Preview: 49th Annual Bach Week Festival Starts This Sunday
The 49th annual Bach Week Festival will feature a series of concerts running three weeks in Chicago and Evanston starting this Sunday, April 24. Last year’s festival was my first […]
Review: Herbert and Yang Deliver in Night 2 of Beethoven Cello Sonatas
It’s always a great sign when I exit a concert mumbling “wonderful,” but that’s what I was saying Wednesday night after cellist Oliver Herbert and Pianist Xiaohui Yang finished their […]
Review: Music of the Baroque’s Easter Oratorio Program Shines with a Few Bumps
The Music of the Baroque concert this week at the Harris Theater, with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Easter Oratorio as its featured piece, was excellent—I’ve never seen the ensemble give a […]
Review/Preview: Guarneri Hall’s Warm Sound Enhances Night 1 of Beethoven Cello Sonatas
Cellist Oliver Herbert and Pianist Xiaohui Yang offered lively and engrossing performances of two of Ludwig van Beethoven’s sonatas for cello and piano last night at Guarneri Hall. It was […]
Review: Spektral Quartet’s Enigma at Adler Planetarium Was So-So
To this music aficionado, few things are more disappointing than going to a performance, expecting to be blown away, wanting to be blown away–but ending up walking away and thinking, […]
Review: Violin Superstar Hilary Hahn Headlines a Lovely Night of Chamber Music
Violin superstar and Chicago Symphony Orchestra artist-in-residence Hilary Hahn headlined a thoughtful chamber music performance at Symphony Center on Friday night. Ably accompanied by Seth Parker Woods on cello and […]
Review: Soprano Soloist Lets Her Coloratura Burst at Music of the Baroque
Watching the audience’s effusive response to soprano Amanda Forsythe’s blazing coloratura at the end of Music of the Baroque’s Classical Heroines concert Monday at Chicago’s Harris Theater, it is easy […]
Review: The Bernard Rands Effect Was Highly Effective
To celebrate the 88th birthday of distinguished Chicago composer and Pulitzer Prize winner Bernard Rands, the Spektral Quartet performed nine world premieres at Constellation on Pi day, Monday night, 3/14. […]
Review: Love Hurts So Good in Lyric’s Tosca
The voices! Soprano Michelle Bradley, making her Lyric Opera of Chicago debut in the title role of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, and tenor Russell Thomas as her doomed lover Cavaradossi filled […]
Review: Homecoming for South Side’s Anthony McGill Gives Special Impact to Music of the Baroque’s Mozart Concert
When a performer’s name is in the title of a symphony’s concert, it is not surprising that their performance ends up as the evening’s most memorable highlight. That was certainly […]
Review: Quatuor Diotima Performs Bartok and Beethoven With Passion, Intensity
The French string quartet Quatuor Diotima offered a vivacious performance on Friday night at Mandel Hall in Hyde Park. An ensemble-in-residence at University of Chicago, this was Diotima’s Chicago premier; […]
Review: “The Chevalier” Staged Concert Shines a Light on an Unfairly Forgotten Black Genius
Joseph Bologne was a singular figure in the annals of music. Born in 1745 to a French plantation owner and a slave mother on the Caribbean island colony of Guadeloupe […]