Results tagged “grantparkmusicfestival”

Even if you've never been to a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, you're familiar with the piece. At some point, and probably recently, you've heard the finale's "Ode to Joy" theme, the initial fragment from which Beethoven developed his last symphony. It's been used everywhere from the Olympics (performed at most Games since 1956, including as the temporary national anthem of the unified German teams of the 1950s and 1960s, the unified post-USSR team in 1992, and, for a half dozen years, of Rhodesia, until it became Zimbabwe in 1980); to church services (the hymn "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee"); to movies ("A Clockwork Orange," "Help!," and "Die Hard," to name a few). Parts of the rest of the symphony pop up in similarly varying locations; samples from the Scherzo appear as a stock sound in Microsoft XP and as introductory music in "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" (which itself is a tribute to the excerpt's use in "The Huntley-Brinkley Report").

         

Continuing the celebration of its 75th season, the Grant Park Music Festival has released Sounds of Chicago's Lakefront: A Celebration of the Grant Park Music Festival, a 219-page look back at the history of both the Festival and the downtown lakefront area. For a coffee table-ish book, there's plenty of food for your noodle. The first part of the book is a history of "Chicago's frontyard," from the 1850s, when outdoor concerts began in Lake Park (as it was known then), through the countless landfill and construction jobs that brought Grant Park and Millennium Park to the museum- and concert-filled expanse of today. The second and larger section is a decade-by-decade look at the Festival's development, major events, and guest artists, with quotations from musicians, concert-goers, city officials, and other local notables, as well as archival excerpts from newspapers and magazines.

The Grant Park Orchestra has performed for the City's Independence Eve celebration every year since the Petrillo Music Shell opened in 1978, a tradition that is changing this Friday when the 85th Army Band takes over the pre-fireworks concert. The GPO will instead perform a daytime concert on July 4 in the Pritzker Pavilion, an event the Grant Park Music Festival and Millennium Park are characterizing as a new tradition, indicating that this change is a permanent one.

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.

Now that City Council has banned smoking tobacco on Chicago stages, city actors and audiences will have to get used to that cool herbal cigarette smell. If you're Jonesing for the real thing, you’ll have to head out to suburban Next, Circle, and Northlight theaters. Architect David Fisher, of “Leonardo da Vinci Smart Bathroom” fame, is hoping city leaders will go to bat for his next idea: a skyscraper whose floors spin slowly and independently,...

Chicagoist had tomorrow marked on our calendar almost since the start of the Grant Park Music Festival season. That's when the Grant Park orchestra takes to the Pritzker Pavillon stage for a program of Brazilian and Portuguese music. Last week, the Reader's Peter Margasak reported over on his must-read blog that the featured performer, the Portugese fadista Cristina Branco, would be replaced by her more popular contemporary, the Mozambique-born Mariza (Nunes).

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...

Not to be outdone by Ravinia, the Grant Park Music Festival has released their 2006 summer schedule. Bringing a nice mix of classical standards, contemporary orchestral favorites, and pop goodness to Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion, the festival offers thrills comparable to their Highland Park cousins at much lower cost. The lawn and most pavilion seats are free. Make a reasonable donation to ensure that we cheapskates can continue to freeload, and the best seats are...

Saturday night’s your last chance to experience the free “high culture” of the Grant Park Music Festival and your best chance to wish WTTW a Happy 50th. When it comes to birthday bashes, these folks aren’t messing around. The emcess for the night are Joe “Fat Tony” Mantegna and Irma P. Hall who, for all their work supporting Hollywood’s biggest stars, have never actually worked together until now.

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.