WBEZ's Jim DeRogatis has been keeping tabs on the recent layoffs at the Department of Cultural Affairs as it prepares to consolidate with the Mayor's Office of Special Events and declares that Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lois Weisberg has been left with "a shell of a department, and raise questions about whether the city will able to present much-lauded events such as the World Music Festival, SummerDance, and Downtown Sound/New Music Mondays at the level they’ve been offered, if at all, in 2011 and beyond." more ›

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. more ›