CHICAGO—So far, Eighth Blackbird’s attempts at live-streaming a virtual concert series from their production house in Horner Park have not gone well. The series—called Chicago Artists Workshop, or CAW for short (get it? CAW? Like a bird?)—was set to open Oct. 20 with the ensemble’s Grammy Award-winning co-founders Lisa Kaplan and Matthew Duvall accompanying tenor Karim Sulayman in a rangy program…

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Love was in the air at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts Friday, which had big pink hearts projected onto the Illinois Symphony’s white bandshell set onstage. Indeed, many couples braved frigid temperatures and icy roads for this Valentine’s Day engagement called Love Notes, with the ISO offering a smattering of compositions from the Romantic period….

BLOOMINGTON, IL–As Maestro Ken Lam announced what he called the “main dish” of a three-course musical meal Saturday at Bloomington’s Second Presbyterian Church, musicians adjusted their chairs to make way for their colleagues near Lam’s podium. As the evening’s soloists, Illinois Symphony Orchestra (ISO) concertmaster Roy Meyer and principal viola Nicholas Jeffery took their places at the front of a…

CHICAGO — William Howard Schuman wrote Le fosse Ardeatine in 1968. Schuman, an American composer, created his 9th symphony (of 10) to commemorate the March 24, 1944 mass murder of 335 Italians by German troops at the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome. Opening a Feb. 21-23 program at Symphony Center, this weekend’s performances of Schuman’s Symphony no. 9 are the first by the Chicago Symphony…

CHICAGO — A summery breeze swirled through the Jay Priztker Pavilion Thursday evening, tempering an unseasonably warm day in Chicago and part of a picture-perfect evening in Millennium Park. Joining me were more than 10,000 Chicagoans, gathered for the season openers of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the CSO’s professional training orchestra which celebrates…

During a five week study abroad program in collaboration with the University of Illinois at Chicago and University College Dublin, during the summer of 2015, I had the pleasure of working with two undergraduate students on a qualitative research project related to sports psychology and dance. What we found were more similarities than differences, and a welcoming, inquisitive, innovative dance…

Last night the Auditorium Theatre was teeming with opulence and excitement, in addition to Chicago celebrities John Mahoney, Patti LuPone, and Mayor Rahm too. The fancies all gathered to celebrate The Aud’s 125th birthday in the grandest of style, paying homage to the gala opening on Dec 9th, 1889. Orchestral and rock music, opera and broadway, plus representatives from Auditorium’s…

Shortly after his excellent collaboration with Kristina Isabelle in The Floating City last year, composer Christopher Preissing did not take any time to rest. Four antique maps inspired his suite for solo piano called The Four Attic Windows. Preissing was set to launch the new work and accompanying dance created by choreographer Enid Smith a few weeks later, when a serious accident involving pianist David Kalhous…

Can classical music and hip hop dance truly be friends? I don’t know… …but the Chicago Sinfonietta had the guts to try it in its opening performance for the 2013-14 season at Symphony Center Saturday night. The first half of the evening was a fascinating salad of Swan Lake, Hip Hop Dance, symphonic Americana, and Aram Khachaturian. I’ve seen something…