The Grant Park Music Festival kicks off its 76th season tomorrow night with a one-night-only program featuring works by Hector Berlioz, Antonio Vivaldi, and Ottorino Respighi, followed this weekend by concerts of religious music by Joseph Haydn, Paul Hindemith, and Ludwig van Beethoven. more ›

We're feeling chipper this morning. Maybe it's the way the sun now stays up until almost 5:30 p.m., or maybe we've just started hallucinating to subconsciously cope with seasonal affective disorder, but gosh darn it if it doesn't feel like spring's right around the corner! more ›

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. more ›

We'll go out on a limb and declare that the best sound system in Chicago is on the lawn at the Pritzker Pavillion in Millennium Park. You can be all the way in back and it still sounds as if you're sitting in the middle of the Grant Park Orchestra. So what's even better than that? Pairing it with a movie. Next Wednesday the Orchestra will perform special guest Nitin Sawhney's original score alongside the 1929 silent film A Throw of the Dice. As Ignatius Vishnevetsky of CINE-FILE Chicago points out, "The silent film score is one the most abstract forms of film criticism. In its finest incarnations, the composer becomes a tour guide, using the music to point out what he or she sees within the images. Accompaniment is commentary. Composer Nitin Sawhney wants us to see the opulence of Franz Osten's A Throw of the Dice, which he's compared to the films of Cecil B. DeMille and Charlie Chaplin." Adapted from an episode in the Mahabharata, this opulent fantasy about two gamblers vying for the love of a peasant girl was shot in India by a German director and an Indian producer. It's going to look and sound gorgeous. more ›

Last night's Decemberists show at Millennium Park was the last stop on the band's mini-tour playing with symphonies around the country. The free concert, curated by Metro, had the highest attendance volume of any free show we've ever seen at the park, and although we're bad with guessing crowd sizes, we'd venture to say there were upwards of 10,000 people in and around the amphitheater trying to at least hear a glimpse of sound. And... more ›

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,... more ›

It's official - Ray Davies (Kinks) will be back to entertain the masses on the 4th of July during the Taste of Chicago. The others on the bill at the Petrillo Music Shell for Tuesday are Mike Doughty and My Morning Jacket. Still to be announced are the acts for July 6th and 8th, but we do know that if we brave the crowds we will get to see the following: June 30th - Chaka... more ›

As always, there's a shitload of things to do this weekend. Go out have fun and don't forget to pick up some packs of sparklers. Even if you don't use them this year, it may be the last year you can get them legally... and you never know when a little sparkler action's gonna be needed. Stock up now. So here we go - more ›

Tomorrow night is Chicago's 47th Annual Venetian Night, the annual lakefront event that features a parade of decorated boats the sail along Lake Michigan. This year 35 boats are expected to participate and the theme is "Broadway on the Lake" so expect a lot of show tunes. more ›

Sunday cools things off a bit, but you can still catch a live taping of . Music events will continue throughout the day. Feeling ambitious? See all the weekend's events here. The weather is supposed to be nice, so slap on some sunscreen and head downtown. more ›