By Joseph Cunniff
Following is a look both forward and back to some of the best Chicagoland music and theater.
RAVINIA: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is back for their annual residency, and August highlights should include James Conlon leading the CSO and star soloists in Mozart’s operas “Don Giovanni” Aug. 11 and 13, and “La Clemenza di Tito” Aug. 12 and 14.
There will also be Stephen Sondheim programs Aug. 7 and 27. Visit RAVINIA.ORG.
GOODMAN THEATER scored a critical and audience success with the one-woman show “Where We Belong,” written by and starring Madline Sayet and directed by Mei Ann Teo. Goodman is gearing up for the new season beginning in the fall. Details in our next column.
AMERICAN BLUES THEATER hit a home run with a smashing performance of August Wilson’s “Fences,” directed by Monty Cole. There were fabulous performances, and nary a weak link in the cast of Kamal Angelo Bolden, Shanesia Davis, Ajax Dontavius, Martel Manning, William Anthony Sebastian Rose II, Riley Wells, and Manny Buckley. Congratulations!
GRANT PARK MUSIC FESTIVAL: One of Chicago’s grandest summer traditions, the festival runs every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday mid-June through mid-August.
Looking back since out last column, some of the highlights have included a Wednesday evening program when Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma and the orchestra brought to life the 1945 Violin Concerto by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Often based on 1930s movie scores that he composed, the performance showed his major influence on film composers of today as well as revealing him again as a composer who should be played more often.
Conductor David Danzmayr then led a forthright and impassioned reading of the Brahms Symphony No. 1.
With Principal Conductor Carlos Kalmar out for a few days with a mild case of Covid, Chorus Director Christopher Bell led the Grant Park Symphony Chorus, the Anima-Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus, and soloists in a performance of Benjamin Britten’s rarely played “Spring Symphony” that proved a highlight of the season to date.
“Cirque Goes to Hollywood” saw the circus performers of Troupe Vertigo join the orchestra, conducted by cross-genre expert Sarah Hicks. This writer loved hearing the films scores, especially those Lalo Schifrin (“Mission Impossible”), Ennio Morricone (“Cinema Paradiso”), and Leonard Bernstein (“On the Town”,) but, to express what I’m sure will be a minority opinion, I would much prefer to hear the orchestra play the music unaccompanied by patrons “woo-hooing” the circus acts.
“Lights On Broadway, with the sparkling work of soloists Capathia Jenkins Sam Simahk, and conductor Kimberly Grigsby, spotlighted shows that won the Pulitzer Prize for Music and Theater. Selections from Richard Rodgers’s “South Pacific,” Marvin Hamlisch’s “A Chorus Line,” and George Gerhwin’s “Of Thee I Sing” were among the highlights.
Los Angeles composer Billy Child was on-hand to take bows for his Violin Concerto No. 2, with violin virtuoso Rachel Barton Pine as the committed, energized soloist. Then conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya used clear gestures to lead a forceful Beethoven “Eroica” Symphony.
The festival made a strong case for the music of the unjustly overlooked French composer Louise Ferrenc with her Overture No. 1 (1834); star clarinetist Afendi Yusuf played a splendid Mozart Clarinet Concerto, and Dvorak’s melody-filled Symphony No. 8 received a strong performance in a concert led by young Jonathan Heyward.
Veteran conductor Markus Stenz, who has held important musical posts throughout the world, led a fine program including “Darker America” by the Dean of Afro-American Composers William Grant Still; a dreamy Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 with soloist Simon Trpceski; and an exciting Bartok “Concerto for Orchestra.”
The festival continues through August 20 on Wednesdays at 6:30 and Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30. Visit GPMF.ORG. In our next column we will have more notes on the festival along with my annual choices for Best of the Season.