Review: Forgotten Fields Is Best in Quiet Moments
I’m not a very competitive gamer. Most esports titles are fun to watch others play or play for laughs a few nights with a few friends, but for the most […]
Review: Music of the Baroque Offers Four Grand Concertos for Double Trouble
The Music of the Baroque orchestra saw its plans for a spectacular 50th anniversary season crushed by the pandemic. To stay in touch with a loyal audience that in better […]
Review: Brandi Carlile’s Virtual House Concert–Almost Like Being There
The concert by Brandi Carlile and her band at Huntington Bank Pavilion in June 2019 was the first that I covered for Third Coast Review. The atmosphere was electric […]
Music of the Baroque’s Live-Streamed The Four Seasons: A Thaw in Our Dark Winter
Music of the Baroque planned a huge 2020-21 season. A celebration of the ensemble’s 50th anniversary that was to run from September to May before live audiences. The season was to include the massive St. […]
Review: NU’s Virtual Opera Orfeo, Tie-Dyed-in-the-Wool Creativity
A young student approaches Northwestern University’s arts center at the beginning of Orfeo Remote, a thoroughly modernized, virtual interpretation of the historic Claudio Monteverdi opera L’Orfeo. Finding the doors locked […]
2020 in Review: What We Liked in Music
Much like everything else in 2020, music was a little weird. Amazing albums came out bereft of the typical touring cycle and songs got lost under the weight of COVID […]
The Foons’ New Single “Shapes” Delivers Gripping Synth Heavy Sounds
A long time ago (last year) in a galaxy far, far, away (Ukrainian Village), I saw the Foons perform the opening set at the Empty Bottle. It feels like a […]
Review: Karim Sulayman Sang Beautifully in Chicago Artists Workshop Performance
Chicago’s four-time Grammy Award-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird unveiled their Chicago Artist Workshop virtual concerts on Tuesday evening with Rebuilding/Crossing Bridges, a concert that featured a performance by another Grammy Award […]
Chicago’s Slow Pulp Takes You to the ‘Moveys’ on Their Long-Awaited Debut
The buzz on Slow Pulp reached me via friends before their traditional publicity push, and the snippets I heard excited me, but none of that could have prepared me for […]
Review: Third Coast Percussion Premiers Two New Works
As part of Bowling Green State University’s 41st annual New Music Festival, Chicago’s Grammy-Award winning Third Coast Percussion quartet offered a performance of several works commissioned by or written for […]
Kurt Elling’s 25th Anniversary Virtual Tour: Steppin’ Out While Stayin’ In
If all was right with the world, jazz vocalist Kurt Elling would be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Close Your Eyes — his first album on the Blue Note label — before […]
Miranda Winters of Melkbelly Steps Into the Spotlight on Her Latest Single
Melkbelly, the somewhat genre-less and thrilling Chicago-based band that Miranda Winters sings and plays guitar with, is truly a monster of the local scene (in all the good ways). So […]