Results tagged “classicalmusic”

The Grant Park Music Festival's 75th season gets started tomorrow evening at 6:30 p.m. at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. The anniversary celebration kicks off with concerts on Wednesday and Friday at the Pritzker Pavilion and on Saturday in the Harris Theater.

Taking nothing away from established powerhouses such as the CSO and the Lyric Opera, some of the city's best classical music performances take place off the beaten path. This Saturday, one of those places will be Wicker Park's Heaven Gallery, as Fifth House Ensemble performs a concert of American music, including works by a trio of young Chicagoans.

Cindy Pritzker Auditorium, Harold Washington Center, 400 S. State St., December 10, 6 p.m., Free

220 S. Michigan Ave., Symphony Center, tonight, 8:00 p.m., pre-concert conversation from 7 – 7:30 in the Grainger Ballroom, Young Frankenstein screens at 10:00 p.m.

Chicagoist has had a bit of a love affair with Pritzker Pavilion this summer, but that’s mostly because the Millenium Park events calendar has been stuffed with so many fabulous free events this outdoor season.

Remember Rachel Barton Pine? In 1995, the doors of a Metra Train closed on the strap of the case holding the musician’s 400-year-old Amati violin, pinning Pine’s arm to the side of the train. She was dragged over 300 feet, then pulled underneath the train, which severed one of her legs and severely mangled the other.

Northwestern University has decided to discontinue its Jazz Studies undergraduate major for next year after closing the search for a new director. The jazz department had been searching for a new leader since the departure of its director, Don Owens, in 2005. Jazz studies enrollment has been around 12-14 students in the last couple of years with only two freshman entering the program this year and no prospective students passing the auditions for next year's class. The previously enrolled students will be able to complete their degrees and the Music Department will continue to carry a jazz minor and operate the jazz band.

The Trib’s Blair Kamen looks behind the facades. Specifically, those salvaged historic facades slapped onto newer buildings in and around the city core. Sadly, it might be the best compromise available to preservationists in a development-hungry city. The accompanying slide show reveals some smart, respectful conversions at the Reliance Building, Hotel Burnham, and the Oriental Theater. WBEZ’s Secret Radio Project will be renamed :Vocalo. Yes, the colon is included, likely as unpronouncable as India.Arie’s dot....

We’re resigned to the fact that cell phones have become ubiquitous at whatever entertainment venue we visit. We begrudgingly accept that someone is text messaging during a movie, so long as they’re not actually talking. If someone wants to play Galaga on their Treo during a laborious set piece in the middle of Act 2, then fine. Just dim the screen and mute it. But we always thought the symphony was sacrosanct. Apparently, that garrison has fallen.

If you work or live downtown and your Tuesday just can’t end soon enough, drop by St. James Cathedral tonight, or any Tuesday summer evening, for a free hour of munchies and classical music. Chicago is a fine destination for frugal music lovers. We’re crushing on the Grant Park Music Festival, the last free classical music fest in the nation. Ravinia offers students with ID (and occasionally graduates with newish looking IDs) free lawn seats...

What do you get when one of the world’s most celebrated cellists and one of the world’s most entertaining city governments join forces? Answer: a year-long celebration driven by a truly remarkable cultural exchange. Named for a network of routes from Rome to Japan traversed by explorers for over a millennium, Silk Road Chicago is our hometown showcase of art, music, theater, dance, and delectable dishes from half a world away. As anxiety persists over...

Five months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, the future of New Orleans remains mired in doubt and bureaucracy. When the mainstream media shelves substantive debate over the city’s rebuilding to decipher Mayor Nagin’s “Chocolate City” speech, the art world picks up the slack. Two local exhibits and a new play examine The Big Easy, the city and the idea.

Despite the swirl of scandals that threaten to envelop Mayor Daley, one bulletproof accomplishment cited by his defenders is the revitalization of Chicago’s downtown area. Over the past week, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times have examined the changes in the Loop and beyond.

Though the summer’s not quite over yet, yesterday’s Chicago Tribune took a look at what’s next for Chicago’s newest music venues.

With the summer’s biggest music festival upon us, we can expect a huge influx of out-of-towners this weekend. As a public service to any visitors consulting this humble site, Chicagoist is happy to present a brief guide to exploring the city’s cultural attractions when you’re not gawking at rock stars in Grant Park. Since most of y’all will be staying downtown, we’ll keep you within a decent walk or cheap cab ride of the Loop.

While we’ll miss the full Cloud Gate experience this summer, we can still look forward to spending nights inside the nearby Pritzker Pavilion cage. The Pritzker provides that upscale picnic feel without the commute to Ravinia. And once again, it will be the home of the Grant Park Music Festival, the country’s only remaining free classical music fest. This is its second year in Millennium Park, which seems confusing until you remember that such concerns don’t stop Maxwell Street Polish from going wherever they want.

It's been a while since since our last call for contributors and Chicagoist is getting antsy to ramp up staff and improve the site even more. Areas that we really want to concentrate on are Interviews, Food and Drink, and Arts and Entertainment. Specific positions are listed below. If you're interested in any of them, meet the qualifications, and would like to join the Chicagoist team, email chicagoistapply(at)gmail(dot)com with the position in the subject line. In the email let us know a bit about yourself and why you'd like to join us.

Adding fuel to the theory that The Arts Are Dying in the U.S. (literature, classical music, theater, cinema, etc.) is today’s news from Crain’s Chicago Business that attendance at Chicago’s top 10 museums in 2004 declined for the fourth year in a row.

Rachel Barton Pine is a violinist on a mission spread classical music. And she's doing it by going on rock stations and playing heavy metal songs on her Guarneri violin.

Hear that? That�s the sound of Chicagoist rubbing its last two nickels together, plus the background tunes of the smallest violins in the world serenading us with phrases like, �Maybe if you didn�t spend all your money on alcohol and sneakers, you could afford not to eat rice every day.� That�s one of our favorite ditties. But August is the month of no fucking fun, and it�s been so chilly that we had to invest in some fall wardrobe items, which were of course not yet on sale. Damn you, preppy looks of the fall! Damn you!