concerts – Page 4 – Chicago Theater and Arts

Around Town revisits Millennium Park concerts and takes a field trip to MSI

Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park hosts summer concerts. (JJacobs photo)

DCASE Millennium Park Concerts

Yes concerts across Chicago have been cancelled or postponed so the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events is doing “Home,” a concert series you can catch on DCASE’s Youtube and Facebook pages..

It starts this weekend, May 22-23, with a DJ House mix that would have been in the city’s 5^th Annual House Music Festival.

Next up, Gospel singers will be on the series May 29-30 because of Chicago’s 35^th Annual Gospel Music Festival. That will be followed by blues, June 5-7 for what would have been the 37^th Annual Blues Fest. For more information on the concerts, visit youtube/com/ChicagoDCASE.

Museum of Science and Industry. City of Chicago (MSI photo) — The Clarence Darrow Bridge is behind the Museum of Science and Industry. (MSI photo)

HitPlay Chicago Museum Series

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s field trip goes to the Museum of Science and Industry

The field trip went live at HitPlay on Wednesday, May 20 and will be on WTTW the PBS TV station today, May 22 and again midday Monday, May 25.

An impressive building dating to the 1893 Columbian Exposition, MSI is known for, among other things, its coal mine experience. However, on this visit viewers will come across science experiments they may not be familiar with,and the popular indoor tornado section they may know of in the science Storm exhibit.

One stop that viewers may find fascinating and very current, is the Wanger Family Fab (fabrication) Lab that can make face shields.

Stay with the video to the Big Train Story where model trains go from Chicago to Seattle past well-known city buildings and mountain scenery.

For past field trips scroll down on HitPlay Chicago to see the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum and the National Museum of Mexican Art.

And the music plays on

Concert venues around the globe are putting concerts on to youtube and facebook. Here are a few sites to watch and listen to musicians while you work from home or take a break from re-organizing the house or office.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra. (A CSO photo)

Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

Look for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 on Facebook at 3 p.m. April 12. Led by Riccardo Muti, the concert concludes with “Ode to Joy” which we all need now to uplift our spirits. For more CSO Beethoven and other options go to CSO YouTube Channel.

In addition, the CSO and other groups can be heard on WFMT (98,7 FM) and at wfmt.com.

City of Chicago virtual events and concerts

The city’s Department of Cultural Affairs is partnering with Do312 to continue Chicago’s Year of Music as part of #DoStuffAtHomke. They include dance parties, solo artists and webinars. Check it out at yearofchicagomusic.

Savannah Music Festival

The famed festival is continuing its lineup on line. To catch the artists still to play before it ends April 11, 2020, visit youtube/SavannahMusicFestival. Concerts can be heard as part of the Noon30 program which airs at 12:30 p.m. EDT.

Jodie Jacobs

Grand entertainment online

Berliner Philharmonie. (Photo courtesy of Berliner Philharmonie)

Where are you? I’m working from home but am also at the Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Hall watching Sir Simon Rattle conduct Joseph Haydn’s “Oxford” Symphony No. 92 in G major and Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor.

The concerts are free. The digital concert hall site asks you to redeem a voucher. Once done you go to trailers and/or the various concerts.

I’ve started with Concert 39 to hear the Oxford and the Brahms First but will return to check out the other concerts.

Metropolitan Opera is streaming Wagner's Ring cycle. (Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera) — Metropolitan Opera is streaming Wagner’s Ring cycle. (Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera)

Then, sad that the Lyric Opera of Chicago had to cancel its much anticipated “Ring” this spring due to the C Virus, I took a time-machine back the to the Metropolitan Opera’s Ring cycle that began in 2010.

The Met is doing nightly opera streams. However, it also has free videos that can be watched any time of day. During week 2, now through March 29, 2020, videos concentrate on Wagner.

I loved “Wagner Dreams,” a fascinating behind the scenes journey of producing an unusual Ring. It depended on a giant machine with moving steps and platforms and terrific lighting but also spectacular voices and performances. I will try “Wagner Leitmotifs,” later.

To watch “Gotterdammerung,” slated for today, March 27, 2020 which stars Deborah Voigt, Wendy Bryn Harmer, Waltraud Meier, Jay Hunter Morris, Iain Paterson, Eric Owens, and Hans-Peter König, (conducted by Fabio Luisi. From February 11, 2012) means signing up for a Met on Demand subscription. There is also a rental for about $5.

Jodie Jacobs

Related: Enjoy performances online

Enjoy performances online

Stage venues have gone to YouTube, Facebook and various web sites to keep their performers and to give something to the vast majority of stay-at-home audience members. Here is one that goes live today and can become a noon plus 30 tune-in habit.

Savanah Music Festival

The popular music festival has canceled this spring’s concerts and has moved some artists to September. However it has started a new, online concert series called Noon30 that starts today at March 26 12:30 p.,. EST and will continue through April 11, 2020.

Find Germain Lopez premiering the series from his home in Spain where he will be performing an acoustic version of “A Punto de Nieve” at You Look for tube/SMForg.

Look for Vasen, also performing today from Uppsala, Sweden. You can find his performance of “IPA Gubben at You Tu Be.

Jodie Jacobs

Related: Grand entertainment online

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RWJLcchTVk&feature=youtu.be

Vasen will be on Noon 30 with “IPA Gubben” from Uppsala, Sweden.

Ravinia Festival highlights and ticket options

If looking for something to distract from COVID-19 closings take a look at what Ravinia Festival, the famed primarily outdoor music venue has on its l2020 Calendar.

Even a brief scan shows that pop stars such as Sheryl Crow and Carrie Underwood, folk icons Arlo Guthrie and Judy Collins, hip hop band The Roots, rock ‘n roll musician John Fogerty, pop-rock band Train, and classicalists pianist Jorge Federico Osorio and violinist Midori are on the schedule.

Plus, Ravinia’s newly appointed conductor and curator Marin Alsop will be conducting the CSO in an all Rachmaninoff evening with Lukass Vondracek playing the Rach 3, Itzhak Perlman will play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and the next day conduct the CSO for Ravinia’s annual Tchaikovsky spectacular.

Ravinia canceled events before June 1 due to the coronavirus but has said nothing so far, about the regular programing after June 1. Instead, its statement read: “Ticket sales to Ravinia’s summer lineup will occur as planned, with donors having access as early as March 17.”

April 28 is the date when the public can get tickets for the June and July concerts. August and September concerts go on sale April 29.

Tip: Ravinia goers sometimes become donors because the hottest tickets go quickly, Click Ravinia/Fund for the donor fee structure and what each level offers.

The Ravinia Festival is at the south end of North Suburban Highland Park between Sheriday and Green Bay Rds, just north of Lake Cook Road. For more Ravinia information visit Ravinia.

Jodie Jacobs

‘Almost Heaven’ in Munster

"Almost Heaven: John Denver's America" at Theatre at the Center, Munster, IN. ( Photo by Guy Rhodes0 — “Almost Heaven: John Denver’s America” at Theatre at the Center, Munster, IN. ( Photo by Guy Rhodes0

3 stars

Seeing “Almost Heaven,” will bring recollections of John Denver’s backstory.

Denver’s music was considered to be more or less middle-of-the-road if not downright conservative in the wake of rising stars like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

This issue is confronted early in the latest jukebox boomer music revival, “Almost Heaven-John Denver’s America,” at The Theatre at the Center in Munster, IN..

The popular singer/songwriter eventually emerged as the nascent voice of the environmental movement with songs like “Calypso” that championed the work of Jacques Cousteau, as well as “Rocky Mountain High,” “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” “Wild Montana Skies” and “Sunshine on My Shoulders.” They unabashedly and exuberantly celebrated the magnificence and simple beauty of nature.

Continue reading “‘Almost Heaven’ in Munster”

Ravinia Festival creates a chief conductor and curator position helmed by Marin Alsop

Marin Alsop conducted the CSO’s Bernstein and Mahler program in the Pavilion at Ravinia Festival August 19. (Patrick Gipson/Ravinia photo)

Ravinia goers may recall that Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonyh No. 1 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 were brilliantly played by the CSO and conducted by Marin Alsop in 2018. They may also remember that the conductor of the highly lauded Bernstein “Mass” performed July 2017 was also conducted by Alsop. The final protégé of Leonard Bernstein, Alsop was appointed in 2018 to curate Ravinia’s multi-season celebration of Bernstein.

This week, Ravinia announced that its Board of Trustees has named the highly regarded Alsop to the new position of Chief Conductor and Curator of Ravina Fesival beginning with the 2020 season.

Continue reading “Ravinia Festival creates a chief conductor and curator position helmed by Marin Alsop”

Ravinia tickets to Train concert available in January

Ravinia Festival Gate at the Metra train stop, (Photo by J Jacobs)

If you want to see Train, that multiple Grammy award band at Ravinia this summer, be ready to grab your tickets in the next couple of weeks.

The calendar says January but Ravinia Festival in Highland Park has already scheduled Train, a big summer draw, for Aug. 21-22. However, tickets to the sure-to-sell-out concert are going on sale to Ravinia donors at the Patron level and above beginning Jan. 17, 2020 and to the public Jan. 24. The place to go for tickets is Ravinia.org.

Featuring frontman Patrick Monahan, guitarist Luis Maldonado, bassist/singer Hector Maldonado, keyboardist/guitarist Jerry Becker, drummer Matt Musty, and backup singers Sakai Smith and Nikita Houston, Train has quickly sold out in the past.

Among their hit singles are “Calling All Angels,” “Get to Me,” “Ordinary” from Spider-Man 2, “Meet Virginia,” “Drops of Jupiter,” and “Hey, Soul Sister.”

The complete Ravinia season will be announced on March 12 but if you go to the Ravina site now look for winter concerts in Bennett Hall. “Coming to America: Songs of American Immigrants” will be in Bennett on Jan. 25.

Jodie Jacobs

Holiday Happenings Part Three

Skating is fun at the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink where you move to music, grab a hot chocolate and skate against a backdrop of the Chicago skyline. (City of Chicago photo) — Skating is fun at the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink where you move to music, grab a hot chocolate and skate against a backdrop of the
Chicago skyline. (City of Chicago photo)

Around Chicago it’s that time of year to see such holiday shows as those listed in Holiday Happenings Part One and walk paths of twinkling, colored lights highlighted in Part Two.

Holiday Happening Part III brings you places for fun holiday shopping, ice skating and traditional events. Continue reading “Holiday Happenings Part Three”

A spectacular evening at Ravinia

The annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular fills the lawn at Ravinia Festival. (J Jacobs photo)

Tchaikovsky, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Itzhak Perlman brought friends and families out to Ravinia Festival Sunday. After storming in the morning, the weather was cooperating for Ravinia’s annual “Tchaikovsky Spectacular” in early evening.

Blanket carrying, luggage-rolling, chair-toting, concert goers kept pouring through the park’s gates even past the early 5 p.m. program start.

Each year, the popular concert fills the lawn with music lovers who know that the final notes of the “1812 Overture” are also an appropriate cannon send-off to a Chicago Symphony Orchestra that is at Orchestra Hall downtown during the winter but plays at Ravinia in Highland Park in summer.

Heads, nodded and even feet seemed to join in from the blankets and chairs behind the Pavilion and across the lawn as Perlman expertly conducted Tchaikovsky’s familiar Symphony No. 4.

Regular Ravinia goer Patsy Haase, Arlington Heights, chats with daughter Julie Haase and Sydney Burks, MO berore the program begins and the lawn starts to fill. (J Jacobs photo) — Regular Ravinia goer Patsy Haase, Arlington Heights, chats with daughter Julie Haase and Sydney Burks, MO before the program begins and the lawn starts to fill. (J Jacobs photo)

After intermission, the 2017 Credit Swisse Young Artist Award winner, cellist Kian Soltani, a Deutsche Grammophon recording artist, wowed listeners with his deft handling of “Variations on a rococo theme for cello and orchestra and its virtuosic coda.

For the “1812” some lawn sitters with youngsters on shoulders, strolled over to the space on the northeast side of the Pavilion to watch the cannon shots.

Ravinia Festival was living up to its name. A festival mood had spread across the park as youngsters skipped around blankets and many picnickers, reluctant to leave on this balmy concert night, continued sipping, eating and chatting.

Frequent Revinia goers, Donna and Dan Berman, Deerfield, know to get to popular concerts early. and Dan knows to bring a hat because the sun changes. (J Jacobs photo)

They had come well-supplied with wine bottles, dishes to share and other stuff.

Although this was the first time Sidney Burks and Julie Haase from Southern Missouri had been to Ravinia, they were visiting Julie’s folks, Patsy and Roger Haase, regular Ravinia goers from Arlington Heights. What was important to bring?

“A light,” said Patsy, pointing to a very attractive decorated glass container sitting by their table that would be good for concerts continuing after dark. “This way we can find our way back to our table,” she said.

Dan and Donna Berman who lived a lot closer in Deerfield, had already seen several concerts and had more planned on their calendar including the Michael Feinstein program.

Why come?

“I love Ravinia,” said Dan. “I love music.” He added. “Not necessarily in that order.”

“We come every year for the ‘1812,’” said Donna.

1812 overture blast (Photo by Ravinia Festival/Kyle Dunleavy)

To see the schedule for remaining Ravinia concerts visit Ravinia Festival/calendar.

Jodie Jacobs