Free Chamber Music Tonight, Starring You
By Alexander Hough in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 8, 2010 7:00PM
In the lobby following a recent Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert, I ran into a couple intrepid friends who attended the show despite being entirely unfamiliar with classical music. Their opinion of the performance was cautious and mixed; they wished there was some sort of church crying room where they could've taken in the concert, had a few drinks, and asked me questions about what was happening on stage. The CSO is fantastic, both as an ensemble and as a night-on-the-town outing, and everyone should check them out at least once, but they had a point: The classical music concert-going experience is staid and not without an air of exclusivity. It's no mystery why the genre is seen as inaccessible.
Classical Revolution, a chamber music group performing for free tonight at the Gallery Cabaret, seeks to demystify the classical music experience. The Chicago chapter, which is a little over a year old, was the sixth to be established, after San Francisco (where it was founded), New York, Philadelphia, Portland, and Reno (!), and there are now CR operations in fourteen cities in the U.S. and Europe. The individual groups operate autonomously, but they share a mission: one, move music from the concert hall into more relaxed environments, and two, obliterate the barrier between performer and audience.
The first goal is relatively easy, and the solution - performing in a bar - is far more elegant than a crying room. Live classical music in more casual locations isn't a new thing here in Chicago, but the ethos of the welcoming, open-minded Gallery Cabaret jibes particularly well with CR's aims. The program itself is a great mix of old and new masterpieces, including Johannes Brahms's String Sextet No. 2, Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2, an arrangement of Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf," Olivier Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time," and two pieces by Carl Nielsen. There will also be a piece by the group's composer Scott Ostrander.
The second goal is more complicated, and CR breaks down the barrier in a uniquely direct way: finishing the show with a jam session among the group and any audience members who'd like to participate. Regardless of your skill level, bring your axe and some sheet music, if you have some (although CR will bring some, too), and you can read through it with other musicians. And don't be nervous: Breaking down the barrier means more than just playing music together. According to the Chicago chapter co-founder Allie Deaver-Petchenik, CR does this "to show that classical music is not this constantly pristine, high brow thing." Basically, there are more important aspects to music than perfection, and music-making is something anyone can (and should!) do. It's pretty democratic thinking about a genre too-often boarded up in its ivory tower.
Tonight at 9:00 p.m., Gallery Cabaret, 2020 N. Oakley, FREE