George Freeman still swinging hard — at 91
Tony Bennett isn’t the only nonagenarian tearing it up on stage. On Friday evening, Chicago guitarist George Freeman will step into the spotlight at Winter’s Jazz Club to remind listeners...
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Riccardo Muti launches CSO’s season with the devastating ‘Babi Yar’
Between Sept. 29 and 30, 1941, German forces machine-gunned 33,771 Jews at Babi Yar, a ravine northwest of Kiev, in Ukraine, according to Nazi records. In subsequent months, thousands more...
CSO musicians, management extend contract
Though the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s three-year contract expired on Sunday, the music will continue when the CSO plays its annual “Concert for Chicago” Thursday evening at Millennium Park and launches...
Music of the Baroque review: Jane Glover leads an eloquent account of Mozart’s Requiem
Mozart’s Requiem Mass stands out in the repertoire, and not only because it was penned – at least in part – by the “supreme genius of music,” in the apt...
Profound truths in ‘Considering Matthew Shepard’ at Ravinia
Perhaps it was inevitable the Craig Hella Johnson would wait more than a decade before he could write “Considering Matthew Shepard,” a stunning response to a brutal hate crime. On...
Ernest Dawkins gears up for Englewood Jazz Festival
It’s easy for a musician to profess love and devotion to community, but few have turned such sentiments into action more passionately or consistently than Chicago saxophonist-bandleader Ernest Dawkins. A...
The power of ‘Considering Matthew Shepard,’ with local premiere at Ravinia
Composer-conductor Craig Hella Johnson remembers exactly where he was Oct. 7, 1998, when he learned that a gay student at the University of Wyoming had been beaten, tied to a...
Tony Bennett at Ravina review: At 92, he still surprises with emotional impact
What we heard and saw Saturday night at the Ravinia Festival wasn’t merely historic. For if 92-year-old Tony Bennett simply had made his way through roughly two dozen songs, he...
‘Stars of Lyric Opera’ a feast of song at Millennium Park
One sure sign the fall music season is upon us: The rush of melody that engulfed Millennium Park on Friday evening. Verdi and Puccini, Mozart and Saint-Saens all crafted indelible...
Mike Reed will unveil ‘The City Was Yellow’
Last year, the Orchestre National de Jazz in France invited drummer-impresario Mike Reed to compose a suite of pieces dedicated to Chicago, where he’s based. But Reed — founding director...