BOOKS
3C. FAY WELDON
She’s wickedly witty and wittily wicked–and, most recently, wildly controversial. When novelist Weldon was hired by Bulgari Jewelers to write a book featuring their products, purists howled and the Integrity Police approached with handcuffs. Weldon offers her side of the story.
–Julia Keller
7B. MICHAEL HOLROYD
One of the best biographers in the business revisits one of his biggest hits: a multivolume biography of George Bernard Shaw. Holroyd, whose most recent book is “Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography and Autobiography,” discusses the playwright’s longtime connection with composer Edward Elgar.
–J.K.
5E. NANCY MILFORD
Speaking of biographers, few have changed the genre more than Milford, author of “Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay.” Her first biography, “Zelda,” a life of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tempestuous wife, demonstrated that women’s lives, even when lived in the shadow of powerful men, matter.
–J.K.
10B. SIMON SCHAMA
The dapper academic, known as much for his riveting lectures on art history as for his impeccable scholarship, takes aim at television’s trivialization of history.
–J.K.
1B. CAROLYN HEILBRUN/AMANDA CROSS
Heilbrun’s detective series, featuring the fictional Kate Fansler, is a delight for literary mystery fans. English professor Fansler and her pals solve crimes while doling out witty and plentiful quotes from literary greats. She’s the most literate of all mystery writers in more ways than one.
— Sid Smith
3B. SUE GRAFTON: Q IS FOR QUARRY
Alphabet soup mystery author Grafton turns the arid, hard-nosed California private eye of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett into the most scintillating, trouble-plagued woman sleuth of our time. Kinsey Milhone, her heroine, is both a shrewd, brave detective and a pragmatic, no-nonsense observer of modern morals.
— S.S.
CLASSICAL MUSIC
C2 & C3. THE FROG PRINCESS
Deborah Henson-Conant’s musical fable, which uses clay-action video figures and paintings created by kids, will be performed by the Fulcrum Point New Music Project, conducted by Stephen Burns.
— John Von Rhein
C5. I HATE MUSIC! AND OTHER MUSICAL FABLES
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Songs by Leonard Bernstein, Irving Fine and John Alden Carpenter will be performed by pianist Howard Pollack and singers Joan Gibbons and Patryk Wroblewski.
— J.V.R.
7A. VIRGIL THOMSON PORTRAIT
Thomson was America’s most influential music critic during the 1940s and ’50s, using his position at the New York Herald Tribune, in part, to advance his own musical compositions. Thomson’s songs and solo piano pieces will be performed (as well as vocal works by composers Thomson championed), and some of his criticism will be read.
— J.V.R.
22F. MOZART AND MESSIAEN
We all know that birdsong was a major source of inspiration for the French composer Olivier Messiaen. But Mozart? Indiana University professor Meredith West will show us.
— J.V.R.
25C.ARS ANTIGUA
The stylish Chicago early-music ensemble will demonstrate how Baroque composers from Purcell to J.S. Bach put their distinctive spins on some of the era’s standard musical forms.
— J.V.R.
ART
11B. FRANCINE PROSE: BRAINS & BEAUTY & THE MUSE
The prolific essayist discusses her new book that looks at nine women — including Lee Miller, Alice Liddell and Gala Dali — who inspired artists.
— Alan G. Artner
16A. ART ROUNDTABLE: WHAT IS BEAUTY?
James N. Wood, director of the Art Institute of Chicago, moderates a nine-member panel of artists, art historians, curators and critics including Richard Hunt, Ed Paschke and Simon Schama.
— A.G.A.
17B. ROBERT ROSENBLUM: ON A NEOCLASSIC PAINTING BY PICASSO
The prominent American curator and critic discusses a single small work by the Spanish master that recast ideals of classical beauty.
— A.G.A.
5C. MARY ANN CAWS: CONVULSIVE
BEAUTY — SURREALIST LOVE POEMS
The gifted translator and scholar discusses the surrealist aesthetic as illustrated by several texts that receive dramatic readings.
— A.G.A.
13D. ALEXANDER NEHAMAS: BEAUTY KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES
The Princeton philosopher explores ways of judging beauty and morality in high art as opposed to popular entertainment.
–A.G.A.
THEATER
8A. DAVID HENRY HWANG: A SECOND FLOWERING
“Flower Drum Song” is back on Broadway, with a wholly reconcieved libretto by David Henry Hwang — best known for “M. Butterfly” — who also is the co-writer on Disney’s “Aida.” He should have a few things to say about how to teach a 1958 score tricks for the new millenium.
— Michael Phillips
23A. RODGERS & HART: WITH A SONG IN MY HEART
Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote the hardy musicals — “Oklahoma!” and such — but Rodgers & Hart wrote songs many of us prefer: “Isn’t It Romantic?”, “Manhattan,” “Mountain Greenery,” “I Could Write a Book.” Historian Robert Kimball and writer Barry Day handle the biographical niceties. Songs will be performed by Steve Ross and Klea Blackhurst.
— M.P.
JAZZ
25D. MARCUS ROBERTS: FROM RAGS TO RHYTHM
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Roberts, an erudite and versatile pianist, offers a rare performance of his suite, “From Rags to Rhythm.” Conceived as a vast, uninterrupted work for jazz trio, “From Rags to Rhythm” explores the evolution of particular rhythms that long have been central to American music.
23A. RODGERS & HART: WITH A SONG IN MY HEART
To mark the centenary of composer Richard Rodgers, theater-music historian Robert Kimball and writer Barry Day discuss the indelible songs that Rodgers wrote with Lorenz Hart. To underscore the point, singers Steve Ross and Klea Blackhurst perform some of Rodgers and Hart’s most enduring works.
— H.R.
23C. A TIME FOR FABLES, A TIME FOR DANCING
The brilliant young Chicago trumpeter-composer David Young leads the world premiere of an original musical. “A Time for Fables, A Time for Dancing” uses a jazz-based idiom to trace the course of a boy’s journey into manhood.
— H.R.