Preview: Bach Week Festival’s 50th Season Starts on Friday
Chicago’s Bach Week Festival kicks off its golden jubilee 50th season this Friday with a series of subscription and free concerts spread over three weeks in Evanston and north Chicago. […]
A lover of music his whole life, Louis Harris has written extensively from the early days of punk and alternative rock. More recently he has focused on classical music, especially chamber ensembles. He has reviewed concerts, festivals, and recordings and has interviewed composers and performers. He has paid special attention to Chicago’s rich and robust contemporary art music scene. He occasionally writes poetry and has a published novel to his credit, 32 Variations on a Theme by Basil II in the Key of Washington, DC. He now lives on the north side of Chicago, which he considers to be the greatest city in the country, if not the world. Member of the Music Critics Association of North America.
Preview: MusicNOW Ends the Season With Rachel Barton Pine and Jessie Montgomery Premiering Montgomery’s Musings for Two Violins
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s contemporary music program MusicNOW will be ending its season this Monday evening with In Context, a program that includes new works by the CSO Mead Composer-In-Residence […]
Review: Music Now’s Inspiring Voices Has a Contemporary Beat
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Music Now hosted Inspiring Voices, an enjoyable evening of contemporary chamber music at Symphony Center on Monday night. On the program were five works by three […]
Review: Dover Quartet Delivers Loveliness at Galvin Hall
The Dover Quartet gave a lovely concert at Galvin Hall in Evanston on Wednesday night. It was homecoming in a sense, as they are the quartet-in-residence of Northwestern University’s Bienen […]
Review: CSO Celebrates Rachmaninoff With Conductor Lahav Shani and Pianist Beatrice Rana Making Debuts
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra kicked off its weekend celebration of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s 150th birthday in a fantastic fashion at Symphony Center on Thursday night. In his CSO conducting debut, Lahav […]
Review: Horszowski Trio Wows at the Northwestern Winter Chamber Music Festival
Centered on the music of Robert Schumann, the Horszowski Trio gave a dynamite performance at the Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in Evanston on Friday night. Based in New York, this ensemble […]
Review: Chicago’s Cedille Records Keeps Putting Out Great Stuff
Cedille Records continues its mission to illuminate excellent Chicago musical voices on both sides of the musical portrait. Its recent releases highlight Chicago performers offering classical music chestnuts and new […]
Review: Brandon Goldberg Is Phenomenal in Chicago Jazz Orchestra’s A Musical Tribute to a Charlie Brown Christmas
The Chicago Jazz Orchestra gave this child of the sixties a wonderful chance to reminisce with A Musical Tribute to A Charlie Brown Christmas. They brought some nostalgia to the […]
Review: Amy Wurtz Goes Hybrid–In an Intimate Way
The joys of live music in an intimate setting! Composer/pianist Amy Wurtz hosted American Woman, a livestream, solo recital on YouTube featuring music composed by American women on Sunday night. […]
Review: Cuarteto Latinoamericano Plays a Wide Variety of Styles from South of Rio Bravo
Cuarteto Latinoamericano gave a lively performance at Nichols Concert Hall in Evanston on Saturday night. Part of the Music Institute of Chicago’s 2022-23 concert season, this ensemble from Mexico City […]
Review: Evren Ozel Wows with Refined Restraint
In listening to Evren Ozel’s excellent piano recital Wednesday afternoon, two words came to mind over and over: refined restraint. That is how this young artist approached each of the […]
Review: Grant Park Festival Closes with a Great Performance of Haydn’s The Creation
There are few pieces of music that satisfy me more thoroughly than Franz Josef Haydn’s oratorio, The Creation. Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus performed it for a rousing sendoff to […]