Music
For those seeking adventure away from cookie-cutter arena rock, Phish still fit the bill.
Pianist Bertrand Chamayou demonstrates just how mercurial and influential Ravel could be; composer-pianist Stephen Hough’s Piano Concerto casts a Ravel-like spell.
Allen Lowe is a saxophonist, composer, and historian of early jazz and roots music who doesn’t think he’s getting a fair shake from jazz’s gatekeepers.
The whole band demonstrated an expressive variety of mark-making, as visual artists like to say: lines and squiggles and blotches, graceful or rude.
Pianist Stewart Goodyear livens up a tried-and-true program with works new and unfamiliar; the husband-and-wife team of Lukas Geniušas and Anna Geniushene survey piano music written on these shores, starting in 1932.
The skillful Mark Elder leads a fine cast, including the superb Peruvian tenor Iván Ayón-Rivas.
Happily, these clean, bright Craft reissues make some invaluable music glisten.
This year’s Chicago Blues Festival provided plenty of hope for the blues.
Pianist Yeol Eum Son is more than up to the demands of J.S. Bach and Maurice Ravel; violinist Bomsori brings exquisite balances and shimmering sonority to Bruch and Korngold.
Cultural Commentary: Time for Arts Groups, Large and Small, to Display Some Bona Fide Irreverence
The question before arts organizations and companies is the same one that looms over the rest of us: will they—can they—act before it’s too late?
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