) Palumbo said he hoped to stay in Chicago beyond the end of his initial term in 2028. 'I certainly am not planning on having a cutoff point,' he said. 'I intend to keep working.'
Chicago Tribune
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Classical and jazz for summer 2025: From concert halls to the open air of Millennium Park
Condolences to everyone's calendar. Despite sobering news of canceled summer festivals and slashed National Endowment for the Arts grants, Chicago summer — knock wood — looks to be as busy as ever. Classical and jazz programming alone is packed with blockbusters. Before the subscription arts season is out, Riccardo Muti is back at the Chicago Symphony, closing out the season with Verdi's Requiem, his calling card, and trumpeter Esteban Batallán as a featured soloist (June 12-24). After that, Giancarlo Guerrero begins his tenure as director of the Grant Park Music Festival, bringing with him a bevy of music by living and American composers (June 11-Aug. 16). Musicians and celebrity chefs team up for the Ravinia Festival's Breaking Barriers, with audiences taste-testing the results (July 25-27). Then, to close out the season, the Chicago Jazz Fest returns, this time with esperanza spalding, Monty Alexander, Kermit Ruffins and Eliades Ochoa as headliners (Aug. 28-31). But with so much excitement afoot, it's all too easy for other cultural highlights to get lost. Here's a handful to keep on your radar well ahead of summer's dog days. Before the boycott: Rosa Parks was just the most famous representative of a group of women who worked to desegregate Montgomery's public transit system in the 1950s. Chicago Opera Theater's 'She Who Dared' — with music by the talented young composer Jasmine Barnes and a libretto by Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton — foregrounds their overlooked story. June 3, 6 and 8 at the Studebaker Theater, 410 S. Michigan Ave., tickets $60-$160, Price's precocious champion: Still in his 20s, Randall Goosby has become one of the leading interpreters of Florence Price's music. The violinist brings her music — specifically her second violin concerto — back to its home city alongside the CSO and conductor Sir Mark Elder. June 5-7 at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave., tickets $39-$299, What happens to music never heard?: In the case of Oscar Peterson's 'Africa,' it gets resurrected. Peterson performed and recorded movements of the suite throughout his career, but never the entire thing. Thanks to bandleader and arranger John Clayton, the late jazz pianist's epic finally sees the light of day. 8 p.m. June 13 at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave., tickets $39-$299, Soundtrack to the 21st century: World-class soloists and contemporary classical music are both hallmarks of the Grant Park Music Festival, but they don't always converge. This summer is a refreshing change of pace, with several guest artists platforming pieces written in the new millennium. First among them: cellist Inbal Segev, who plays Mark Adamo's 'Last Year' (July 9) and Anna Clyne's 'Dance' (July 16) as this year's artist-in-residence. Also on tap are trumpeter Pacho Flores in Arturo Márquez's Concierto de Otoño (June 20-21); the Imani Winds in a concerto grosso penned by former ensemble member Valerie Coleman (June 25); mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges in Peter Lieberson's 'Neruda Songs' (Aug. 1 and 2 at Harris Theater); and Glen Ellyn native Jennifer Koh in Jennifer Higdon's epic 'The Singing Rooms' for solo violin, orchestra and chorus (Aug. 8 and 9). All at Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph St., free admission, Paired pipes: From 2018 to 2020, Camille Thurman — as alluring a singer as she is a tenor saxophonist — made history as the first woman to join the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra roster. But she's a commanding, charismatic bandleader in her own right, as this local run of shows will no doubt co-sign. June 26-29 at the Jazz Showcase, 806 S. Plymouth Court, tickets $25-$45, more information at Big news for people who hit things: Chicago institution Third Coast Percussion is turning 20. The quartet rings in the milestone with 'Rhythm Fest,' an all-day bash with collaborators past and present. Noon to 10 p.m. June 28 at Epiphany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland Ave., tickets $60-120 and $30 for students, Irakere at 50: The iconic Cuban ensemble technically celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023. Then again, no celebration is big enough to capture its outsized mark on contemporary Latin jazz. Founder and bandleader Chucho Valdés is joined by former bandmates Paquito D'Rivera and Arturo Sandoval — a rare convening of the genre's elder statesmen — for this one-night-only Ravinia extravaganza. 7:30 p.m. July 9 at the Ravinia Pavilion, 201 Ravinia Park Road, Highland Park, tickets $29-$65, One day, two premieres: Slather on sunscreen if you must, because new music fans are advised to post up at the Ravinia grounds on July 20. Steans Institute musicians debut a string quartet by American composer Joel Thompson at Bennett Gordon Hall (1:30 p.m.). A few short hours later, the CSO gives the first performance of Malek Jandali's 'Rhapsody for Orchestra' (5 p.m.). Both July 20 at Ravinia, 201 Ravinia Park Road, Highland Park, free admission for the Steans recital, tickets $15-$95 for the Pavilion concert, Early music everywhere: 'Baroque-and-before' need not mean 'boxed in.' Creative and unconventional early-music performances abound this summer, starting with 'Secret Byrd,' a theatricalized account of William Byrd's Mass for Five Voices devised by Bill Barclay. (Barclay was the mind behind 2023's excellent 'The Chevalier.') Meanwhile, at Ravinia, Cleveland- and Chicago-based early music troupe Apollo's Fire presents a 'dueling double concerto' program — as do actual fencers, demonstrating the sport on the lawn. Haymarket Opera Company also makes its festival debut with a semi-staged 'Alcina'; soprano Nicole Cabell, who starred in the company's recent 'L'Amant anonyme,' sings the title role. 'Secret Byrd,' two shows each, 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., on July 20 and 21 at Salvage One, 1840 W. Hubbard St., tickets $65-$75, 'Fencing Match' with Apollo's Fire, 7:30 p.m. Aug. 13 at Ravinia's Martin Theatre, tickets $15-$75, Handel's 'Alcina' with Haymarket Opera, 1 p.m. Aug. 24 at Ravinia's Martin Theatre, tickets $15-$75, Partitas na praia: Bach and Brazil meet in Plínio Fernandes. The São Paulo-born guitarist's 'Bacheando,' featuring Bach arrangements, was one of the illustrious Decca label's most striking 2023 releases. He picks up where the album left off with this Ravinia recital. 7:30 p.m. Aug. 26 at Ravinia's Bennett Gordon Hall, tickets $20,
