Clef Notes Journal Autumn 2015 Digital Edition

Clef N tes Chicagoland Journal for the Arts

The

Guide

SPACE PLANNING The bold global vision of acclaimed architect David Adjaye on display at the Art Institute this fall

Your guide to the exciting new fine and performing arts season in Chicago!

Steppenwolf at 40!

A look into the culture of commitment and excellence behind Chicago’s iconic ensemble theater company as they celebrate their fourth decade

7 Autumn 2015

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ESSENTIAL FALL CULTURAL GALAS

HONORING THEIR ROOTS Stephen Petronio's new Dance Center production looks back to find the roots of the innovative choreographer's early inspirations

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Contents

Photo by Todd Rosenberg

Autumn 2015

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FEATURES

24 12 Seven Essential Fall Cultural Galas

From the glitz and glam of the Symphony Center's red carpet to the quirky fun of the Art Institute’s Snap Gala, we’ve got the 7 essential cultural galas lighting up the Windy City this fall.

16 Steppenwolf at 40!

A look at the culture of commitment and excellence that has propelled Chicago’s iconic Steppenwolf Theatre to its historic fourth decade, creating thought-provoking work with a world class ensemble of actors and directors that continue to call the seminal theater company home.

24 The Guide to the New Cultural Season in Chicago On the Cover: Hubbard Street Dancer Johnny McMillan in The Impossible by Hubbard Street Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo. Photo by Todd Rosenberg.

Above: Maestro Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on the Symphony Center stage.

The exciting new 2015-2016 performing arts season is here and so are we with our editors’ picks for “Best of the Best” concerts, productions and exhibitions in Chicago’s new fine arts season.

70 Why We Love Mammoths and Mastodons

Chicagoans just love mammoths and mastodons and, just in time for the final weeks the Field Museum exhibit devoted to the subject (back by popular demand), we examine the key reasons why we in the Windy City relate so well to the lovable Ice Age giants.

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I’ve often noticed that as much as people enjoy constancy, we also like change. Having an element of routine in our lives seems to really ground a lot of us. It gives us a sense of stability and normalcy. Yet, as much as we crave that stability, change is also a vital part of our lives. It brings newness, sharpens our perspectives. It keeps us honest, if you will.

But perhaps even more than change, it's renewal that revives our emotional senses.

Change is simply something different. But renewal signifies rebirth, which signifies growth. And nothing stimulates human beings like real growth.

The new arts and culture season in Chicago is always about renewal. Creative minds naturally look to grow and move beyond what they’ve explored before, not just for the sake of the difference, but to build upon what they’ve already learned. The new season of fine arts in Chicago is rife with growth and new learning. And our Autumn 2015 Issue focuses squarely on that concept.

Fred Cummings had an opportunity this summer to sit down with singer Kat Edmonson. Edmonson is making her Chicago debut at City Winery this fall and is a perfect example of the creative mind that, as young as she is, is always probing for more in her art and her experiences. Our interview with her exposes more than just a young artist looking to build her career, but an artistic mind chomping at the bit to launch into the next phase of creative exploration.

Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre is finding its own renewal in looking back this season, celebrating 40 years of phenomenal growth as an iconic ensemble based theater company. Some of those ensemble members are returning this season writing, directing and on stage in a year packed with powerful works that look both back and forward, in a sense, to the growth the company has seen and what it can achieve in the next 40 years. Leslie Price’s feature on the milestone season paints a wonderful picture of the scope of the theater’s growth and the inherent culture of commitment and excellence that has led to its development.

Star choreographer Stephen Petronio knows a thing or three about looking back. He's set a production on his company that pairs his own bold original works with iconic dances of masters that have influenced him from the very start. Our preview of the performance sheds light on the newness the choreogAbove: The Steppenwolf Theatre marquee rapher found in works that have been in the standard dancing repertoire for decades.

And, of course, we’ve got our annual Guide to the new fine arts season in Chicagoland packed with our editors’ picks for the “Best of the Best” concerts, productions and exhibitions this new cultural year has in store. It will keep your calendar full all season long just trying to keep up with all of the incredible new programming that’s ahead for the city.

So while there’s still time, sit back, take it all in and get set for a host of change, newness and, yes, renewal on the horizon. Chicago’s new seasons are anything but routine.

Photo BY KYLE FLUBAKER

Photo by Kipling Swehla Photography

From the Publisher’s Desk

Sincerely,

Clef N tes Chicagoland Journal for the Arts Autumn 2015

Publisher D. Webb

Editorial Editor in Chief

Patrick M. Curran II

Associate Editors Fred Cummings Scott Elam Christopher Hopper

Editorial Support Rachel Cullen Vickie Moore

Staff Writers and Contributors Kathryn Bacasmot David Berner Alex Keown Laura Kinter Leslie Price Janet Arvia Jordan Reinwald Donna Robertson

Art & Design Art Director

Carl Benjamin Smith

Contributing Photographers Colin Lyons Lorenzo Gregorio

Graphics & Design Chelsea Davis Angela Chang

Social Media Manager Mary Henley

Advertising

Jason Montgomery Jason.Montgomery@ClefNotesJournal.com

D. Webb Publisher

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Subscriptions Clef Notes is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) each year. An annual subscription to the magazine may be purchased by mailing a check or money order for $18 to Clef Notes Publishing, Inc., 5815 N. Sheridan Road, Suite 1107, Chicago, IL 60660. Bulk rates are also available. Credit card purchases may be secured online at ClefNotesJournal.com or by calling 773.741.5502. © 2015 Clef Notes Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the USA.

Contents

Photo © Jeff Sauers, courtesy of Adjaye Associates

Autumn 2015

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DEPARTMENTS

10 Luminary: Q&A with Singer Kat Edmonson

With an innovative ear for iconic jazz standards, singer Kat Edmonson is taking the bull by the horn and paving her own path to stardom, and audiences are listening. Fred Cummings chats it up with the artist in advance of her fall appearance at Chicago’s City Winery.

22 Ripples in Time

The culture of ancient Greece has had a pervasive impact on the world today, and a new exhibition at the Field Museum this fall takes a revealing look at that culture through the most expansive collection of artifacts from around the globe.

62 Cultural Almanac Preview: Space Planning

The global world view of visionary architect David Adjaye is on full display in a stunning new Art Institute exhibition that examines the bold, innovative and artistic aesthetic of this acclaimed global planner.

74 Shall We Dance?: Honoring Their Roots Above: Francis A. Gregory Neighborhood Library Washington DC, 2012.

Audacious choreographer Stephen Petronio takes his company back to its roots in a historic program that positions his ground-breaking works with iconic dances that have inspired his own innovations from the very beginning.

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chatter room

Letters from our readers...

Photo by Todd Rosenberg

All-Cerrudo All the time!

Hubbard Street Dance Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo leading a rehearsal for the company's 2015 Summer Series.

I read your article on the AllCerrudo summer series of Hubbard Street Dance this summer.

It was interested to read the writer's (Jordan Reinwald) perspective as the Hubbard Street rehearsed.

As far as I am concerned, they could program all-Cerrudo programs every season. I love Alejandro Cerrudo's work and can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

His Chagall Windows piece (One Thousand Pieces) was an amazing companion piece to the Chagall installation at the Art Institute.

He breaks barriers every time with his innovative choreography.

Doris Nemec Chicago - Streeterville Photo by Diane Mentzer

Bacon Lovers

Just a brief note to thank you for your feature on Kevin Bacon and his brother Michael.

I am a big fan (at first of Kevin but now Michael too!). I read somewhere that Kevin had started a band, but I thought it was one of those Bruce Willis bored actor-turned-musician projects. After reading that this was a lifelong pursuit of both brothers and having listened to downloads of their albums online, I attended their show at (City Winery) in July and had the time of my life.

Kevin and Michael Bacon.

Thanks so much for the heads up! I love your magazine.

Maxine Vernon Chicago - Hyde Park It was a pleasure reading the cover story of your summer issue (Bacon Brothers). I picked up the magazine because my wife is a diehard fan of Kevin Bacon's Footloose days. I got us tickets to the sold out show he and Michael were doing in Chicago...The lengthy article was a nice intro to their musical career, which I must admit I knew nothing about previously. It was a great lead on a great concert...

C. Deeds Highland Park, IL Readers may submit letters to Feedback, Clef Notes Publishing, Inc. 5815 N. Sheridan Road, Suite 1107, Chicago, IL 60660 or via E-mail to Scuttlebutt@ClefNotesJournal.com.

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No portion of this publication may be reproduced without the express written consent of the publisher. Clef Notes Publishing makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of the magazine’s content.

However, we cannot be held responsible for any consequence arising from errors or omissions.

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Out and About

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n Monday, June 8, Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) celebrated the Bard’s vibrant legacy with their annual Gala 2015 at the theater’s home on Chicago’s Navy Pier. Three hundred and fifty of Chicago’s civic, corporate and cultural leaders attended the gala benefiting CST’s award-winning engagement programs including Team Shakespeare education initiatives and Chicago Shakespeare in the Parks. The evening’s highlight was the presentation of the fifth annual Spirit of Shakespeare Awards to this year’s Civic Honoree, Illinois Tool Works (ITW) and ITW Vice Chairman David Parry and his wife Ros Parry, and Artistic Honorees, Simon Callow and Phylicia Rashād.

The event raised $1.2 million for CST’s Shakespeare in Urban Communities initiatives.

Right: Chicago Shakespeare Creative Producer RIck Boynton,Spirit of Shakespeare Artistic Honoree Phylicia Rashad, CST Artistic Director Barbara Gaines, Executive Director Chris Henderson and Artistic Honoree Smon Callow (photo by Daniel Ribar).

Amanda Merten and her husband, CST Board Member Jess Merten (photo by Lauren Stenzel).

Falona Joy and Amina J. Dickerson (photo by Daniel Ribar).

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CST Board Member Eric Q Strictland and Deborah Liverett (photo by Lauren Stenzel).

Anna M. Livingston and Charlene K. Tomazin (photo by Daniel Ribar).

Photos by Robert F. Kusel

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his July, more than 425 guests celebrated the launch of the summer party season at the Summer Dinner Dance hosted by the Chicago Botanic Garden. The black-tie soiree commemorated the 125th anniversary of the Chicago Horticultural Society, which operates the Chicago Botanic Garden together with the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. Guests enjoyed cocktails and hors d’oeuvres served on the Rose Garden Terrace, followed by an intimate dinner dance in an elegant pavilion on the Esplanade.

The gala raised $500,000 to support the stunning living museum.

Andy and Amy Wells of Lake Forest

From Left: Katie Donovan, Chrissy Davis, Whitley Bouma Herbert, Melissa Goltra, Julie Gish all of Lake Forest.

From Left: Scott Gottman, Melissa Goltra, Nanette Jenkins of Lake Forest.

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Luminary

Kat Edmonson, singer/songwriter

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Texas native Kat Edmonson is not afraid to blaze her own trail. After her secondseason advance to multiple rounds of American Idol ended, the self-taught artist returned from Hollywood to Houston, rolled up her sleeves and got to work making the rounds at local clubs, building a following from the ground up until her 2009 self-released title Take To the Sky hit the top 20 on Billboard’s jazz charts. Soon movers like Lyle Lovett and shakers like Willie Nelson took fast notice, and she was playing gigs and recording albums with music’s biggest icons.

Only her second title, Way Down Low offered up an opportunity to record her own original material, doing so at the historic Avatar and Capitol Studios. A Boston Globe writer called the effort “one of the greatest vocal albums I’ve ever heard.”

Whether she’s innovatively re-imainging jazz standards or forging her own compositional growth, Edmonson’s verve and musical drive have created a path that is anything but worn. Her fresh approach to her art has left her with no compunction for letting grass grown under her feet. And anticipation has been brewing for some time over the growing arc of her exciting career. One thing’s certain: audiences will have a fantastic ride following it.

I had the pleasure of chatting with the artist and got her take on where she’s been and where she’s going: When did you first realize you had such a passion for the old jazz standards?

Well, I didn’t necessarily realize that until I went to the Elephant Room (in Austin, TX) one night and heard jazz musicians playing the songs that I had listened to my whole life. Before that, I never thought of them as old jazz standards as much as just good, old music.

Who were you biggest musical influences?

It was the actors in the movies (I watched growing up) that were also singing and dancing like Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Frank Sinatra.

With such a distinct affinity for the genre, did you feel any pressure finding your way through the American Idol system as you did, to shift your focus to more popular genres?

Don’t get me wrong, I like many genres of music, including more contempo-

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rary ones, but I feel the older style is what I sing the best. Having said that, yes, I was not totally in my element on American Idol.

Since American Idol you seem to have found your wings with three successful albums under your belt. How did you come to make the leap from performing to recording?

I knew eventually I would make a record—it seemed inevitable—I just didn’t know how. Much of my education came in the format of trial by fire.

One day, after finding someone to arrange songs for me and after finding a good band, I booked a studio and we went in and recorded them. It wasn’t as simple as that sounds, but it’s essentially what happened.

How did you come to work with Lyle Lovett?

Lyle’s girlfriend, April Kimble, heard me singing in a wine bar one night and introduced my music to him. Lyle liked my music and asked me to come sing with him one night in Austin. It went so well that he asked me to come on the road with him the following summer. He and April really mentored me through that year and the ones to follow.

What is it like working with him?

Working with Lyle is a complete honor. I’m still humbled by the opportunity to work with him.

With writing at the forefront now in your career, from where do you draw your inspiration?

Just in the last five or six years, with invites to such venues as Tanglewood and the New York Jazz Festival, your schedule must have taken quite a jolt. How have you adjusted...or have you?

I have adjusted now to traveling all the time. It has never been that difficult for me however, I do relish my time at home. Home is my favorite place.

What do you love to do most away from music?

Photo by Robert ASCROFT

I am still inspired by old standards, but I also love the pop music of the '50s through the '80s. Can’t really speak to much of the music after the ‘80s.

I love acting and writing (apart from songs). I’m ready to begin doing both now that I’ve established myself in the music business.

Tell me about The Big Picture? Will we hear songs from the album when you take the stage at City Winery this fall?

The Big Picture showcases my love of music from Henry Mancini, Sergio Leone, Brian Wilson, Ricky Nelson, Fleetwood Mac, Roy Orbison, Harry Nilsson, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, and Neal Hefti. Yes, you’ll hear most of the songs from the album at my show.

You can hear those songs when Kat takes the City Winery stage October 24th this fall.

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It's Gala Season!

From glitzy and glamorous to quirky and fun, this fall's cultural fundraisers offer a myriad of ways to support the arts while having a ball in the Windy City.

One thing about the launch of the new cultural calendar is the grand celebrations each new fall season brings. Make no mistake, there’s no gala like a cultural gala, and those looking to toast Chicago’s luminous artistic powers do so in grand style. With benefit season upon us, these seven essential cultural galas must to be on your radar this fall, if culture and society are your cup of tea.

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Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Symphony Ball

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT: This year’s Symphony Ball is just part of a larger CSO opening weekend celebration that stretches over two days of spectacular concerts, magnificent merriment and glamour galore.

Festivities kick off with redcarpet arrivals and a lavish preconcert reception for those in attendance. And prior to the concert, VIP patrons will view artifacts from the Rosenthal Archives in the new Chicago Symphony Orchestra: 125 Moments exhibition stationed around Symphony Center throughout the orchestra’s 125th anniversary season.

Following the reception, guests will hear Maestro Riccardo Muti lead the CSO in a special one-night-only Symphony Ball program featuring John Corigliano’s Campane di Ravello (commissioned and premiered by the CSO in 1987), Edward Elgar’s tone poem In the South (Alassio) — also premiered by the orchestra in 1904 and Ravel’s famous orchestration of Mussorgsky’s showpiece, Pictures from an Exhibition.

Immediately following the concert, gala ticket holders will make their way to the Palmer House Hilton for a black-tie celebration including cocktails and dinner, as well as dancing to the music of Maggie Speaks in the sleek Red Lacquer Room.

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DATE: 7 p.m., September 19, 2015 LOCATION: Chicago Symphony Center (220 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60604) TICKETS: Symphony Ball concert and preconcert reception range from $45 - $235/ Gala dinner packages, including Symphony Ball start at $1,250 per person CALL: 312-294-3185 EMAIL: SymphonyBall@cso.org.

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2 MCA Benefit Art Auction WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT: What better place in Chicago to attend a gala art auction than the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA)? Returning to the museum this fall is its highly popular Benefit Art Auction, the MCA’s most significant fundraising event.

Sponsored by Sotheby’s and featuring work by some of the most important internationally recognized contemporary artists working today (including Olafur Elaisson, Takashi Murakami, Sterling Ruby, and

Doris Salcedo), this annual benefit serves as the auction of all art auctions in the Windy City. Guests will be able to bid on specially

Clockwise from Top Left: (1) Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (photo by Todd Rosenberg), guests walk the red carpet at Chicago's Palmer House (photo by Robert Carl), guests enjoy a lavish gourmet dinner in Symphony Center's grand ballroom (photo by Todd Rosenberg); (2) The Museum of Contemporary Art (photo by Peter McCullough); (3) Contestant Dr. Jessica Hehmeyer and Giordano Dance dancer Zachary Heller (photo

by Phillip Thomas); (4) Guests of the Columbia Ball at the Museum of Science and Industry (photo

by J. B. Spector), guests dine in the tent on museum grounds (photo by Jeff Schear).

Giordano Dance Chicago’s Dancing With The Giordano Stars Benefit

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WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT: Every gala event has a dance, right? Not like this one. For the 10th year, Giordano Dance Chicago (GDC) will host its annual ballroom dance benefit, "Dancing With The Giordano Stars." Watch Windy City Live’s Ji Suk Yi emcee this popular ballroom competition patterned after the hit ABC series Dancing With The Stars, only here, watch GDC professional dancers and their partners from the who’s who from Chicago’s civic, social and business communities. The pairs vie for "Best Male Dancer" and "Best Female Dancer" honors before a panel of celebrity judges.

• DATE: 7:00 p.m., October 1, 2015 • LOCATION: Park West (322 W. Armitage Avenue) • TICKETS: Begin at $125 • CALL: 312.922.1332 • WEBSITE: GiordanoDance.org

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Museum of Science and Industry’st 35th Annual Columbian Ball

made work for the event by artists Nick Cave, Dzine (Carlos Rolón), Joyce Pensato and Kerry James Marshall.

This event welcomes 550 guests to the MCA and starts off with lavish cocktails inside. A robust silent auction will be on display while guests are invited to view more than 100 auction works. Guests will get a chance for a sneak peek before the live bidding begins. Then the action starts. Guests are escorted to the museum’s opulent sculpture garden to an ornate tent set up specially for a delectable gala dinner.

Following that dinner, a rousing live auction will begin. The esteemed Deputy Chairman of Sotheby's Europe Oliver Barker auctions off

more than 15 pieces of work from an impressive roster of art galleries in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, London and Paris. Capping off the evening, guests will make their way back into the museum to enjoy dessert and submit their final bids on the silent auction items. All proceeds support the MCA's renowned exhibitions and public programs, which offer compelling opportunities to explore, challenge, discuss and reflect on contemporary art and culture.

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DATE: 6:30 p.m., October 23, 2015 LOCATION: Museum of Contemporary Art (220 E. Chicago Avenue) TICKETS: Begin at $750 CALL: 312.397.4017 WEBSITE: MCA.org

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT: A grand celebration of the Museum of Science and Industry's past, present and future is afoot at the 35th Annual Columbian Ball this fall.

Guests will enjoy exclusive access to their favorite MSI exhibits, including an exploration of more than 40 robots from all over the world in their newest, Robot Revolution. They’ll also dine next to the famous Coal Mine, a 40-foot indoor tornado or one of the world’s largest model railroads. Bidding will ensue in a luxury live auction, emceed by television’s Bill Kurtis, followed by a memorable performance by a surprise musical guest. (The museum is quite mum on the who, so expect something quite special). The evening will end in dancing to the tunes of Maggie Speaks and revelry all around.

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DATE: 6 p.m., October 3, 2015 LOCATION: Museum of Science and Industry (5700 S. Lake Shore Drive) CALL: 773.684.1414 TICKETS: $750 each EMAIL: Sebrina.Williams@ MSIChicago.org Autumn2015CNCJA•13

It's Gala Season!

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Chicago Botanic Garden Annual Harvest Ball

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT: If you prefer tripping the light fantastic underneath the starry sky, the Guild of the Chicago Botanic Garden will turn its beautiful gardens along Chicago’s north shore into a sprawling, bucolic fantasy when it hosts its annual Harvest Ball this fall.

With 385 acres of public gardens, 26 distinct gardens, four natural areas and 80 acres of lakes, the Garden will make a singularly stunning location for an evening of dinner and dancing.

The black-tie garden party begins with a cocktail reception and silent auction at 6 p.m. followed by a dinner and live auction with guests vying for domestic and international travel packages.

The annual ball, attended by more than 400 of Chicago's civic leaders, has raised more than $2.9 million benefiting the Garden, and proceeds will aid the development of a brand new educational display garden this year.

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LOCATION: Botanic Garden Campus (1000 Lake Cook Rd, Glencoe, IL) DATE: September 19, 2015 TICKETS: $550 (table packages available) CALL: 847.835.6958 • WEBSITE: ChicagoBotanic.org EXPO Chicago’s Vernissage

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT: Is art collecting your passion? Then you’re not alone.

Chicago’s quotient of sophisticated art buyers has swelled since the launch of Expo Chicago, The International Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Arts. Four years ago it was a boon to the growing Chicago art community. Today its a mainstay and a lightning rod for global art dealers and collectors around the world, and a town crier for Chicago’s luminous arts community with Expo Art Week serving as a grand showcase for the city’s vibrant arts and culture scene.

A key component of the exposition: Vernissage, a lively and happening benefit for the Museum of Contemporary Art’s educational departments. It opens Expo Chicago each year, giving patrons a first look at the art from over 140 of the world’s leading galleries (representing 16 countries and 47 cit14•CNCJAAutumn2015

ies) participating in the fourth annual exposition.

A French term for art openings, Vernissage, or ‘varnishing day,’ evokes the electricity and excitement that surrounds the commencement of this major international art event—attracting more than 3,000 visitors to Chicago’s Navy pier.

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DATE: 6 p.m., September 17, 2015 LOCATION: Navy Pier, Chicago (600 East Grand Avenue, Chicago, IL) TICKETS: Begin at $100 CALL: 312.397.4010 WEBSITE: MCAChicago. org/vernissage

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Art Institute of Chicago Photography Department Snap Gala WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT: This isn’t your grandmother’s cultural gala. The Art Institute’s sixth biennial Snap Gala is a delightful photo-filled art benefit that positions guests with internationally renowned artists throughout the evening photographically as a one-of-a-kind cultural keepsake. A live auction of photographic commissions by internationally renowned artists Roe Ethridge, David Hartt, Dayanita Singh and Wolfgang Tillmans follows cocktails and photographs and a lavish dinner in the Institute’s Griffin Court.

Delectable desserts and afterdinner drinks top off this evening of lively art and fabulous photos.

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DATE: 6 p.m., October 7, 2015 LOCATION: The Art Institute of Chicago (111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL) TICKETS: Individual tickets begin at $500/Sponsor tables available starting at $7,000 CALL: (312) 857-7640 EMAIL: snapgala@artic.edu.

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From Top: (5) Guests attend the annual Harvest Ball at the Chicago Botanic Garden (photo by Robert Kusel); (6) attendees mingle at Expo Chicago's opening act, Vernissage, a benefit for the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (photo courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art); (7) guests take snapshots with artists at the Art Institute's annual Snap Gala (photo by Dan Merlo).

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Listen to more than 800 hours of personable, insightful, entertaining programs on the history of classical music, featuring entire weeks (5 hours of programs) devoted to specific composers (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler…), genres, cities, historical periods, and much more on this unparalleled subscription streaming website.

Visit exploringmusic.org to secure your membership for unlimited listening anytime, anywhere.

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exploringmusic.org Autumn2015CNCJA•15

LEGACY& Of

A look at the culture of commitment and excellence that has propelled Chicago’s iconic Steppenwolf Theatre to its historic fourth decade, creating thought-provoking works with a world class ensemble of actors and directors that continue to call

Commitment

Photo by Kyle Flubacker

the seminal theater company home.

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By LESLIE PRICE

she wasn't going to make me an ensemble member, she should stop working with me,” recalls Shapiro. “It was both banal and magical, which I think is very Steppenwolf.”

Alana Arenas was asked to join following her turn in The Bluest Eye OffBroadway. “When I came back, I received an email from Martha Lavey asking to meet with me. I have been notoriously slow on the technology uptake. I didn't respond to the email. Email was such a new thing to me.

I'd just gotten a personal computer...So Martha called me and reminded me she sent me an email.

I was very embarrassed that I forgot to email her back and then I was panic-stricken with trying to figure out what I could have possibly done in New York to get called into Martha's office! So we meet and she extends membership to me and I remember asking, what does being an ensemble member mean? What do you Photo Courtesy of Steppenwolf Theatre

Photo by Daniel Ribar

Photo by Sandro

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Theatregoers in Chicago have dozens of options for great plays, musicals and performance art, but amid the countless collectives in the Windy City, it’s rare that you find one that offers audiences an opportunity to experience all of that and more from a single powerhouse ensemble: Chicagoans have that in the legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

This year marks the 40th Anniversary of Steppenwolf. Founded in the mid-seventies by Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry, Steppenwolf has come quite a long way from its early days in the basement of a Unitarian church in Highland Park. In those early days, the actors were unknown and the only real limitations were budgetary.

Since that time, the budgets have increased substantially, as has the profile of the company itself. Steppenwolf cemented its place among the most innovative theater companies in America with ground-breaking productions of True West, Balm in Gilead, and the Tony Award-winning Grapes of Wrath. It moved from that 88-seat theater space in the basement of a north shore church to a 134-seat space at Jane Addams Hull House on north Broadway to its currently expanding digs on north Halsted Street in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. And though Steppenwolf's footprint has both literally and metaphorically grown, its dedication to creating innovative theater has remained constant.

“Steppenwolf has evolved in almost miraculous ways,” notes ensemble member (and Tony Award-winner) Frank Galati.

“Its survival is pretty astonishing, considering the size of the group and the distances between us as individuals.”

In fact, it is quite unusual in this country to have an acting ensemble working together on such a consistent basis.

Steppenwolf is, in fact, the oldest ensemble theater in the United States.

Considering its stature among American theaters, it's quite interesting how the invitation to join the ensemble felt both casual and weighty to some of their most wellknown members.

Frank Galati was asked to “pop up” to Gary Sinise's office where the invitation to join the ensemble was remarkably nonchalant.

For Anna Shapiro, it was fairly unexpected as few directors were in the ensemble, “but Tracy Letts told Martha (Lavey, former artistic director) if

Clockwise from Bottom Left: Steppenwolf Theatre marquee; Steppenwolf founding ensemble members (from left) Jeff Perry Terry Kinney and Gary Sinise); Steppenwolf ensemble members (1980); Steppenwolf artistic director, Anna Shapiro.

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have to do to get kicked out? But I think the stupidest thing I said in the meeting was, 'Man, I just made up my mind to move to New York,' to which Martha replied, 'Why don't you take this and see what happens.'”

What happened to Arenas and to many of the ensemble members is they developed continued passion for the work being done back here in Chicago. Many of Steppenwolf's most successful actors maintain a real passion for being part of the company despite the challenges of some fairly high profile careers. Most of the original members are still members—in name and in deed. It's not unusual for ensemble members to follow up a turn on Broadway or in a successful film with a production at Steppenwolf. In fact, the 40th Anniversary season is packed with artists who have a long-standing relationship with the company as well as artists who are at the beginnings of their stage careers.

“We as a community have to balance where we came from and where we’re going,” says newly-appointed artistic director Anna Shapiro. “We know that the most important thing is that we do our own work in our own back yard, and we do the work for the people of Chicago.”

This season marks not just a milestone year for Steppenwolf, but a

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significant change in artistic leadership as Shapiro takes over for Martha Lavey—Steppenwolf's artistic director for the past 20-years. Lavey is credited for much of Steppenwolf's success in recent years, having shepherded many ground-breaking plays from development to production.

“Really, the tenure of Martha Lavey has been—more than any other single factor—the reason for the flourishing, and flowering of Steppenwolf over the last 20 years,” reflects Galati. “We've doubled in size and in diversity.”

Although Lavey's tenure as artistic director has come to an end, she remains a member of the ensemble and is scheduled to appear in this season's Domesticated. While change in leadership is clearly a fact of life in live theater, some theatregoers may wonder whether Shapiro will be as invested in working in Chicago as Lavey was. Much has been made of Shapiro's talent for producing theater that transfers to Broadway and that piques the interest of high-profile, A-list actors. But Shapiro is unwavering in her commitment to great theater right here in the Windy City.

“The idea that your eyes are on Broadway is a funny idea to me,” She explains. “Broadway doesn’t have its eye on you....if anyone knows that

Clockwise from Bottom Left: Interior shot of Steppenwolf's Upstairs theater; ensemble member and former artistic director Martha Lavey; ensemble member Alana Arenaa; Tony-Award winning ensemble member Frank Galati.

Photo by Joel Moorman Photo Courtesy of Steppenwolf Theatre Photo by Juan Davila

Photo by Kyle Flubacker

you can’t crack that code, it’s us. You want to make the best theater you can make. (Chicago) is the most important place to us.”

Steppenwolf's investment in Chicago is not only evident in their continued growth in their Lincoln Park home, but in the way they trust their audiences will be open to such a wide variety of productions.

Few other companies foster such a volume of new work and regional premieres, and the 40th anniversary season is no exception. Featuring the world premieres of Frank Galati's adaptation of Steinbeck's East of Eden, the world-premiere of Tracy Letts' Mary Page Marlowe, and the Chicago premieres of Domesticated, The Flick, and Between Riverside and Crazy, audiences won't be disappointed in the power and diversity on Steppenwolf's stage this new season.

Says Shapiro, “What’s really important is that we get access to the plays and writers we want.

(Steppenwolf) is a place that is led by the interests and the original affections of a group of actors. But actors don’t exist alone. They need the avenues of expressions with directors and writers.”

Those directors and writers certainly come through with some incredibly strong work, knowing that Steppenwolf is the artistic home to artists who are willing and able to jump in and collaborate, willing to work as hard as they have to and willing to give as much as they get.

Arenas is certainly grateful for that give-and-take. “One of the things that has helped me most in the Steppenwolf environment is being trusted as an artist,” she says. “It is freeing to be trusted, it feels like an invitation to deeply explore, to daringly create and constantly pursue going farther.”

After 40 years of exploring, challenging, and creating some of the best theater in the country, Steppenwolf shows no signs of slowing down.

Enthuses Galati, “The company has never been in better shape. It's trembling with excitement on the next chapter of the theater's life.” And so are Chicago’s audiences.

Here's to 40 more years of excitement.

Autumn2015CNCJA•19

Around Town

C

hicago’s dance community will turn a page this season as celebrated choreographer Frank Chaves retires from the post of artistic director of River North Dance Chicago (RNDC). After 23 years at the helm of one of the city's most celebrated dance companies, Chaves will retire following a special fall engagement in Chicago, beginning a new chapter for RNDC. Renewed strategic direction and goals will focus RNDC as it looks to build upon the success that Chaves has long worked to create. In an effort to focus energies on its extensive search for a new artistic director and transition through its next phase of transformation, the company is condensing its 2015-2016 season to end following the upcoming October 3 engagement celebration as part of the Auditorium Theatre’s popular “Made In Chicago” dance series.

Photo by Cheryl Mann

What: RNDC Fall Engagement & Frank Chaves Celebration When: October 3, 2015 Where: Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University How: Visit RiverNorthChicago.com

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Pictured: River North Dance Chicago in Renatus.

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Curator's Corner

RIPPLES Time in

The culture of ancient Greece has had a pervasive impact on the world today, and a new exhibition at the Field Museum this fall takes a revealing look at that culture through the most expansive collection of artifacts from around the globe.

F

By ALEX KEOWN

or thousands of years the Greeks have cast a wide in- ramic vases featuring scenes from Greek mythology and daily life. fluence over the shaping of the modern world. Ripples But The Greeks—Agamemnon to Alexander the Great goes well of the culture’s impact on life as beyond perfunctory display of art from an anwe know it today are still quite cient culture. It not only tells a compelling story evident. The fingerprints of the anof an ancient people, but lays the pathway for cient Greeks can be found in our the development of the Western world. language, our art, our literature, our Visitors will get an up-close-and-personal theater, our philosophies, our archiview of Homer, the man widely considered tecture and, of course, our political the father of literature in Western civilization. system.

Homer authored two of ancient Greece’s best A rich sampling of that culknown tales, the epic poems, The Iliad, (which tural and historical impact will be the focus of chronicled the war between the Greeks and The Field Museum’s coming exhibition, The Trojans) and The Odyssey (which details Greeks—Agamemnon to Alexander the Great, Odysseus’ long voyage home from the set to open November 25. The exhibit draws Trojan War). They will be able to follow upon the collections of 21 museums throughthe adventures of the mythic Agamemnon, the out Greece to showcase more than 500 artifacts king of Mycenae, as he leads the united Greek spanning 5,000 years of Greek history and culforces against the Trojans. Additionally visitors ture. Museum attendees will begin their immerwill get a deeper understanding of the pearl of sion into ancient Greece in the Neolithic period, ancient Athens, Pericles. Widely considered beginning in about 6,000 BCE, and follow the to be one of the greatest statesmen the city of ascension of the Greek culture to the death of Athens ever produced, Pericles turned an assoAlexander the Great in 323 BCE. Many of the ciation of Greek city states (known as the Delian artifacts showcased in the new exhibit will be League) into an empire with on display outside of Greece for the first time Athens at the center. in their history.

As first citizen, Pericles “The material in this exhibition is truly expromoted arts and quisite,” Susan Neill, a project manager for the literature, turning exhibit told me. “Unless you have time to go Athens into a to Greece and visit all these museums, you’d veritable hub never see such excellent examples of Greek of Greek culture.” culture. He Among the artifacts on view in the exhibit also led the are enigmatic stone figurines from the Cycladic Athenians Islands, gold funerary masks from Bronze Age during tombs, classical marble statues of Greek poets, the first athletes, and heroes and brightly painted cet w o years From Top: Archaic Greecian Helmet (photo © o f Archaeological Museum of Pella); Statue of Homer, carved between 5th and 2nd centuries BC (photo © National Archaelogical Museum, Athens); Inlay Depicting Mycenaean Warrior Wearing Boar-Tusk Helmet (photo © National Archaeological Museum, Athens);

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the Peloponnesian War, the conflict between Athens and her allies and Sparta.

But more than an exploration of the prominent names of Greek mythos, the exhibition will also provide a glimpse into the lives of everyday citizens of ancient Greece. The exhibit showcases artifacts unearthed in the burial tomb of a noblewoman known as the Lady of Archontiko, including pins, necklaces and a headdress made of gold.

There are military helmets excavated from tombs in Pella, revealing the high societal status of those buried there, and perhaps affording them a fierce reputation in the afterlife, Neill said.

“Clearly it was important to be represented well at your burial,” she explained.

However, objects buried with the dead also provide insights into their lives and the roles they played within their respective families and societies.

The exhibit displays a bust of a Greek citizen soldier, called a hoplite, who is thought to represent Leonidas, the king of Sparta and leader of the famed 300 against the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae. While Leonidas has recently been depicted in several Hollywood adaptations that are not very historically accu-

rate, Neill pointed out that historians welcome the interest pop culture provides in historical record.

The exhibit closes out with two of the most powerful military figures of the classical era, Philip II of Macedon and his well-known son, Alexander the Great. As Neill explained, these two who shaped not only the Greek world, but also most of the known world at the time, were most fitting figures to close the exhibition. A gorgon medallion from Philip’s armor, along with a diadem and spear will also be on view. “You can really see history unfold before your eyes when you look at these items,” Neill said.

There are also several sculptures of Alexander, including one depicting him as the Greek god, Pan. “One of the overall arcs of the exhibit is how the Greeks related to the gods, and here we see one who was believed to have become a god.” Neill said.

The Greeks—Agamemnon to Alexander the Great does a wonderful job of pulling back the curtain on one of the most pervasive and influential ancient civilizations, but more than that, it brings our understanding of our own society full circle.

To expand your understanding of the impact of the ancient Greeks, after taking in the splendors of The Field Museum’s newest exhibition, head over to the National Hellenic Museum of Chicago for exhibitions designed to complement the new show.

The National Hellenic Museum partnered with the Field to bring the wonders of The Greeks—Agamemnon to Alexander the Great to Chicago. Top From Left: Golden Gorgon head that adorned Philip II's linen and leather cuirass (photo © Museum of the Royal Tombs of Aigai, Vergina); Seal Ring (photo © National Archaeological Museum, Athens); Golden Myrtle Crown worn by Queen Meda (photo © Museum of the Royal Tombs of Aigai, Vergina); Gold Cup (photo © National Archaeological Museum, Athens).

Bottom: From Left: Bronze Male Figurine (photo © Archaeological Museum of Herakleion); (Boar-Tusk Helmet (photo © National Archaeological Museum, Athens); Cycladic Figurine (photo © National Archaeological Museum, Athens); Rhyton Ceremonial Cup (photo © National Archaeological Museum, Athens).

Autumn2015CNCJA•23

The

Guide

By FRED CUMMINGS

Symphonic

T

Thankfully, in Chicago’s new fine arts season, the rich tradition of stirring and pulse-inducing performances of the world’s greatest music remains alive and well, and for the serious music lover there is a veritable cornucopia of auditory treasures—landmark masterpieces and contemporary delicacies, alike—that awaits when the doors of Chicago’s venerable artistic institutions fling open afresh this September.

What speaks succinctly to the vast depth of classical music and its study in a city like Chicago— where the world’s greatest musical powers convene each season to explore the most remote corners of the classical repertoire—is that there is yet so much more to explore as each new season turns the corner. It never gets old. On every level the limits of musical exploration continue to elude us. There is no mapping of its boarders. It’s infinite and never ending.

And so it is with the new season of symphonic music in

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Chicago's only season-long GUIDE to the new arts and culture calendar with Clef Notes editors' picks for the 'Best of the Best' cultural fare in 2015-2016.

Chicago. Over the next ten months, the world’s best, brightest and most brilliant will assemble here to illuminate the mysteries of the far-reaching symphonic cannon of classical music.

As is customary, the season in Chicago’s symphonic calendar is framed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO - cso. org), celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. Under the baton of world renowned conductor Riccardo Muti, the CSO will explore this season its past and its future.

Speaking to the legacy of the 125 year old institution, the CSO’s new president, Jeff Alexander noted that in this milestone season, the orchestra will, “honor the past…celebrate where we are now as an institution and…look ahead to the coming decades to continue to enrich and transform lives through music here in Chicago and around the world.”

Stretching back to its beginning, the CSO has always been a stalwart protagonist of new music and forward-thinking composers. The orchestra will celebrate that history by programming in most subscription concerts this season a single work for which the orchestra gave its world or U.S. premiere. The CSO's 10th music director, Riccardo Muti, is arguably the world’s greatest living proponent of the work of Guissepi Verdi. And in season’s past with the CSO he has explored in great depth Verdi’s Shakespeare-inspired operas—with subscription concerts of Otello in 2011 and MacBeth in 2013. This season will find the culmination of that work in the performance of Verdi’s final opera, Falstaff, a performance which will mark the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death in 2016.

And, of course, the CSO will continue its tradition of looking ahead with the naming of two new Mead Composers-in-Residence, Samuel Adams and Elizabeth Ogonek, to three-year terms, propelling the symphonic cannon forward and pioneering new and innovative works that breathe new life in symphonic exploration.

There are many musts, I admit, in this new season, and among them the first on my list is the CSO’s September performance of 20th century Spanish composer, Alberto Ginastera’s vibrant and dance-like Concerto for Harp and Orchestra. The work serves nicely as part of a program with French and Spanish influences and will constitute acclaimed harpist Xavier de Maistre’s debut with the CSO. The concert will set the Ginastera thoughtfully within a program

Music - 24| Dance - 38| Theater - 42| Art - 48| Museums - 52 comprised of Chabrier’s España, Ravel’s Boléro and Charpentier’s Impressions of Italy, for which the CSO gave the U.S. premiere in 1893 (September 24, 25, 26 and 29).

Celebrated Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes will make his anticipated return to the CSO as soloist with Muti conducting Mozart’s lively Piano Concerto No. 20. The sprawling program includes Muti leading the CSO in a reading of Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, Hindemith’s Concert Music for String Orchestra and Brass, and Prokofiev’s spirited Scythian Suite, which received its U.S. premiere in 1918 by the CSO. Reflective leaps throughout the epochs of the classical symphonic repertoire always make for a thrilling concert program (October 1, 2 and 3).

Lyric Opera Music Director Sir Andrew Davis will once again moonlight his way into Symphony Center this year for a return to the CSO podium when he leads the orchestra in a special one-nightonly performance with pianist Evgeny Kissin. Kissin performs Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto and is as powerful a technician as he is probing a musician. The two facets will make an intoxicating combination in Tchiakovsky’s breathtaking war horse. Treat yourself with keyboard-side seating for an up-close-andpersonal look at all the fireworks (October 15).

A staple on the Chicago arts calendar since its first appearance at Orchestra Hall in 19951, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and its esteemed Music Director for Life, Zubin Mehta, make a welcome return visit this season to Symphony Center in a diverse program anchored

by Beethoven’s expansive and emotional Symphony No. 3 (Eroica), a work that will make its way to Chicago stages more than just about any other this season. Also on the program are Ravel's La valse and a work by American composer John Adams (November 15).

In a concert (December 5) marking his 250th at the helm of the CSO, Riccardo Muti will conducts the CSO, the CSO Chorus and pianist Kirill Gerstein in Scriabin’s intensely dramatic Prometheus, which received its U.S. premiere by the CSO in 1915. Opening the robust program will be Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony and Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Symphony No. 8

(December 3, 4 and 5).

Proving that Symphony Center is not the only home to world class orchestral performances in Chicago, conductor Pinchas Zukerman will return to Chicago’s Harris Theater for Music and Dance (harristheaterchicago.org) this season to lead one of the most illustrious orchestras in the world. Based in London, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has etched out 65-year reputation for only the most superlative performances with artists of the highest caliber.

Zukerman leads the orchestra in a program featuring Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, Elgar’s sometimes lively sometimes brooding Enigma Variations Op. 36. A special treat, Zukerman also leads the orchestra as conductor and soloist in a reading of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (January 13).

Returning to the CSO podium for the first time in nearly 15 years, one of the world’s greatest conductors, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, leads the CSO in two symphonies by Shostakovich, numbers 1 and 15. The two performed on the same program offer an intriguing look at the great span of Shostakovich’s compositional growth as they are his first and last symphonies, composed nearly 50 years apart (February 5 and 6, 2016).

Violinist Gil Shaham will bring his flawless technique and peerless musicality to Harris Theater this season in a performance of Prokofiev’s lyric and lucid Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 63. Shaham will appear as soloist with the innovative chamber orchestra, The Knights. The Prokofiev concerto is framed in this concert by composer Jean-Féry Rebel’s Les élémens and Beethoven’s heroic Eroica Symphony No.3, Op. 55.

Grammy Award-winning Shaham is as captivating a soloist as one will find, and with the Eric Jacobsen-led Knights’ ever exploratory bent, the evening promises to be a thrilling musical adventure for all in ear-shot of the concert hall. If you are a fan of Beethoven, the concert will be a good opportunity to observe the approach The Knights take to the Eroica, which audiences will, again, get a chance to hear performed many times by several different ensembles this season.

Clockwise from Bottom Left (Opposite Page): Maestro Riccardo Muti leads members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (photo by Todd Rosenberg); Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin (photo by F. Broede); violinist, violist and conductor Pinchas Zuckerman (photo courtesy of Pinchas Zukerman); violinist Gil Shaham (photo by Oliver Reiger); Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes (photo

by Ozgur Albayrak); conductor Zubin Mehta (photo by Marco Brescia courtesy of La Scala).

Autumn2015CNCJA•25

Music

The Knights should give the work a slightly more inventive reading, I expect; they take risks (February 18).

Esteemed Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen will once again take up residency with the CSO this season. Leading off a pair of mesmerizing programs will be a performance of Lutosławski’s Symphony No. 3, a work that the CSO actually commissioned and premiered in 1983.

It’s also a work that is very closely associated with Salonen’s own repertoire. The program will also feature cellist Yo-Yo- Ma in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No.1, Beethoven’s Overture to King Stephen (opening the program) and Salonen’s own Foreign Bodies as the finale (February 25, 26, 27 and March 1, 2016).

For decades Academy of St. Martin in the Fields has been a chamber orchestra deeply steeped in the communication of classical masterworks through refined sensitivity, musical sincerity and precision of tone and technique. This tradition continues today with virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell as music director, the first person to hold the position since Sir Neville Marriner formed the orchestra in 1958.

Next spring, Bell and the ensemble will bring a scintillating program to Harris Theater that includes Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, Op. 25 (Symphony No. 1), Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8, Op. 93 in F Major and Tchaikovsky’s heroic Violin Concerto, Op. 35 (March 12).

Frequent CSO guest conductor Michael Tilson Thomas will lead the orchestra, joined by pianist Emanuel Ax for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. Ax is a supremely talented Beethoven interpreter and the concerto, though expansive, is quite an intimate and reserved work that allows the listener to take a more introspective view of Beethoven’s writing and, in this concert, Ax’s delicacy and communicative powers at the keyboard. The program also features Stravinsky’s Scherzo àla russes and Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 (March 17, 18 and 19, 2016).

Yuri Temirkanov returns to the CSO for the first time since leading subscription concerts in 1999. Pianist Denis Matsuev makes his CSO subscription debut on this program in Rachmaninov’s fiendishly difficult Piano Concerto No. 3; the program closes with Brahms’ Second Symphony (March 24, 25 and 26, 2016).

Lush Italian bass Luca Dall’Amico has been a favorite of Riccardo Muti since the conductor selected him to sing the role of Agamemnnon in Verdi’s Iphigenie en Aulide

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at the Rome Opera in 2009. Since, the bass has gone on to make important debuts at just about every major festival and opera house from La Scala to Ravenna. This season Muti has tapped Dall’Amico to return to Symphony Center (first appearing in 2014) to sing the role of Pistola with the CSO in its concert presentation of Verdi’s Falstaff, one of the iconic works in Muti’s repertoire. Hearts will throb, ears will swoon and hearts will melt at this power packed concert (April 21, 23 and 26, 2016).

Former CSO principal conductor (and audience favorite) Bernard Haitink will make his return to Symphony Center to lead the orchestra in Strauss’ popular tone poem, An Alpine Symphony. The work requires a massive orchestra and Haitink will make full use of the CSO’s powers.

Also on the program will be soloist Till Fellner in a reading of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat Major, KV 482.

The profundity of the Mozart should balance the more programmatic Strauss nicely in this program, and, of course, it’s always a great thrill to watch Haitink at work (April 28, 29, 30, 2016).

Charles Dutoit will take up residency with the CSO this season with two weeks of programming that will have music lovers salivating all winter long.

His first week will bring the CSO debut of pianist Javier Perianes, 2012 recipient of the National Music Prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture of Spain. The program promises to be a delicious one with the performance of Manuel de Falla’s sumptuous Nights in the Gardens of Spain and the composer’s The Three-Cornered Hat, as well as Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. An intriguing Beyond the Score exploration of these works is also on tap for lucky audience members (May 12, 13, 14 and 15, 2016).

The second week of Dutoit’s CSO residency will bring a one-nightonly special concert that includes Stravinsky’s Fireworks and The Firebird, as well as superstar Lang Lang at the piano in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

Lang Lang has not performed with the CSO since his 2011 Ravinia Festival performance. Chicagoans will appreciate the opportunity to hear these two world musical powers at work once again (May 20, 2016).

Concluding the 2015-2016 season for the CSO, Muti leads the orchestra in an all-Bruckner program, with the composer’s Symphony No. 9, a work that received its U.S. premiere by the CSO in 1904. The program— and season—concludes with a wink and a nod to the CSO’s first season

125 years ago: Bruckner’s Te Deum, a work that received its U.S. premiere by the orchestra at the time in 1892. (Mezzo-soprano Okka von der Damerau will make her CSO debut.) The final performance of the season on June 26 marks Muti’s 275th concert with the CSO, a fitting tribute and a fabulous close to another breathtaking season in symphonic music in the Windy City (June 23, 25 and 26, 2016).

Solo and Chamber Music Recitals For solo and chamber music recitals in Chicago the bar has always been set considerably high. Yet, with series like the University of Chicago Presents and the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Chicago’s quotient for world class artistry in a recital setting stretches beyond Symphony Center more and more each season.

Chicago’s acclaimed Orion Ensemble has prepared an irresistible program of French and German Tapestries this fall that will capitalize on the group’s trademark musical synchronicity. Truly a group of superlative instrumentalists that play in musical unison, Orion will revel in Mozart’s Divertimento in E-flat Major for String Trio, K. 563, illustrating the composer’s great love of string ensemble composition.

The unique architecture of string trios offers a single instrument in each tonal range, which suits Orion’s uncanny ability for musical symbiosis, effectively performing as three parts of one musical unit, exploring the individual beauty of each individual instrument, while wholly part of a three-part musical voice.

Trio (Kegelstatt) in E-flat Major for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, K. 498 and Gabriel Fauré's Quartet in C Minor for Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano No. 1, Op. 15 will also be featured on this colorrich program (September 20, October 4 and 7).

It’s the Symphony Center’s Piano Series that offers the first solo piano recital in my recommendations this season with a landmark artist for the series itself, Maurizio Pollini. Pollini is well known for his Clockwise from Top Left (Opposite Page): Conductor EsaPekka Salonen (photo by Benjamin Ealovega); Maestro Bernard Haitink (photo by Todd Rosenberg); Members of the Orion Ensemble (photo by Cornelia Babbit); pianist Maurizio Pollini (photo by Mathias Bothor); Maestro Riccardo Muti leading the CSO (photo by Todd Rosenberg); Italian Bass Luca Dall'Amico (photo courtesy of Chicago Symphony Orchestra); Conductor Charles Dutoit (photo courtesy of Chicago Symphony Orchestra).

Autumn2015CNCJA•27

Music

incalculable prowess with Chopin. And as the legendary pianist approaches his 73rd year, audiences find him performing less and less of the Stockhausen and Boulez of his younger years and more of the Schumann and Chopin of our dreams. I wouldn’t miss this chance to hear the lion of the keyboard in his element for anything (October 4).

The University of Chicago Presents (chicagopresents.uchicago.edu) offers a formidable series that seems to gain more and more prominence with every season. World class artists, exciting debuts and a compelling new-music collective are what keep audiences coming out of the woodwork into Chicago’s Hyde Park to hear programs on this series, which opens this season with the return of Academy of St. Martin in the Fields' chamber ensemble. Comprised of the orchestra’s principal players, this chamber contingent brings a program of beloved works this fall, including Mozart’s charming Divertimento in D Major, K. 136/125a and Schubert’s massive Octet in F Major for Winds and Strings. D. 803 (October 16).

Ensemble in Residence at the University of Chicago, the sterling Pacifica Quartet will collaborate with acclaimed British pianist Paul Lewis in a rare salon-type concert program this fall including works for solo piano, chamber ensemble and piano concerto (a quattro). The program includes Beethoven’s lovely Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111, Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 1, (Metamorphoses nocturnes) and the capricious Mozart Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major (a quattro), K. 414, which was among the Vienna concertos which may be performed for string quartet and piano. The distinguished pianist, Lewis, brings particular illumination to Beethoven’s complex and dense keyboard sonatas. His artistic depth and meticulous technique, combined with the luminous and emotive Pacifica players, will make for a stunning musical experience (October 18).

In one of the most sublime additions to Chicago’s chamber music calendar in recent years, the musicians of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will again take up residency at Chicago’s Harris Theater for Music and Dance. And this fall they take listeners on a rich and revealing journey in the chamber music repertoire from the classical to romantic eras. Mendelssohn’s sparkling Sextet will no doubt provide an eloquent bridge between Haydn’s elegant Trio in A Major for Piano, Violin and Celo, Hob. XV:18 (1794) and Schumann’s Quintet in E-flat major for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 44 (1842) Pianist and co-CMS artistic director Wu Han, piano, violinist Ani Kavafian and cellist Dmitri Atapine are among the contingent of CMS musicians on tap for the evening concert (October 21).

Completing his enticing multi-season exploration of the final sonatas by early classical music composers, the extraordinary Sir András Schiff will return to Symphony Center this fall to offer an intriguing program featuring Mozart’s Sonata in B-flat Major, Beethoven’s

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Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Haydn’s Sonata No. 61 in D Major and Schubert’s Sonata in A Major, all fascinating and revealing representations of four great masters at the height of their powers and at the peak of their artistic life spans. Schiff is an incredibly probing pianist and a superlative musician, fit for the task of illuminating the riches found in this noteworthy program (November 1).

Keyboard titan Evgeny Kissin will make his return to the Symphony Center Piano series for a recital program showcasing his passionate musicality and technical wizardry. The depth and breadth of his program is vast with works by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Albéniz and Larregla scheduled. This is a must-see performance for anyone who loves great piano music performed by the best in the business (November 15).

English pianist and composer Stephen Hough returns to Chicago by way of Northwestern University for a recital of Schubert, Franck, Liszt, and the premiere of his own Sonata III (Trinitas). Hough spent a year as composer-in-residence at Northwestern in 2008, and was the winner of the $50,000 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance. He composed his solo piece using a 12-tone technique. Hough has noted, “Writing a piece today using a 12-note row seems almost like stepping back into a period drama - a bygone age with very different fashions.”

Also on the program are Schubert’s Sonata in A minor, D. 784, Franck’s stunning Prelude Choral and Fugue, Liszt’s dazzling Valse Oubliées numbers 1 and 2 and Transcendental Etudes numbers 11 (harmonies du soir) and 10. Taking place at Northwestern’s Galvin Recital Hall, this concert will mark one of the few premiere recital performances this season that will take Chicagoland music lovers outside of Chicago (December 3).

Next season Lyric Opera of Chicago (lyricopera.org) will present two very special concerts that showcase the glories of the human voice, featuring three unparalleled talents. A concert slated exclusively for Lyric Opera subscribers, the legendary Plácido Domingo is among the greatest and most beloved and influential singing actors in history. Sterling soprano Ana Maria Martinez has thrilled Chicago audiences as Donna Elvira, Rusalka, and most memorably as Mimi in La bohème. The two artists sang an unforgettable duet at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, and have wowed audiences in concerts around the world.

Lyric subscribers will now see them in concert with Sir Andrew Davis and the resplendent Lyric Opera Orchestra right here (January 9).

Clockwise from Top Left: Pacifica Quartet (photo courtesy of the Pacifica Quartet); Pianist Evgeny Kissin (photo courtesy of Symphony Center); Clarinettist Anthony McGill (photo courtesy of Mr. McGill); Composer and pianist Phillip Glass (photo courtesy of Mr. Glass); Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center co-artistic directors cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han (photo courtesy of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center).

Concerts by Musicians from Marlboro, the touring extension of the prestigious Vermont-based Marlboro Music Festival, have been described by The Washington Post as, “a virtual guarantee of excellence.” This season they bring a robust program to UChicago Presents’ Logan Center, bolstered by Chicago native and now New York Philharmonic principal clarinetist Anthony McGill. The program is a example of harmonic bliss, Beethoven’s String Trio in C minor, Op.9 No.3, Penderecki’s Clarinet Quartet and Brahms’ lush Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115 (January 22, 2016).

In February co-artistic directors of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han, will be joined at the Harris Theater by acclaimed violinist Philip Setzer for performances of three extraordinary piano trios. Beethoven’s youthful Trio in G Major is contrasted by Shostakovich’s powerful homage to a departed friend. One of Dvořák’s most beloved and oft-performed chamber music works, his Dumky Trio is filled with the music, color and rhythms of the composer’s beloved Bohemia.

Finckel and Han have performed together for years, and Setzer is a frequent collaborator. Together the ensemble will make a formidable effort probing these dense yet profoundly inspiring works for a fortunate and, no doubt, appreciative Harris Theater audience (February 16, 2016).

Esteemed elder statesman of contemporary music Philip Glass stands as the model by which other 20th and 21st centuries are judged. His Piano Etudes stand as an intensely intimate and personal statement. Glass will not only be on hand when the work will be performed at UChicago Presents this winter, he will perform the work alongside the customary contingent of four additional pianists. The recital represents a rare opportunity to hear a giant in the field of contemporary music at work in his own creation. New and contemporary music lovers will mark this concert among the most important in their lifetimes (February 19).

In February Mozart specialist and acclaimed pianist Mitsuko Uchida will join musicians from the CSO for a chamber music program that includes Mozart’s resplendent Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Major. The clarity and musicianship of the CSO wind instrumentalists and Uchida’s understanding Mozart phraseology should yield a most illuminating experience for concert-goers of this event (February 28, 2016).

Marking his Chicago debut, acclaimed tenor Javier Camarena will bring his fiery tone and formidable coloratura to Harris Theater next spring in a concert of songs by Beethoven, Liszt and Tosti. The artist, accompanied by pianist Ángel Rodríguez, is co-presented by Lyric Unlimited. Camarena’s legendary performance in Rossini’s La Cenerentola at the Metropolitan Opera last spring earned the tenor a

Also On Our Radar Orchestral MARCH • 3,5 and 8 — Elgar’s Symphony No. 1, Sir Mark Elder, conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra • 10,11,12,13 and 15— Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto, Jeremy Denk (piano), Sir Mark Elder, (conductor) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra • 18 — Daniil Trifonov (piano) with the Montreal Symphony, Symphony Center Chicago • 20 – Zakir Hussain and the Masters of Percussion, Symphony Center Chicago April • 14, 15, 16, 22 and 24 — Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, w/Rosa Feola (soprano) and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra June • 2, 4, 7, 9 and 10 — Mozart and Beethoven, Christoph von Dohnányi (conductor) leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Chamber and Solo September • 9 — Luca Pisaroni (bass-baritone) with Craig Terry (piano) at Collaborative Works Festival (September 9 – 12) October • 30 — Joshua Bell (violin) at Symphony Center November • 13 — The Golden Age of Violin, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Harris Theater • 13 — Arcanto Quartet, UChicago Presents January • 17 — Pacifica Quartet, UChicago Presents February • 14 — Sir András Schiff (piano) at Symphony Center April • 21 – American Visions, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Harris Theater

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rare encore; something given only twice before in the Met’s 70 year history. He’s earned roles alongside some of the most important figures in the world of opera under prestigious conductors (March 30, 2016).

Richard Goode, who is well known for his emotionally powerful interpretations of middle-European Classical repertoire, will return to Symphony Center this season for the first time in three years with a scintillating all-Bach program, an enchanting afternoon to be sure for many an early music lover (April 3, 2016).

Often performing as soloist with the CSO or in recital when in the Windy City, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes will give Chicagoans an opportunity to witness his talent in a chamber music setting as he assembles an extraordinary ensemble including internationally acclaimed violinist Christian Tetzlaff, violist Tabea Zimmerman and cellist Clemens Hagen next spring at Symphony Center. This stellar ensemble will perform the complete Brahms Piano Quartets (No. 1 in G Minor, No. 2 in A Major and No. 3 in C Minor) in one program, a breathtaking feat, to be sure, and one not to be missed (April 10, 2016).

The Brazilian-born brothers, Sérgio and Odair Assad, have set a real benchmark for all other guitarists by creating a new standard of innovation, ingenuity and expression. This season they will be joined by Sérgio’s daughter, Clarice Assad, a sought-after composer, pianist and vocalist in her own right, and together the trio will close the University of Chicago Presents series with music inspired by their homeland in a program dubbed Memories of Rio, in likely one of the most memorable concerts of the season (April 17, 2016).

Opera Opera in the Windy City has a wonderfully luminous stage in the Civic Opera House, home to Lyric Opera of Chicago. And, hands down, Lyric Opera offers the best and brightest opera performances in the city, and indeed among the best in the nation. Celebrating their 61st season, Lyric brings stunning stagescapes, amazing artistry under the baton of esteemed conductor Sir Andrew Davis and powerhouse stars that pack the biggest punch you will see outside of New York's Metropolitan Opera House.

Yet Chicago opera audiences also have a compelling view to the future of the art form in the bold visionary work of Chicago Opera Theater, led by Andreas Mitisek, a veteran of the kind of exciting out-of-the-box operatic stagings that continue to bring loyal, and even new audiences to opera.

My picks for the “Best of the Best” Chicago opera this season will be a mix of 30•CNCJAAutumn2015

both standards and new works, but best of all, all new performances will abound this season, which is particularly exciting for seasoned opera fans.

My first and favorite offering of the season will bring Barbara Gaines, founder and artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, to Lyric Opera in a new production of one of Mozart’s most endearing works, The Marriage of Figaro. No stranger to opera, Gaines will bring an intriguing perspective and her particularly acute period wit to the cutting bite of Mozart’s enchanting, satirical masterpiece.

And she’ll have a splendid cast to help bring the work’s near miraculous melodies to full life.

Czech bass-baritone Adam Plachetka and luminous German soprano Christiane Karge will star as the determined couple, Figaro and Susanna, in a race to get to their wedding day before a rakish Count Almaviva, sung by Luca Pisaroni, can employ an archaic feudal rite that will force Susanna into the Count’s boudoir—if he has his way. The laudable trio will bring a wealth of global experience singing the lead roles in this cherished work, and Amanda Majeski, who has actually stepped in as understudy in the role of the Countess in a previous production of Figaro at the Lyric, will reprise the role in earnest this season, bringing her lovely pearly tone and the same heartfelt sincerity that first won audiences over. Esteemed conductor Henrik Nánási will lead Lyric’s seasoned orchestra to round out what will likely be the most splendid opera production this season (September 26 - October 24).

As sophisticated as Chicago’s opera audiences are, many would be surprised to know they’ve never seen a professional production of one of Mozart’s great operas. Well, this season, Chicago Opera Theater (chicagooperatheater. org) will look to change that with a Chicago premiere of one of Mozart’s early works.

Experiencing a revival of sorts from Warsaw to London to Barcelona and the Saltzberg Festival, audiences have been getting an introduction to Lucio Silla. Written when the composer was just a lad of 16, Lucio Silla reveals much of the genius the world would come to know of Mozart. A passionate

story of love, power, bloody conspiracies and revenge, the opera is full of some of the most lovely and complex arias in the genre and, though it straddles the line between baroque and classical writing, it contains all the dazzling scoring one would expect of Mozart’s genius.

Chicago Opera Theater’s general director, Andreas Mitisek will direct and design this new production, and audiences will be treated to some dazzling returning COT artists, including Ryan MacPherson (COT’s The Fall of the House of Usher) and Valerie Vinzant (COT’s Orheus and Euridice) (September 24 - October 4).

In November a new Lyric Opera production of Alban Berg’s harrowing and touching masterpiece, Wozzeck, will open, conducted

by Sir Andrew Davis and directed by the venerable Sir David McVicar. The most recent collaboration for these two luminaries was the Lyric Opera premiere of Rusalka (2013-2014) and the result was sheer magic. Audiences should expect nothing less this time around. Electrifying bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny stars as the downtrodden soldier, the opera’s title character, and Angela Denoke, Gerhard Siegel, and Stefan Vinke are but a few of the vocal luminaries rounding out the talented cast for this new production.

Renowned chorus master Michael Black has also been enlisted to bring this thrillingly theatrical work to its true artistic fruition (November 1 - November 21).

Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár’s captivating and complicated comedy, The Merry Widow, will come to Lyric by way of an all-new Metropolitan Opera production this season. Conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, and directed and choreographed

by Broadway star Susan Stroman, The Merry Widow will star Lyric’s own Renée Fleming (7 performances November 14 - December 3) and Elizabeth Futral (3 performances December 9-13) in the title role of Hanna Glawari. Charming and full of elegance (and a bit “silly,” as Davis noted in Lyric’s season announcement), Lehár’s masterpiece will flourish in what Freud calls, “that Broadway energy and lavishness” that embodies Stroman’s work. Michael Black will lead Lyric Opera’s impeccably prepared chorus and lush baritone Tom Hampson will star opposite Fleming in what The Huffinton Post calls, “an eye-popping production...breathtakClockwise from Top Left (Opposite Page): Guitarists Sérgio and Odair Assad (photo courtesy of UCHicago Presents); Montage Soldier (photo by James Francis, courtesy of the Margaret Hall Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society); Cast of Metropolitan Opera production of The Merry Widow (photo courtesy of Lyric Opera of Chicago); Chicago Opera Theater general manager Andreas Mitisek (photo courtesy of Chicago Opera Theater); Chicago Shakespeare Theater founder and artistic director Barbara Gaines (photo by Peter Bosy); Soprano Amanda Majeski (photo by Dario Acosta).

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ing to look at and a pleasure to hear” (November 14 - December 13).

In January Lyric Opera will open a new production of the opera Nabucco, Guiseppi Verdi’s twisted tale of politics, power and religion—famous for the stirring chorus Va, pensiero. The new production casts Željko Lučić in the titular role of the tyrannical Babylonian king, and Tatiana Serjan as his power-hungry daughter Abigaille, who wants his throne and her sister's lover Ismaele (Sergey Skorokhodov).

Dmitry Belosselskiy is Zaccaria, the fiery Hebrew priest. It’s a cast Freud calls a “real Rolls-Royce” of opera and given the difficulty in casting Nabucco, that’s saying quite a lot. The acclaimed Carlo Rizzi has been tapped to conduct, and Lyric’s sterling chorus, led by chorus master Michael Black, will get a unique chance to shine with the emotive and opulent chorus writing Verdi employed in this dramatic work. (January 23 February 12).

G o u n o d ’s 19th-century interpretation of Shakespeare’s immortal classic young-love tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, will close out Lyric Opera’s new season in a production that found rave success at La Scalla.

Joseph Calleja (6 performances, February 22 March 8) and Eric Cutler (3 performances, March 11 - 19), will woo the fair Juliet, resplendent soprano Susanna Phillips. Marianne Crebassa portrays Stephano, Joshua Hopkins is Mercutio, and Christian Van Horn portrays the well-intentioned Friar Laurence, who makes a terrible mess of trying to mend the feud between the Capulets and Montagues. Emmanuel Villaume will conduct, and director Bartlett Sher will be reviving this production, which Anthony Freud originally saw in Salzburg. “The sets are architectural, with beautiful, lavish period costumes,” Freud noted in the Lyric’s season announcement. “It’s a romantic French opera, a good way to end the opera season, and a work we haven’t done in some years” (February 22 - March 19).

Early/Period Music Chicagoans have an enthusiastic fervor for early music and a growing interest for sacred programming in the concert setting. And there are a wealth of artists, ensembles and series devoted to that noble pursuit, which is no small feat. Over the past several centuries, concert venues, instruments and even performance aesthetics in many ways have changed, dare I say even evolved. And the genuine and honest pursuit of authentic early music performance requires a rigorous dedication to an all-consuming immersive examination of the composer’s original intent and musical mores to communicate the ideas and aesthetics at the heart of the sacred and early works that have remained within the repertoire to this day.

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One local series which has championed this pursuit with admirable precision for nearly a quarter of a century is the Howard Mayer Brown International Early Music Series at the University of Chicago (chicagopresents.uchicago.edu). The series’ programming spans from Medieval and Renaissance to Baroque epochs in classical music and, as its name suggest, pulls in artists of international origin and acclaim dedicated to historically researched, informed early music and original instrument performances.

This fall Howard Mayer Brown brings Chicagoans a program by the acclaimed early music consort, Bach Collegium Japan featuring J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047, Vivaldi’s Concerto in C Major for Recorder, Strings and Continuo, RV 443 and Handel’s Gloria in B-flat Major, HWV deest. Hailed by The Independent UK as an orchestra with “a freshness and ease in live performance that is inimitable,” Bach Collegium Japan will be joined by English soprano Joanne Lunn and conductor and harpsichordist Masaaki Suzuki (October 29).

Praised by The London Times as “One of the foremost, and arguably the most brilliant, of today’s fortepiano players,” keyboardist Kristian Bezuidenhout made waves when he snagged the prestigious first prize and the audience prize at the Bruges International Fortepiano Competition, demonstrating a deft talent on this rarely heard instrument with a dynamic program. Bezuidenhout will bring that talent to the University of Chicago Rockefeller Chapel on a fall Howard Mayer Brown series program that includes Mozart’s cerebral Fantasie in C minor, K. 475, Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 333 and C.P.E. Bach’s Rondo in C minor, Wq. 59/4 (November 20).

A specialist in Baroque and Classical period repertoire, Bernard Labadie will return to Chicago's Symphony Center in December to lead the CSO, Chorus and a quartet of vocal soloists (all making their CSO debuts)— soprano Lydia Teuscher, mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy, tenor Jeremy Ovenden and bass-baritone Philippe Sly—in five performances of Handel’s Messiah, a Chicago audience favorite and holiday staple (December 10, 11, 12, 15 and 20).

The final performance of its momentous farewell tour, the women of Anonymous 4 take their final bows at University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Memorial Chapel this winter. In this final tour and UChicago Presents holiday concert, the ensemble will present a stirring anthology of their most-beloved songs. From their earliest program, "An English Ladymass", through their last Christmas recording, The Cherry Tree, they have chosen favorites that speak as eloquently now as they did in the Middle Ages.

For the very last time, Chicago audiences (and audiences anywhere) will have an opportunity to hear what WFMT radio calls, “their unearthly vocal blend and virtuosic ensemble singing” in what will be one of the most lovely early music concerts in the Windy City this season (December 20).

In a program dubbed "The English & Celtic Viol: At the Court and Exile," early music masters Jordi Savall (viols) and Frank McGuire (bodhrán) will rouse and celebrate our innate affections for the music in the Celtic Irish and English traditions. Part of the UChicago Presents Series, the concert takes place next spring at the University’s Mandel Hall. The program offers clear reflection on life and love and the artists offer a sublime lens through which to experience them (March 4, 2016).

Jane Glover and the Music of the Baroque orchestra will bring a towering masterpiece of the early Baroque era. An intimate and grand, prayerful and dramatic work, Monteverdi’s rarely performed 1610 Vespers of the Blessed Virgin will thrill the ear, the mind and the soul with profundity and aural fireworks alike. Lush choral writing and warm, intimate solos will combine to take your breath away in this must-see sacred and early music program. Soloists for the concert include soprano Yulia Van Doren, and lyric tenor Colin Ainsworth (April 1-3, 2016).

In what has become a delightful tradition for the Chicago Easter season, the venerable Chicago Bach Project will be back this spring exploring some of the most sublime creations in the cannon, Bach’s sacred works. Thrilling, emotionally potent performances are what are to be expected from Maestro John Nelson, founding artistic director, who leads a technically pristine period ensemble enriched by the Chicago Bach Choir, an choral force of both textural clarity and musical muscularity. This spring they bring us Bach’s monumental Mass in B Minor, one of the composer’s final and most important works.

A fresh slate of talented artists are on tap for this season’s concert, including Grammy-nominated mezzo-soprano Margaret Lattimore.

Nelson’s profound understanding of the transformative power of sacred music makes this the sacred performance of the season. And the Mass in B Minor provides one of the most potent methods of communicating the transcendent message behind sacred music. If you want an opportunity to experience music beyond music itself, this is the concert to see (March 11, 2016).

In a concert titled "Lepizig’s Got Talent," local early music ensemble Baroque Band will spotlight some of Germany’s great early music titans next spring. Led by its founder and conductor Gary Clarke, this celebrated period ensemble employs formidable talents in an authentic exploration of period instrument performance and the mysteries it unveils in early masterpieces of the canon. The program includes lovely and distinctive cantatas by J.S. Bach (BWV 21 Ich hatte viel Bekummernis and BWV 22

Also On Our Radar June • 12 — Yo-Yo Ma (cello) with CSO musicians at Symphony Center May • 1 — All-Prokofiev program by Yefim Bronfman (violin) at Symphony Center

Folk November • 1 — Foghorn String Band at City Winery • 13 — Susan Werner (singer/songwriter) at City Winery • 20 — Ari Hest (singer/songwriter) at City Winery

Jazz September • 5 — Dee Dee Bridgewater (singer) at Chicago Jazz Festival • 17 — Frank Quintero with special Guest Samuel Ocean at Old Town School of Folk Music • 18 — Vijay Iyer Trio at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie (northshorecenter. org) • 21 — Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn via the Billy Strayhorn Festival (September 2 – November 21) at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University • 27 — Nano Stern at the Old Town School of Folk Music November • 13 — Scenes From Life: Cuba!, Chicago Jazz Philharmonic and special Cuban Guests at Auditoriium Theatre of Roosevelt University • 14 — The Strayhorn Fringe Festival at Old Town School of Folk Music February • 12 — Warren Wolf & Wolfpack at UChicago Presents May • 27 — Wayne Shorter (saxophone) at Symphony Center

Clockwise from Top Left (Opposite Page): Cast of Metropolitan Opera production of Romeo and Juliet (photo courtesy of Lyric Opera of Chicago); fortepiano player Kristin Bezuidenhout (photo courtesy of UChicago Presents); Members of Anonymous 4 (photo by Dario Acosta); Conductor Masaaki Suzuki (photo by Marco Borggreve); Mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy (photo courtesy of Symphony Center).

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Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwolfe) along with works by Telemann and Graupner that show Leipzig’s favored sons were true titans in their own right (April 11, 12 and 16, 2016).

Choral and Vocal Ensembles

Music

There is a singular beauty to truly wonderful vocal ensemble performance and Chicago sees the most diverse array of performances in the genre every season. 2015-2016 is no different.

Returning for its yearly Symphony Center appearance, the angelic Vienna Boys Choir will perform a festive program of traditional and contemporary vocal works alike. The best known boys choir in the world—and for good reason—the Vienna Boys Choir is comprised of a surprisingly seasoned cache of talented young choristers, performing 300 concerts each season. Their polish and professionalism will astound you about as much as their vocal beauty (November 28).

Called the “world’s reigning male chorus”

by The New Yorker, the Grammy Award– winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer will share a program of familiar and new seasonal pieces in a cappella arrangements this winter (December 1 and 2. Note the concert's location: Fourth Presbyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut, Chicago).

The Chicago Children’s Choir will return to the Harris Theater with the acclaimed musicians of Sphinx Virtuosi for a second annual holiday performance.

Featuring a unique blend of genres and traversing time periods, they perform holiday favorites that are well-known and well-loved. Serving nearly 4,000 children annually, Chicago Children’s Choir empowers singers to bridge cultural divides and become ambassadors to their own communities. Sphinx Virtuosi, one of the nation's most dynamic professional chamber orchestras, is comprised of 18 of the nation's top African-American and Latino classical soloists.

Together the ensembles will captivate audiences with a holiday program that stirs and inspires (December 7).

The enchanting a capella vocal trio, Zulal, will come to UChicago Presents’ Logan Center this season bringing rich and beautiful interpretations of ancient Armenian village folk melodies right along with them. Zulal’s sophisticated lyricism and energy raises the bar for pro-

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fessional interpretations of global early music. This concert will give Chicagoans an opportunity to hear “one of the most exciting developments in Armenian music today” (Atom Egyptian). And fans of vocal music will appreciate the hearing of a musical force with nuance and fluidity of a single vocal instrument in a resplendent corporal unit (May 6, 2016).

New Music New music has always found a home in Chicago with the adventuresome audiences the Windy City produces. And the city’s largest institutions are its biggest proponents.

University of Chicago’s Contempo collective of musicians dedicated to the discovery and performance of new music is one of the most important groups of its kind in the nation. Contempo’s 51st season will open in celebration of Shulamit Ran, recently retired artistic director of the collective (serving 2002-2015). Recipient of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize, some of Ran’s most important chamber works will be the focus of this momentous program performed by Contempo artists eighth blackbird, which begins with O The Chimneys (1969), set on poems about those who perished in the Holocaust and concludes with Bach Shards, commissioned in 2003 as part of the Brentano String Quartet’s invitation to 10 composers to write companion pieces for Bach’s Art of Fugue (October 27).

2015-2016 will see audiences honored with world premieres of many intriguing new classical works, not the least of which is the Lyric Opera commission, Bel Canto. Composed by Jimmy López with libretto by Nilo Cruz, this new opera is inspired by Ann Patchett’s best-selling novel and has been curated by Lyric’s creative consultant, soprano Renée Fleming.

Sir Andrew Davis will conduct the new Lyric production directed by Kevin Newbury. Soprano Danielle de Niese stars as the American diva Roxane Coss who gets caught in a monthslong hostage crisis during which lines blur and unexpected alliances form between captors and captives. (The novel and opera are inspired by the Peruvian hostage crisis of 1996-97.)

Clockwise from Top Left (both pages): Members of the Vienna Boys Choir (photo by Luke Beck); Composer Shulamit Ran (photo courtesy of the University of Chicago); Members of the Kronos Quartet (photo courtesy of the Kronos Quartet); Members of eighth-blackbird (photo by Luke Ratray); Vocal trio Zulal (photo courtesy of Zulal); Chicago Children's Choir (photo courtesy of the Chicago Children's Choir); Members of Chanticleer (photo courtesy of Chanticleer); Soprano Denielle de Niese (photo courtesy of Ms. de Niese).

Said Anthony Freud of Lyric Opera, “Bel Canto has its own very individual voice. It’s accessible, it’s theatrical, and it’s concise. It will be a highly dramatic evening...” (December 7, 2015).

Conductor Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, will make her CSO subscription debut in a program that opens with the first CSO performance of current Mead Composer-in-Residence Anna Clyne’s Masquerade. Clyne has had a substantial output while here in Chicago and her new work will no-doubt meet with a reception as enthusiastic as those previously premiered by the orchestra (November 27, 28 and 29).

This winter Harris Theater will unveil a new commission for the Kronos Quartet, Rinde Eckert and Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ. An operatic monodrama for voice, traditional Vietnamese instruments (various metallic percussion instruments, đàn bầu, and t'rưng), and string quartet, My Lai was composed by San Francisco Bay Area composer and Stanford University Professor of Music Jonathan Berger as an artistic portrayal of and response to the infamous 1968 civilian massacre by U.S. troops during the Vietnam War. My Lai approaches the story from U.S. Army helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson’s perspective. In lieu of a linear narrative, the story emerges in fragments as the aging and infirm Thompson reflects on the war and on decades of being maligned as unpatriotic and traitorous for attempting to stop the slaughter.

The new work has gotten support from a great many artistic initiatives. It was commissioned by the Harris Theater and the Laura and Ricardo Rosenkranz Artistic Innovation Fund through Imagine: The Campaign for Harris Theater, the GerbodeHewlett Foundations 2013 Music Commissioning Awards initiative, and the National Endowment for the Arts (January 29, 2016).

The ever-inventive, “Savvy and hyper-talented young percussionists” (Musical Toronto) known as Third Coast Percussion will bring the idea of using a single type of material

in performance to Assembly Hall at University of Chicago next February in one of the most innovative performances of the season. In this concert the instruments of choice are a wood table, in the case of Belgian composer Thierry de Mey’s Table Music (pun intended), and a drum head in Donnacha Dennehy’s new work, Tension of Skin (Chicago Premiere), inspired by playing techniques of the Irish bodhrán drum. The ensemble will round out the program honoring Steve Reich’s 80th birthday with his iconic Sextet. Come prepare to be thrilled. (February 5, 2016).

Conductor-in-Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Christian Măcelaru will lead the CSO in the world premiere of Pascal Dusapin’s CSO-commissioned Cello Concerto, with Chicagoan Alisa Weilerstein as soloist. Ibert’s Bacchanale will open this program, and Holst’s The Planets, with the Women of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, will conclude this intriguing program (May 26, 27, 28, 29 and 31, 2016).

Folk, Acoustic, Americana & Bluegrass Chicagoans, always rich in their appreciation for music of all genres, have in recent years come to support folk music performances in greater and greater measure each new season. And this season, some of the great folk musicians on the worldwide circuit will flock to the Windy City to take in some of that love.

This fall Tennessee native Holly Williams will bring songs from her third studio album, The Highway (2013), to Chicago’s bustling City Winery (citywinery.com/chicago). Daughter of singer Hank Williams and granddaughter of the famed Hank Williams, Sr., Holly searches out her independence from that royal music lineage in The Highway. The recording sports 11 original tracks written or co-written by the singer, and features guest vocals by the likes of country luminaries Jackson Browne, Jakob Dylan and Dierks Bentley.

Don’t miss her most popular song on the album, the poignant "Waiting on June." It’s a real show-stopper, an ode to her maternal grandparents bittersweet love story. In it Williams wears her heart on her sleeve, and you'll love every single minute of it (September 20).

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American guitarist and composer Julian Lage is as comfortable in the realm of traditional as well as acoustic forms of the folk and jazz genres. He’s worked with luminaries David Grisman, Eric Harland, Anthony Wilson, Joshua Bell, and Yoko Ono. Lage’s album Sounding Point scored a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz album. And he’ll present a sophisticated pallet for Old Town School of Music (oldtownschool.org) audiences when he performs there this fall (September 24, 2015) Former Black Crowes singer/ songwriter Jackie Greene has enjoyed a fair bit of touring success in his own right. Making waves at the Newport Jazz Festival, Newport Folk Festival, South

by Southwest and Winnipeg Folk Festival, Greene has shared the stage with the likes of Los Lobos, B.B. King, Huey Lewis and Buddy Guy, proving he’s got the chops and versatility to go the distance in this attention span challenged world. Green will take the stage at City Winery this season and audiences can expect to be sufficiently entranced with songs like “I Don’t Live In a Dream” and “Honey I been Thinking About You,”for which he is well adored (October 7 & 8) Three-time Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Joan Armatrading has twenty sterling albums under her belt, each with a wealth of depth and eclectic diversity. Voted among VH1’s Top 100 Most Influential Woman in Rock, the decorated Armatrading brings her stunning vocals and unwavering warmth to City Winery this fall (October 7,8 & 9).

The unlikely pairing of Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas has brought Scottish fiddling squarely to the forefront of world music today. Twenty-five year-old Julliard graduate Haas wasn’t even a gleam in her father’s eye when Fraser was collecting national fiddle competition wins on the far side of the Atlantic.

Fraser’s cutting-edge musical explorations found fulfillment in a musician that could bring back the cello to its historical role at the rhythmic heart of Scottish dance music (October 11).

Acclaimed 10-piece bluegrass band The SteelDrivers like to say they have one foot in the field and the other in the factory. Their sound is a mix between “back-country high-lonesome(ness)” and Delta soul. They offer a fresh take on classic themes of redemption, loss, hope and home.

Country legend Vince Gill calls it, “Really soulful bluegrass, with great songs. An incredible combination.” That combination will be in full force when the band plays Old Town School of Folk Music on Octoer 17.

Since her 2009 debut, Take to the Sky, songstress Kat Edmonson has brought great energy to her passion for the classic jazz standards and taken her career to new heights. Having worked with the likes of

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Lyle Lovett, Chris Isaak and Gary Clark Jr., Edmonson has come a mighty long way from the stages of American Idol, where she'd made it through several rounds.. Unwavered by the pressures of pop and stardom, Edmonson has kept her considerable bent for expression and warmth and fueled a uniquely Edmonson perusal of pop and jazz standards from generations before her. And it’s created such growth that the Boston Globe hailed her 2012 sophomore effort, Way Down Low, “one of the greatest vocal albums I have ever heard.”

Edmonson will be on hand this season at City Winery and if you miss it, there’s one thing that’s for sure, you’ll miss one of the most uniquely talented young artists on the rise we’ve seen in quite some time (October 25).

Called the renegade traditionalists of Americana, the musicians of Mipso — Jacob Sharp on mandolin, Joseph Terrell on guitar, Libby Rodenbough on fiddle, Wood Robinson on double bass — are working hard to take three-part harmony and Appalachian influences into every corner of the musical continent. IndyWeek credits the band for the reemergence of southern roots music in North Carolina and “expanding the vocabulary of common touchstones” for bluegrass.

Mipso will be in residence at City Winery this season with songs from their latest album, Dark Holler Pop, in tow. And their crisp wit and distinctive sound will sweep you away as much as their onstage charm (October 29).

Paula Cole’s 2014 concert at City Winery was a breath of fresh air in a city with an ever growing folk music calendar. This season Cole is back to breathe even newer life with songs from her seventh studio album over her storied twodecade-long career. In her own words, "7 is a collection of songs that came suddenly and urgently, The songs demanded to be written and released, as if my subconscious needed to reach out to me; to tell me all I was going through. I recorded this album live, as an acoustic quartet. It sounds like a soft, soulful album made in the 1960's and the songs speak for themselves." That they do. Paula Cole will bring her eclectic (jazz, rock and soul) sound and sophisticated writing to what will likely be the folk concert of the season at City Winery this fall (November 14).

In their four short years, Houndmouth has gone from debut performances in local Louisville and Indiana haunts to promoting her their homemade South by Southwest Music Festival in 2012 to lighting up the stage of David Letterman and Conan O’Brien and Lollapalooza. This Louisiana quartet will bring their homespun authenticity and un apologetic charm to Chicago’s Thalia Hall (thaliClockwise From Top Left (both pages): Singer Jackie Green (photo by York Wilson); Members of Mipso (photo courtesy of the band Mipso); Songstress Liz Wright (photo courtesy of City Winery); jazz saxophonist Miguel Zenón (photo by Jimmy Katz); Members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Winton Marsalis (photo courtesy of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts); Bluegrass band the SteelDrivers (photo courtesy of the Steeldrivers); Folk singer Paula Cole (photo Courtesy of city Winery).

ahallchicago.com) this season and we will all be the better for it (November 27 and 28, 2015).

Jazz World-class jazz artists have always found a welcome stage in Chicago’s venues and as the wide spectrum of American’s own art form continues to grow, audiences flock in greater numbers to the ever broadening landscape of Chicago series and venues that offer a home for great jazz performances.

The 2015-2016 Symphony Center Presents Series kicks off its contingent of jazz concerts with the return of heavy hitters the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and legendary bandleader and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. The illustrious ensemble returns for three concerts during a multi-day residency on January 22 and 23, 2016. The internationally acclaimed 15-piece ensemble will perform timeless big band standards and new works in their series concert on Friday, January 22. Two special concerts are set for Saturday, January 23. Wynton Marsalis will lead an interactive Jazz for Young People matinee program called "Who is Duke Ellington?" Finally, capping the residency will be an extraordinary big band “Battle Royale” at 8 p.m. with the Legendary Count Basie Orchestra directed by Scotty Barnhart joining Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on stage. A raucous and joyous celebration of big band traditions like none other this season will ensue in this must-see performance.

Georgia native Liz Wright has been squarely on every jazz aficionado's radar since her first album, Salt, reached number two on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz chart in 2004. Her discrete blend of jazz, pop and even folk forms may ruffle the feathers of some purists, but even they can’t deny her talent and visionary appeal. Wright brings that talent to City Winery this fall, a welcome venue for the diverse influences that permeate her set (September 25).

The powerhouse trio of Ethan Iverson, piano; Reid Anderson, bass; and David King, drums— more widely known as The Bad Plus— commands international attention for their innovative readings of music by artists as diverse as Nirvana, ABBA and Stravinsky. The trio will join forces with acclaimed saxophonist and composer Joshua Redman—one of jazz’s most innovative forces in his own right—at Symphony Center this fall, and the result will be a mega collaboration of jazz minds expanding the endless possibilities of the growing art form (October 16).

Following her first place win at the 2010 Thelonious Monk

International Jazz Competition, Cécile McLorin Salvant has dazzled audiences in every venue she has graced. The New York Times says of the young songstress, “If anyone can extend the lineage of the Big Three – Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald – it is this 23-year-old virtuoso.” The chanteuse will perform jazz standards at UChicago Presents’ Logan Center this fall, and there shouldn’t be an empty seat in the house (October 23).

Legendary Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés will make his return to Symphony Center in a lively celebration this fall. The evening commemorates 40 years of the revolutionary Latin jazz band Irakere, which he co-founded. Despite the political barriers that kept the band from traveling to the U.S. in the 1970’s, Irakere exploded onto the jazz scene with its Afro-Cuban jazz and Cuban popular dance influences, as well as their distinctive use of traditional percussion instruments (November 6).

The winter McCoy Tyner Trio Symphony Center concert entitled "Echoes With a Friend" will take its cue from Tyner’s landmark solo piano recording of the same name honoring jazz legend John Coltrane. In it Chicagoans will have an opportunity to hear pianists Geri Allen and Danilo Pérez celebrate rich jazz keyboard traditions of master jazz pianist McCoy Tyner and, trust me when I tell you, there won’t be a toe that doesn’t tap in the house (December 4).

Led by Grammy award-winning drummer Dion Parson, the 7-piece 21st Century Band features a fresh, innovative sound blending US Virgin Islands harmonies with other Caribbean infusions along with New Orleans and African overtones. Together, these supremely talented artists offer a signature Caribbean jazz fraught with earthy sophistication and a high energy level that has audiences up and moving at every hearing. They will bring that sound to UChicago’s Logan Center and a lucky Hyde Park audience next spring (April 29, 2016).

Saxophonist and MacArthur Fellow Miguel Zenón has masterfully balanced and blended the often-contradictory poles of innovation and tradition. A song cycle for his quartet plus big band and video, his Identities are Changeable project explores the experience of Puerto Ricans who have moved to New York. Zenón brings that project to UChicago Presents next May and anyone who has a fondness for innovative jazz performances should plan to be in attendance (May 26).

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many of whom are Tharp alumni. The historical commission will celebrate Tharp’s 50 years as an industry leader and includes other visits to 15 cities throughout the country.

Stephen Petronio’s company is back at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago (www.colum.edu/dance-center) this year for the fourth time in the company’s history. Petronio Company (October 1-3) shows Chicago the very first of what is set to be a five year initiative in commemorating the choreographer’s influences over the last 30 years. Though last year was the actual anniversary for the Petronio company, BLOODLINES brings exciting work by Cunningham and Trisha Brown in the “comBy JORDAN REINWALD memorating anniversaries” flavor. Audiences will have the unique and important opportunity to glimpse again a historical work by Merce Cunningham, a rare treat after the Cunningham company dissolved following his death in 2009.

Never a shortage of electrifying dance in Chicago, Finally, an anniversary Chicagoans can enjoy all the coming season proves to be much anticiyear is The Joffrey Ballet’s 60th anniversary pated even following a stellar 2014-2015. From star-studded international companies gracing Chicago’s beloved stages to emerging names in choreography, the past season helped pave the way for even more robust projects this year. Chicago’s larger companies are sure to thrill, as usual, with new works by big names, and a revisiting of some old crowd favorites. Smaller companies represent strongly, continuing to celebrate milestone anniversaries and provide enrichment among the big, international bills. This year local company The Dance COLEctive celebrates its 20th anniversary and ballet big house The Joffrey Ballet celebrates a momentous 60 years.

Says Brett Batterson, executive director of the Auditorium Theater of Roosevelt University, of the new season: “Building off of the momentum from our incredibly robust 125th Anniversary Season, we are thrilled to continue offering the best talent from around the world to our audiences. The upcoming season will bring something for everyone as we begin the next 125 year legacy of the Auditorium Theatre, while celebrating some of the most influential artists in all genres of entertainment.” The Auditorium Theatre will act as the customary home to The Joffrey Ballet this season, as well as presenting a season that includes appearances by Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernández, River North Dance Chicago, Joel Hall Dancers, and Thodos Dance Chicago, among others.

Dance

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Anniversaries Following a momentous year in anniversaries last year with the above-mentioned Auditorium Theatre (auditoriumtheatre.org) Anniversary and a 30th Anniversary year for Jan Bartoszek’s local company, Hedwig Dances, comes another big year to celebrate landmark seasons. Most notably is the monster 50th anniversary year for choreographic legend, Twyla Tharp. Tharp will bring two new works to the Auditorium Theatre (November 5-8) in a commission project shared by Ravinia Festival. The November engagement features two works with twelve dancers each, 38•CNCJAAutumn2015

Pictured: The Hamburg Ballet in Sylvia by John Neumeier.

Photo by Holger Badecow

season with performances and engagements from September to June.

The North American premiere of Sylvia by John Neumeier (October 15 - 25), the Joffrey premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s Fool’s Paradise, and the return of Frederick Ashton’s lavish Cinderella will all share a year with the farewell season of Robert Joffrey’s beloved The Nutcracker (December 4 - 27) to be replaced next year with a brand new Nutcracker by Wheeldon. Furthermore, for the third year, an additional season program will be presented in September, a oneweekend-only program entitled “Millennials” (September 16 - 20) will showcase new works by the country’s most promising next generation choreographic talents. The program includes world premieres

by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, whose work Chicago audiences saw last season in The Scottish Ballet’s A Streetcar Named Desire, and a work

by Myles Thatcher. Finally for its anniversary season, The Joffrey

presents "Bold Moves" (February 10 - 21, 2016), a mixed repertory program featuring a world premiere by British choreographer Ashley Page, and a repeat performance of Yuri Possokhov’s popular RAkU. Jir˘í Kylián’s classic Forgotten Land, finishes out the February program. Said Ashley Wheater, artistic director of The Joffrey, of the season: “During the season we will celebrate the evolution of the company and its many landmarks. We introduce three world premiere works by some of today’s most exciting choreographers (and) after 29 memorable years, we will retire Robert Joffrey’s The Nutcracker.”

Local Favorites A slew of Chicago staples will present works new and old in shows scattered throughout the city this year. Chicago’s beloved Hubbard Street Dance presents its third ever single-choreographer show with a full program by William Forsythe (October 15-18) at Harris Theater for Music and Dance (harristheatercicago.org). Also exciting for Hubbard Street is Solo Echo (December 10 - 13 at Harris Theater), a work by choreographer Crystal Pite.

Same Planet Different World Dance Theatre, directed by Joanna Rosenthal, will present a new work, in collaboration with international choreographers Niv Sheinfeldand and Oren Laor. In the culmination of a process begun this past April in Tel Aviv, Israel, the well documented rehearsal process created anticipation around what will be a world premiere performance in October (22 & 24-25) at The Museum of Contemporary Art (mcachicago.org), following an additional ten day creation project with the choreographers.

Also presenting a long-incubated work is Molly Shannahan/ Mad Shak Dance. Tiny, Liquid Bones explores a continued inquiry as artists consider language; their associations with language, and make reflections about how language shapes us. The work will be presented in December at Links Hall (linkshall.com) and Hamlin Park. Additionally, The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) has announced Shannahan will also be featured in SpinOff 2015 taking place this fall. A celebration of contemporary dance created by emerging and established artists from the Midwest, SpinOff will feature Chicago and world premieres, as well as excerpts from works-in-progress (November 5-21).

And We Shall Be Rid of Them by Molly Shanahan/ Mad Shak marks the first-time collaboration between long-time colleagues Shanahan and Jeff Hancock, who have been developing the work since 2012.

Crowd Favorites Back on the bill for The Joffrey and Hubbard Street, are recognizable titles and choreographers with proven track records. As mentioned, the family favorite Cinderella (April 20 - May 1, 2016) will be performed by The Joffrey Ballet in Frederick Ashton’s choreography.

The ballet was last performed by the company in 2010.

Hubbard Street brings back alumni dancer Penny Saunders in a choreoAutumn2015CNCJA•39

Dance

graphic role for a world premiere in its Winter Series (December 10 - 13) at Harris Theater. Saunders also joins the company as a dancer this season, an opportunity for past fans to see her dance again. The company’s resident choreographer, Alejandro Cerrudo, brings back his work The Impossible (2014) for the spring (March 17 - 20). Also notable is the critically acclaimed Hubbard Street collaboration with well-known comedy company, The Second City from 2014. The Art of Falling returns to the Harris Theater for the Summer Series in June.

Finally, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater graces the Auditorium Theater stage, March 8-13 in their an annual Chicago engagement. Hailed by U.S. Congressional resolution as “America’s cultural ambassador of the world,” the company always brings a high dose of elegance and grace with their athletic company. While Ailey is sure to pack the Auditorium Theater full, as it usually does, if you’re looking for a taste of the company’s flavor before committing to the main event, Alvin Ailey II has a one night engagement at the McAninch Arts Center at College of Dupage (atthemac.org) on October 18 that will act as a small taster for the main company’s shows in March.

Chicago Guests

While the Chicago dance scene is ripe with performances to keep audiences pleased all year long, the presenting seasons are also full of exciting guests to the city. Miami City Ballet is back after their 2009 performance at the Auditorium Theatre. This time, they’re making their Harris Theater debut on April 29, 2016 (during yet another anniversary) their 30th anniversary season.

Two programs include work by young choreographic sensation Justin Peck, as well as their repertoire standard Balanchine works. On the other end of the spectrum, Brooklyn based Faye Driscoll brings her dance theater piece, Thank You for Coming, to the Museum of Contemporary Art in February.

The work is staged in the round and intended for small audiences, sure to provide an intimate and involved viewing experience.

Unique Imaginations In searching for something outside of the concert dance box, several Chicago locals provide a strong representation of experimental and unique work this season. Local company Khecari (khecari.org), whose choreographers, Jonathan Meyer and Julia Rae Antonick, use somatic investigation to generate their choreography, craft an im40•CNCJAAutumn2015

mersive journey for each individual audience in their October premiere of The Cronus Land. Featuring fourteen dancers and three live musicians, the work will be installed over a two-month residency in the Louis XVI Ballroom of the erstwhile Shoreland Hotel in Hyde Park and will feature a 5 x 8 foot pit designed by Meyer and Jeff Hancock to seat just twelve audience members. Cronus Land is an exciting expansion of last year’s sold out Oubliette and moves from other Khecari works, Pales (2012) and Ester & the Omphali (2014).

A fresh voice in the Chicago dance scene is Performance Artist, Joshua Kent and his new performance, WATCHING ME / WATCHING YOU. Premiering at Links Hall in October, WATCHING explores the subtly of oppression within everyday gestures and will feature Kent’s poignant and developing style of movement. Kent shares this show with Signifier, a new work by Joanna Furnans.

Also at Links Hall is LinkUp residency artist Chih Hsien Lin (also known as Jo-An Lin) with Steeping Pace, a work cultivating warmth, tenderness, and curiosity. This work promises to echo the nature of this particular artist, a registered dance/ movement therapist, at the showing in September. Finishing out Links Hall’s strong showing of new works, the Chicago Dancemakers Forum presents Antibody Corporation’s Against Being, created and directed by Adam Rose, and premiering in October. Against Being is the second of four new works supported by 2014 CDF Lab Artist Awards to premiere in Chicago through spring 2016. Against Being is “a dance about nothing and an exploration of space — the space between language and dance,” says Adam Rose.

Also On Our Radar

October • 3 — River North Dance Chicago at Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University • 10 — Visceral Dance Chicago at Harris Theater for Music and Dance • 23 & 24 — Giordano Dance Chicago at Harris Theater for Music and Dance November • 5, 6 & 7 — Camille A. Brown & Dancers at the Dance Center of Columbia College • 6 - Jessica Lang Dance at Harris Theater for Music and Dance January • 23 & 24 — Romeo & Juliet by State Ballet Theatre of Russia at Harris Theater for Music and Dance February • 18, 19 & 20 — Urban Bush Women at the Dance Center of Columbia College • 23, 24, 26 & 27 — Hamburg Ballet at Harris Theater for Music and Dance From Top: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre's Alica Graf Mack (photo by Eduardo Petino); Mary Carmen Catoya in Ballo della Regina (photo by Steven Caras). Thank You For Coming by Faye Driscoll (photo courtesy of Faye Driscoll).

Autumn2015CNCJA•41

By LESLIE PRICE

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Theater

With so much great theater in Chicago, the biggest challenge for many theatergoers is simply figuring out just how to narrow down the many choices. Broadway tours, powerful regional companies, innovative storefronts and tiny professional suburban groups are all part of the vibrant cultural fabric of Chicago and the surrounding areas. How's an audience member to choose between all the great productions scheduled in the coming season?

Not to worry. We've waded through the long list of options and put together our picks for “Best of the Best” theater in the new calendar, and rest assured there is something for everyone in Chicago’s new season. Whether you're looking for bold comedy, riveting drama, large-scale musicals or a night of improv, you'll find it here.

Though New York may be the first place folks think of when they think of great theater, Chicago is in many ways an even bigger theater town. There's room—literally and figuratively—for equity and non-equity companies, professional groups and community theaters.

New companies spring up on a regular basis, and older companies of actors are able to stick together, forming ensembles that create better and better work with the start of each new season.

One of the smaller companies that's gotten lots of attention in recent years is Profiles Theatre (profilestheatre.org). For 26 seasons, they've titillated Chicago audiences with ground-breaking, provocative productions, and their 27th season continues that trend. In additional to Vices and Virtues (its 13th collaboration with resident playwright Neil LaBute), Profiles is also mounting the Midwest premiere of Beth Henley's The Jacksonian (August 27 October 11).

Remarkable not only

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for the fact that Pulitzer Prizewinning Henley is a master of Southern gothic and dark humor (both of which make for great theater), but also for the fact the Profiles is a notoriously testosterone-driven company and has only begun regularly producing work by female playwrights in the last couple of seasons. Henley is not the only woman among Profiles' writers this year. Penelope Skinner's The Village Bike rounds out the fiveshow season with a story of romance, fantasy, and adventure that's sad, strange and darkly funny (May 12 - June 26, 2016). Shows alternate between Profiles' two venues, The Main Stage at 4139 N. Broadway and The Alley Stage at 4147 N. Broadway.

The Hypocrites (the-hypocrites.com) furthers its own status among off-Loop theater companies with an unprecedented sevenshow season. Following a powerhouse summer production of the much lauded remount of All Our Tragic this summer, The Hypocrites blasts into fall with the Chicago premiere of American Idiot, based on punk rock band Green Day's Grammy Award-winning album (closing October 25). They follow that up with a unique collaboration with students from Senn Arts Magnet High School on the heartbreaking The 4th Graders Present an Unnamed Love-Suicide (October 30 November 7).

Their season just gets better from there with productions of the strange and delightful Burning Bluebeard (November 22 - January 3, 2016), Hans Fleischmann's re-imagined staging of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie (January 22 - March 6, 2016) —it's amazing, don't miss it!— and a musical adaptation of Adding Machine (March 18 - May 15, 2016). The Hypocrites' productions will be presented at their new home, The Den Theatre Mainstage, 1329 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL. Started in 2007, Sideshow Theatre Company (sideshowtheatre.org) has quickly made a name for itself as a Clockwise from Top (both pages): Playwright Penelope Skinner (photo courtesy of Ms. Skinner); Playwright Craig Wright (photo courtesy of Interrobang Theatre Project); Playwright Lucy Kirkwood (photo courtesy of TimeLine Theatre); Cast of The Jacksonian at Profiles Theatre (photo courtesy of Profiles Theatre).

Chicago theater company that produces work that feels both familiar and new.

Sideshow is producing three new works at Victory Gardens' Richard Christiansen Theater this season where it continues its multi-year residency. No More Sad Things uses music and humor to tell a story of adventure and catharsis (November 15 - December 20); Mai Dang Lao combines true events with compelling storytelling for a show that's both thrilling and grim (March 6 - April 10, 2016); and perhaps most intriguing is Caught – the final show of the season that is an exploration of story and truth told through a hallucinatory piece of performance art created in collaboration with Xiong Art Gallery (May 29 - July 3, 2016).

Chicago is filled with plenty of storefront and smaller theaters, some of which have permanent homes and some that work wherever they can find a space or another company to collaborate with. The Gift Theatre (thegifttheatre.org) is producing work in a couple of locations this season, and one of their most interesting projects is shaping up to be a production of Richard III (March 7 - May 1, 2016). Not only will audiences have a chance to see the show live in Steppenwolf's Garage Theatre, they also have an opportunity to watch a Live Periscope Stream on April 23rd on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

Details on the live stream will be available via The Gift on Twitter at @TheGiftTheatre.

Interrobang Theatre Project's (interrobangtheatre.org) sixth season is themed “Unnatural Disasters.” Though Interrobang has a penchant for choosing work that's odd for the sake of being odd, the company occasionally manages to find work that is both unique and compelling. Recent Tragic Events by Emmy Award-winning writer Craig Wright is the kind of play that's perfect for this young company. Set on September 12, 2001, Recent Tragic Events explores chance, tragedy and coincidence with the kind of gimmick Interrobang appreciates and one that will impress audiences, too (March 13- April 10, 2016 at the Athenaeum).

Audiences are consistently impressed with the literature-based work coming out of Lifeline Theatre (lifelinetheatre.com).

Their productions are well-acted, well-directed and well-designed, and this season is filled with familiar titles for children and grown ups alike. Of note in the coming season is Midnight Cowboy based on the book by James Leo Herlihy (February 19 - April 10, 2016 at 6912 Glenwood Ave., Chicago). This world premiere adaptation is a meditation on loneliness and the need to form connections in an isolating work. It's sure to be beautiful.

Also consistently strong is TimeLine Theatre Company (timetheatre.com). Three out of their four shows scheduled for 2015-2016 are Chicago premieres, and all of the titles in their line up are very exciting. Of particular interest is Lucy Kirkwood's Chimerica in which a photojournalist searches for the truth about the Tiananmen Square “Tank Man” and in doing so explores the relationship between twin superpowers China and the United States (May 12 - July 31, 2016 at TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave.).

For audiences looking for a little bit of wow, Babes With Blades’ (BWBTC - babeswithblades.org) stunning violence design is always a crowd pleaser. Coming in the spring of 2016 is 180 Degree Rule—a new play created in collaboration with BWBTC that is about film, murder, history and sexuality (April 25 - May 21, 2016 at City Lit Theatre, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr).

Autumn2015CNCJA•43

The House Theatre (thehousetheatre.com) also dazzles audiences with stunning imagery, creative staging, and plenty of magic. Of note in the coming season is The Last Defender, which is a collaboration between artistic director Nathan Allen, D.C. Comics artist Chris Burnham and some of Chicago’s best loved puzzle and game designers. This immersive story is part puzzle hunt and part live action game (opens January 21 at the Chopin Theatre,

Theater

1543 W. Division).

While challenging theater is important, sometimes audiences want to have a little fun, and Chicago stages have plenty of fun to offer. Most notably, the Second City's (secondcity.com) namesake improv company continues to produce fantastic sketch comedy on their Mainstage and features plenty of talented performers in their E.T.C. Theater and Up Comedy Club, too. The shows are ever-changing, so be sure to check dates at times online before heading over to their complex on the corner of North and Wells in Lincoln Park.

Plenty of improv is available to theatergoers looking for laughs in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood as well. iO's (ioimprov.com) new digs at 1501 N. Kingsbury St. are filled to the brim with long-form improv shows and sketch comedy

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including crowd favorites like T.J. and Dave, The Armando Diaz Experience, and The Improvised Shakespeare Company. Many shows run weekly, some are more sporadic, so check online before you go.

Folks in the Western Suburbs have a chance to enjoy some great comedy without even venturing downtown. The MacAninch Arts Center in Glen Ellyn (atthemac.org) will play host to Whose Line is it Anyway favorites Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood in Two Man Group (December 12).

If you prefer your comedy scripted, Chicago has that covered, too. A short drive to the Skokie Theatre will bring you to MadKap Productions’ (madkapproductions. com) delightful Beau Jest, the hilarious, heartwarming comedy that's been loved by audiences for over 25 years (February 5-21). Over at the Athenaeum, Step Up Productions (stepupproductions.com) is producing the perennial crowd pleaser Barefoot in the Park (October 2 - November 1).

Big name theaters around town also have seasons full of exciting, fun and provocative shows.

Steppenwolf (steppenwolf.org) celebrates its landmark 40th anniversary season this fall by continuing its long-standing relationship with the John Steinbeck estate in a spectacular adaptation of East of Eden (September 17 - November 15) from Tony Awardwinning

playwright Frank Galati. Years in the making, East of Eden is the start to a milestone season filled with new works, Chicago premieres, and plenty of returning ensemble members. They include Bruce Norris’ Domestiaced (December 3 - February 7, 2016), The Flick (February 4 - May 8, 2016) by Annie Baker and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts’ world premiere work Mary Page Marlowe (March 31 May 29, 2016).

After four decades of cementing Chicago's place in American t h e a t e r , Steppenwolf is going strong and doesn't appear to be letting up.

Likewise, Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST - chicagoshakes.com) has stacked their season to the brim with old classics, revisionist takes on some audience favorites and Chicago premieres of exciting work. For Shakespeare purists out there, CST has an exciting production of Othello on tap that features Dion Johnstone in the title role (February 18 - April 10, 2016).

A classic gets a bit of a new twist when director Aaron Posner and magician Teller (of Penn and Teller) create a world full of magic, wonder, and choreography from the pioneering dance collective Pilobolus (September 8 - November 8) in The Tempest. Folks looking for something brand new can look forward to Ride the Cyclone a new musical being brought to life by director and choreographer Rachel Rockwell (September 29 - November 8). Part comedy, party tragedy, and wholly unexpected, Ride the Cyclone is wildly imaginative and offbeat.

Goodman Theatre (goodmantheatre.org) is starting its season off with a bang by bringing back Disgraced, a blistering script that received its world premiere at American Theatre Company in Chicago in 2012. In this

Also On Our Radar SEPTEMBER • 8 through October 18 — Guardians at Marry-Archie Theatre (marryarchie.com) • 10 through October 11 — August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean at Court Theatre at University of Chicago (courttheatre.org) • 11 through October 18 — Funnyman at Northlight Theatre in Skokie (northlight.org) October • 1 through November 14 — Marvin’s Room by Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit (sgtheatre.org) • 2 through 11 — Hollywood’s Greatest Song Hits

by Light Opera Works in Evanston (light-operaworks.org) • 3 through November 9 – The Story of a Story (The Untold Story) by Underscore Theatre at Chopin Theatre (underscoretheatre.org) • 5 through November 21 — Pilgrim’s Progress at A Red Orchid Theatre (aredorchidtheatre.org) • 6 — Unspeakable at Broadway Playhouse (broadwayinchicago.org) • 21 through February 28 — Marjorie Prime at Writer’s Theatre in Glencoe (writerstheatre.org) November • 5 through December 6 — Agamemnon at Court Theatre at University of Chicago (courttheatre. org) • 5 through December 13 — The Lisbon Traviata

by Eclipse Theatre at Athenaeum Theatre (eclipsetheatre.org) • 7 through December 13 — Pocatello by Griffin Theatre at Signal Ensemble Theatre (griffintheatre.com) • 10 through 15 – Mamma Mia! at Cadillac Palace Theatre (broadwayinchicago.org) January • 7 through February 7, 2016 — Satchmo at the Waldorf by Court Theatre • 22- February 28 — Mothers & Sons at Northlight Theatre in Skokie (northlight.org) • 26 through April 2 — Sender by A Red Orchid Theatre (aredorchidtheatre.org) Clockwise from Top (both pages): Nathan Allen (photo courtesy of Mr. Allen); Colin Sphar and Alex Fisher in Barefoot in the Park (photo by Cheryl Mann); Tempest (photo by Bill Burlingham); Aaron Posner (photo courtesy of Chicago Shakespere Theater); Pilobolus (photo courtesy of Pilobolus); Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood (photo courtesy of The MacAninch Arts Center); Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright Tracy Letts (photo courtesy of Steppenwolf Theatre).

Autumn2015CNCJA•45

Theater

new production, Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama explores race, religion and class through Kimberly Senior's world-class direction and the Goodman's top notch production values (September 12 - October 18). If that's not enough, Goodman has filled up the rest of its season with the music-filled Another Word for Beauty (January 16 - February 21, 2016), Lorraine Hansberry's final work The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (April 30 - June 5, 2016), and then rounds the year out with Tony Award-winner Mary Zimmerman directing Leonard Bernstein's Wonderful Town (June 25 - August 7, 2016).

Victory Gardens (victorygardens. org), of course, has its own season of shows to share with Chicago audiences, and it's a great one. First up is Roy Williams' Sucker Punch, a play about boxing, race, and 1980s London (September 18 - October 18). Also included among a truly exciting season are two productions that

focus on Chicago, its residents, and its history. Never the Sinner (November 6 - December 6) by Playwrights Ensemble alumnus John Logan explores the story of Leopold and Loeb in a suspenseful courtroom drama.

Midway through the season, Sarah Gubbins' Cocked focuses on an Andersonville couple, steadfast in their morals and politics until a visiting relative has them trying to balance beliefs and safety in the midst of betrayal (February 12-March 13).

Lookingglass Theatre (lookingglasstheatre.org) is busy creating some great literaturebased work this season with Mary Zimmerman's re-imagined version of 46•CNCJAAutumn2015

Also On Our Radar December • 17 & 18 — See Jane Sing at Civic Opera House March • 10 through April 10 — Long Day’s Journey Into Night at Court Theatre at University of Chicago (courttheatre.org) April • 27 through July 17 — Death of a Streetcar Named Virginia Woolf: A Parody at Writer’s Theatre in Glencoe (writerstheatre.org) • 29 through May 22 — The King and I by Lyric Opera of Chicago (lyricopera.org) May • 3 through July 15 — The Wiz at American Theatre Company (actweb.org) • 12 through June 12 — One Man, Two Guvnors by Court Theatre June • 3 through July 10 — Hauptmann at CityLit Theatre (citylit.org) July • 7 throgh August 14 – Wastwater at Steep Theatre (steeptheatre.com)

Treasure Island (beginning October 7).

Produced in conjunction with Berkley Repertory Theatre, Treasure Island is certain to be a thrilling experience for audiences of all ages.

Lookingglass's remaining shows are equally exciting. Blood Wedding (beginning March 2) is Frederico Garcia Lorca's mesmerizing tale of passion and revenge, and Lookingglass plans a production that immerses audiences in music, movement, and gorgeous language. The seaFrom Top: Playwright Kimberly Senior (photo courtesy of Goodman Theatre); Playwright Lorraine Hansberry (photo by AP); Playwright and director Mary Zimmerman (photo courtesy of Goodman Theatre); Composer Leonard Bernstein (photo by AP).

son wraps up with Thaddeus and Slocum: A Vaudeville Adventure (beginning June 1). Combining the physicality Lookingglass's audience have come to expect with a story of race and vaudeville, Thaddeus and Slocum is a fascinating combination of storytelling and athleticism.

For many Chicagoans and visitors, their first theatrical experience comes via Broadway in Chicago's offerings. While not always produced by Chicago theater companies for local audiences, Broadway In Chicago (broadwayinchicago.org) does a great job of bringing a wide variety of shows to the Windy City.

Some are great. Some...not so much. This year looks to be an exceptional line up. There are lots of touring productions to choose from—including some great family friendly fare.

Grown ups, be sure to mark your calendars for A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (September 29-October 11); Beautiful; The Carole King Musical (December 1 - February 21, 2016); and If/Then (February 23 - March 6, 2016). Take your kids to see the darkly jubilant Matilda (March 22 - April 10, 2016) and the incredible dancing in Newsies (July 28 - August 7, 2016).

Large or small, comedy or drama, musical or not-so-musical, you have to admit, Chicago's got it all.

Whether you're an avid theatergoer or venturing out for the first time, there's something that's sure to get you thinking, to spark your imagination and to inspire.

From Top: Broadway cast of Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder; Broadway cast of Metilda ; Broadway cast of If/ Then (photos by Joan Warren).

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of the same name from April 23 through September 25, 2016. Born in Alabama in 1955 and witness to the Watts riots in 1965, Marshall has visually chronicled the African-American experience in various painterly styles from the Renaissance to abstract art. This major muBy JANET ARVIA seum survey highlighting the last 35 years of Marshall’s career is co-organized with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

The MCA will also showcase 20th century surrealists with The Conjured Life: Surrealism from the MCA Collection. The exhibition featuring more than 100 paintings, sculptures, drawEuropean Surrealism, American ings and Pop, German Expressionism, photographs, French Impressionism, all from the Midwestern Existentialism and an museum’s emphasis on photography, mass media and architecholdings. The ture populate Chicagoland’s plentiful art exhibition Conjured schedule in the new season.

Life runs November 21, The new cultural calendar celebrating artful inthrough June sights from an assortment of influential artists of 5, 2016. the past and present starts this month on Navy F r o m Pier with EXPO Chicago, the International December 19, Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Art 2015 through (expochicago.com). Presented in partnership March 27, with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2016, the the event includes /Dialogues, a series of inMCA will go triguing discussions including Contemporary pop—literalArt in Italy: Today on September 18 and ly—with two Hans Ulrich Obrist: In Conversation with special exhithe Hairy Who on September 19. bitions: Pop “These panels,” promises EXPO Art Design Chicago president and director Tony Karman, “will bring toand Pop Art Design, The gether the voices of some of Street, the the greatest artists and thinkStore, and the Silver Screen. ers living today.”

The latter examines the Pop Art The Museum of movement with urban imagery Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA - mcachicago.org) will pay tribute this fall by Ed Paschke and Wolf Vostell and pieces about mass commercialto Kerry James Marshall, one of America’s greatest ism by Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol, whose iconic Hollywood living painters, in a thought-provoking exhibition portraits of American celebrities are also featured in the show. The MCA’s companion exhibition Pop Art Design will explore just how the pop phenomenon spread from museums and galleries into everyday life via furniture, graphic design and architecture of the 1960s and 1970s, thanks to the influence of Warhol and his peers.

In keeping with this theme, The DePaul Art Museum (museums.

Art

E

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depaul.edu) has delved deeply into its own holdings to present The Andy Archetype: Works from the Permanent Collection from September 10 through December 20. The show runs concurrent with Matt Siber: Idol Structures featuring the Chicagobased artist’s recent photographs and sculptures, which reflect the affect of corporate mass-media communications on today’s urban landscape.

Out in the Western suburbs, Elmhurst Art Museum (www. elmhurstartmuseum. org) will compliment the Chicago Architecture Biennial with the Midwest debut of Lessons from Modernism: Environmental Design Strategies in Architecture 1925-1970 from September 12 through November 2. Mies van der Rohe’s 1952 McCormick House From Top: Paul Delvaux, Penelope, 1945. Collection of Museum Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Joseph and Jory Shapiro. Photo © MCA Chicago. copyright 2015 Foundation Paul Delvaux, Sint-Idesbald/ARS-SABAM Belgiu; Verner Panton.

Heart Shaped Cone Chair K3, 1959. Collection Vitra Design Museum © Panton Design, Basel; Claes Oldenburg, Sculpture in the Form of a Fried Egg, 1966-71. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Anne. and William J. Hokin. copyright 1964 Claes Oldenburg. Photo © MCA Chicago.

Cockwise From Top Right (opposite page): Expo Chicago Festival at Chicago's Navy Pier (photo by James Prinz); George Nelson. Marshmallow, Sofa, 1956. Collection Vitra Design Museum © Vitra Design Museum; Artist Kerry James Marshall (photo by Kendall Karmanian).

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Art

is central to this display as well as two more of the museum’s fall exhibitions: No Place Like House, featuring an installation by architect Andrew Santa Lucia, and Lessons from the Fick Home: Mies’s Social, Cultural and Environmental Sustainability from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Outside the museum, visitors will view Skycube by Chicago-based artist David Wallace Haskins. Comprised of steel, glass and far infrared light film, the world premiere piece bridges the gap between sculpture, architecture and painting.

Paul McCartney (the one born in Salt Lake City, not Liverpool) humorously works images of humans into architectural renderings in a series of rarely-seen sketches and collages that will be on display in Paul McCartney: Drawings at The University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society (www.renaissancesociety.org) from November 8 through January 24, 2016.

The Smart Museum of Art (smartmuseum.uchicago.edu), also at The University of Chicago, will explore Expressionist Impulses: German and Central European Art, 1890-1990 from October 1 through January 10, 2016. The show is organized in chronological sections: Die Brücke (1905–1914), Der Blaue Reiter (1911–1914), New Objectivity (1920s), and NeoExpressionism (1960–80s), and includes work by Josef Albers, Max Dungert, Hans Hofmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Martin Kippenberger, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz, Richard Oelze, and Max Pechstein, among others.

From February 11 through June 12, 2016, the museum will also highlight the work of American artists in Monster Roster: Existentialist Art From Top: Expo Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Dodo in the Studio, 1910, Pastel on paper.

Smart Museum of Art; Alfred Stieglitz, Self-Portrait, 1907, printed 1930, gelatin silver photograph, 24.8 x 18.4, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

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in Postwar Chicago. As the first major exhibition to showcase one of the Midwest’s most important contributions to the development of American art, the show includes work by Robert Barnes, Don Baum, Fred Berger, Cosmo Campoli, George Cohen, Dominick Di Meo, Leon Golub, Theodore Halkin, June Leaf, Arthur Lerner, Irving Petlin, Seymour Rosofsky, Franz Schulze, Nancy Spero, Evelyn Statsinger, and H. C. Westermann.

Chicago-based sculptor and multi-media artist Geof Oppenheimer will premiere newly-commissioned work in his first solo exhibition, Big Boss and the Ecstasy of Pressures, at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art ( w w w. b l o c k museum.northwestern.edu) on Northwestern U n i v e r s i t y ’s Evanston campus from September 12 through November 30.

Midwestern writers will be visualized in the installation Chicago Authored, which opens on September 17 in the Madeline and Jim McMullan and Costume Council Special Exhibition Gallery of The Chicago History Museum (chicagohistory.org).

The museum has also curated the homefront imagery of photographer Jack Delano in Railroaders.

The exhibition, which includes more than sixty black and white and early color photographs depicting America’s post-World War II expansion, runs through January 31, 2016.

Photography is also the focus of Alfred Stieglitz and the 19th Century at The Art Institute of Chicago (www.artic.edu) from October 31, 2015 through March 13, 2016. The show reveals how 19th century photographs influenced Pictorialism and displays selected prints by Alfred Stieglitz, Julia Margaret Cameron, David Octavius Hill, Robert Adamson and Edward Steichen. The museum will also highlight Deana Lawson in its stunning Contemporary Photography Series on January 10, 2016 in Galleries 188–189.

While at the Art Institute, visitors may also make time to see Making Place: The Architecture of David Adjaye in Galleries 182– 184, 283–285 from September 19 through January 3, 2016, as well as Degas: At the Track, On the Stage in Gallery 240 through February 2016. The latter showcases the I m p r e s s i o n i s t ’s aesthetic interpretation of ballet dancers and horse jockeys in motion. The intimate exhibition includes paintings, pastels, drawings and sculpture that helped make Degas one of history’s most wellknown artists.

Illustrating 400 years of African American History, The Freedom Now Mural at The DuSable Museum of African A m e r i c a n History (dusablemuseum.org) recounts the lives and experiences of such notable figures in African American history as Frederic Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois and Mary McLeod Bethune. From the first days of the American slave trade to historic Civil Rights campaigns,

The Freedom Mural tells visually the history of African American struggle in the United States. 

Also On Our Radar September • Through February 15 — Dionysos Unmasked: Ancient Sculpture and Early Prints at The Art Institute of Chicago • 1 through November 22 — Jaume Plensa Together | Venice at the Valerie Carberry Gallery (valeriecarberry.com) • 9 through November 30 — Exposure: Recent Gifts of Photography at the Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University (blockmuseum.northwestern.edu) • 12 through October 31 — Approprinquation at Carrie Secrist Gallery (secristgallery.com) • 19 through March 6 — MCA DNA: Rafael Ferrer at The Museum of Contemporary Art • 21 through October 22 — Studio Paintings by Hector Duarte and Jose L. Pina Morales, and prints

by Jose Guerrero at the Christopher Art Gallery in Chicago Heights (prariestate.edu/artgallery) October • 1 through May 2016— As Seen: Exhibitions That Made Architecture and Design History at The Art Institute of Chicago November • 6 through December 19 — New Works at Thomas McCormick Gallery (thomasmccormick.com) • 14 though January 10, 2016 — Art and Faith of the Crèche: The Collection of James and Emilia Govan at Loyola University Museum of Art (luc. edu/luma) December • 12 through February 21, 2016 — EAM Biennial 2015-2016 at the Elmhurst Art Museum January • 15 through July 17, 2016 — A Feast of Astonishments: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s - 1980s at the Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University (blockmuseum.northwestern.edu) Cockwise From Top Left (opposite page): Alara Concept Store, Lagos, Nigeria, 2015 © Studio Hans Wilschut, Courtesy of Adjaye Associates.

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By ALEX KEOWN

A

Museums

As the cool and crisp winds of autumn stir across Chicago and leaves fall from the trees, thoughts turn from outdoor charms to indoor enticements. And, if you have that itch to get out and explore, Chicago’s museums have a plethora of new and exiting shows this season that offer the opportunity to wile away an afternoon while immersing you in a heavy dose of cultural cool.

Each of Chicago’s tireless museums—some big, some small— provides a wonderful opportunity to expand your horizons and broaden your knowledge and understanding of the world around you.

Take a look at some of the most intriguing exhibits from some of Chicago’s best science and historical museums this season.

Our first stop is Chicago’s venerable Field Museum (fieldmuseum.org), which, beginning November 25, will transport visitors back to ancient Greece in its new exhibition The Greeks: From Agamemnon to Alexander the Great. The exhibition draws heavily from the collections of 21 museums throughout Greece and spans more than 5,000 years of ancient Greece.

The Greeks is designed not to tell the history of Greece from the perspective of the artifacts, but from the individuals associated with them. What’s more, the exhibition highlights just how the influence of the ancient Greeks rippled across the pages of time to influence the world today.

From philosophy, mathematics, literature, art and architecture, athletics, politics and more, the Greeks’ influence is still evident today. The exhibit runs though April 10 2016.

Once you’ve taken in the incredible sights of The Greeks, head over to the National Hellenic Museum to explore more Greek culture and

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history. For the same durational period, two concurrent exhibits on the impact of Greek civilization on the western world will run to compliment.

Continue your historical journey with a visit to the Chicago History Museum (chicagohistory.org) in Chicago’s Lincoln Park.

There are a number of exhibits this fall that will help provide a keen insight into the events that shaped the Second City.

Insight gleaned from the stories objects have to tell is the subjects of The Secret Lives of Objects, running at the museum through January 16, 2016, this exhibit is a fascinating look at the myriad of stories unlocked through artifacts pulled from the darkened shelves and hidden crates of the museum's collection storage rooms. It's a fascinating way of looking behind the object and finding meaning in curatorial study. In Secret Lives, objects are not just objects, they point to time, place and person and offer a pathway to not only knowledge and facts but a way of thinking about the objects we encounter in our daily lives and what information they might communicate about us.

While at the museum, visit Chicago: Crossroads of America and discover the city's amazing history shaped by Chicago's seminal connection to the railroad. From our economy to our music, Chicago's early development is chronicled in stunning visual detail.

After you've immersed yourself in the annals of the Windy City, think about heading over to visit the DuSable Museum of African-American History (dusablemuseum.org). Beginning August 28, Freedom, Resistance, and the Journey Towards Equality is designed to take visitors on a journey through the African-American experience, addressing several key periods throughout history, including Reconstruction, the Great Migration, Jim Crow and then delve deeply into the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the Black Power Movement of the 1970s.

Through the use of more than 200 artifacts, photos and videos, visitors

will learn about the achievements and setbacks of the 1980s and ‘90s before ending their experience at the dawn of the 21st Century when the country elected Chicago’s own Barack Obama its first African-American President.

Whether it be tribal in nature or exquisite works of art, jewelry has long held a fascination with people. If you are one who appreciates jewelry, visit the Driehaus Museum (driehausmuseum.org) and check out the jewelry exhibit Maker & Muse: Women and Early Twentieth Century Art, which runs through January 3, 2016. The exhibition highlights the international growth of art jewelry through the lens of the women who both make and inspire the designs. Maker & Muse features more than 250 exemplary works of art jewelry between the Victorian Era and the First World War, including cloak clasps, hair ornaments, pins, brooches, rings, bracelets, pendants, necklaces as well as several tiaras.

Chicago has a wonderfully rich history of live theater and Stagestruck City at the Newberry Library (newberry.org) on Chicago’s Gold Coast, which opens this September shedding light on the “little theater” movement and even the opening of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Little theaters allowed for fledgling productions to find their feet, as well as experimental programming at the turn of the 20th century. Stagestruck City includes a selection of items such as colorful posters, programs, scripts, letters and photographs that trace the evolution of Chicago’s theater tradition that was driven in part by resentment of the dominance of national productions in the city’s theater district. The exhibition also features a number of artifacts related to Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, the scion of a wealthy family who had a passion for playwriting and sustaining the little theater movement in Chicago. Stagestruck City runs through January 2, 2016. Admission is free.

If the hard sciences are more to your taste, then a trip to The Museum of Science and Industry (msichicago.org) is certainly warranted this fall. Through the end of the year robots and robotics will be taking center stage at the museum.

These days robots are no longer outlandish plot devices for science fiction films, but are daily parts of our lives—event if you weren’t Cockwise From Top (both pages): Sinise Crew Photograph by Jack Delano, courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-USW3-016983-D; Goodman Theatre marquee (photo courtesy of Goodman Theatre); President Lynden B. Johnson meets with civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Whitney Young and James Farmer, January 1964 (photo courtesy of the Library of Congress); Achilles Avenging Patroclus Vase © Archaeological Museum of Delos.

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Museums

aware of it. Robots are used in all manner of science and industry and Robot Revolution highlights the ways robots crisscross our lives. The exhibit features four areas of robotics design, each an aspect of the roles robots can play as they interact with—and take cues from—humans.

Visitors have the chance to interact with robots that have rarely been shown to the public before. Visitors have a hands-on experience in several ways: they are able to control an all-terrain crawling robot; play the classic game Tic-Tack-Toe against a robot; watch a competitive game of robot soccer and participate in a live drone show. Seems astounding? Try watching a baby seal robot react to your touch. Robot Revolution is not included in the price of museum entry.

Continuing with the harder sciences, the Adler Planetarium (adlerplanetarium.org) is just a short trip away. The planetarium includes numerous exhibits that are waiting to open your mind to the realms of the universe and how we got there. From our earliest days the heavens have intrigued us, and Astronomy in Culture delves into mankind’s earliest flirtations with understanding the heavens from ancient to medieval cultures.

The exhibition traces the various cultures’ understanding of astronomy and how it was used in their daily lives.

The show includes spectacular astrolabes, armillary spheres and sundials to illustrate the medieval European and Middle Eastern concept of the universe. Once you’ve had a taste of the ancients’ understanding of astronomy, jump forward several centuries to the time when America first landed a man on the moon. The planetarium’s Mission Moon tells the story of the nation’s first explorations into space through the lives of those who lived it. With a mix of hands-on activities, historical artifacts and personal anecdotes, visitors can experience history in the making as the journey of NASA’s space exploration unfolds.

If the natural world is more of what you're looking for, then you definitely should take a look at the famous Shedd Aquarium (sheddaquarium) and dive into Amphibians, the aquarium’s special exhibit on view now. In Amphibians, visitors meet 40 species of frogs, sala-

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manders and rarely seen caecilians, a limbless and serpentine type of amphibian. Learn about the ever-changing life-cycle of amphibians, including a variety of tadpoles in all stages of metamorphosis, and how they are able to adapt to most any environment on the planet. The exhibit includes amphibians from every continent with the exception of Antarctica.

In April the Morton Arboretum (mortonarb.org) will host Ribbit the Exhibit, which includes 20 larger-than-life copper sculptures of frogs, each of which has its own colorful name and back story. Some of the characters call to mind well-known historical figures like the dancing Floyd and Grace (Fred and Ginger), while another couple is posed like the famous American Gothic painting. The exhibit is scheduled to run through September 25.

But before you plan your visit to the Morton Arboretum, make sure you jot down to Glencoe before October 25 to see the annual Model Railroad Garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden (chicagobotanic. org). The 7,500-square-foot Model Railroad Garden features trains running on 1,600 feet of track. The garden-scale trains are 1/29th the size of the life-size version. More than 5,000 tiny trees, shrubs, ground-covers and flowering plants of close to 300 varieties recreate the sprawling American landscape. The trains travel more than 22,000 miles each season through 5,000 plants in more than 300 different varieties in the garden.

There’s more than enough to explore this season. Grab a jacket or a coat and bring your imagination. You'll find much to engage your mind this year.

Also On Our Radar September • Through October 4 — Vikings at the Field Museum • Through September 13 — The Secrets of Bees at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (naturemuseum.org) • Through January 31 — Materials Science at the Museum of Science and Industry (msichicago.org) • Through April 10, 2016 — Access for All: Tom Olin's Photographs of the Disability Rights Movement at The Chicago History Museum (chicagohistory.org) • Through September 20 — The Rise of the 606 and its Bloomingdale Trail at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (naturemuseum.org) • Ongoing Exhibit — At Home on the Great Lakes at the Shedd Aquarium • 29 through January 10, 2016 — Run! Jump! Fly! at Kohl Children's Museum in Glenview, IL Cockwise From Top (both pages): The Robotic21 System from Yaskawa Motoman Robotics of Japan (photo by J. B. Spector); Visitors to the Mission Moon exhibition at the Adler Planetarium get a bird's eye view of the Gemini 12 space capsule, the centerpiece of the exhibit (photo courtesy of the Adler Planetarium).

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Tidbits

More of the Same

Conductor Andrew Grams has extended his current contract with the Elgin Symphony Orchestra by five years, orchestra officials say. Grams will serve as the music director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra through the 2020-2021 season.

As the ESO’s ambassador to the world, Grams has conducted in Hong Kong, Spain, Grant Park, Colorado, Cleveland, Tasmania, New Zealand, New Mexico, Victoria B.C., Amsterdam, Edmonton and Iceland.

An emerging conductor since his term as assistant conductor for the Cleveland Orchestra in 2007, Grams brings a higher caliber of artistic leadership and excellence than the ESO has seen to date.

HOT TICKET

Comedy and talk show legend Jay Leno is often characterized as the “hardest working man in show business.” Leno will be hard at work this fall as he heads to Aurora's Paramount Theatre for one-show-only, bringing audiences along for one of the funniest nights of the fall comedy season.

Television Hall of Famer, Leno will perform Friday, October 30 at 8 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Aurora. Tickets are $89, $99 and $109. For tickets and information, visit paramountaurora.com. The performance is rated PG-13, so bring the teens and enjoy a night of laughs.

FIVE START HONORS

SEEING JANE SING! Evergreen Park and Dolton, IL native Jane Lynch will bring her acclaimed cabaret show, See Jane Sing, to Lyric Opera’s Civic Opera House on Thursday, December 17 and Friday, December 18 this winter in her first appearance at the venue since her Lyric debut in 2014 as emcee of the opera company’s 60 anniversary celebration. Known to audiences for her Emmy and Golden Globe winning role as Sue Sylvester on television's Glee, Lynch recently made her Broadway debut in the revival of Annie.

Audiences can expect a musical journey through a world of songs from Broadway to cabaret as Lynch puts her own distinctive spin on standards like “If Wishes Were Rainbows,” and “Far From the Home I Love” accompanied by a five-piece band.

For more information about the upcoming performance or for tickets, visit lyricopera.org.

THAT MAD HAT!

Lookingglass Theatre’s Junior Board has set the stage for their 14th Annual Madhatter’s Ball, “The Madhatter’s Maritime Ball,” held for the first time at Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave., on Saturday, August 29. The VIP reception begins at 7 p.m. The event is from 8 p.m. until midnight with a lively after-party at Chicago’s IO Rooftop Lounge at The Godfrey Hotel (127 W Huron St.). Proceeds from the event will support the operation and expansion of Lookingglass' acclaimed education and community programs, which are designed to encourage self-esteem and creativity in thousands of students every year.

The evening includes performances by The Actors Gymnasium, DJ Lani Love and Swaguerilla, among others; a high profile raffle that includes two tickets to see Madonna at Madison Square Garden on September 17, 2015 (hotel and airfare included); and a silent auction for tickets to see Janet Jackson, Ariana Grande and a selection of autographed Chicago sports memorabilia. Tickets can be purchased at lookingglasstheatre. org/madhatters or by calling 312-337-0665.

The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events has announced the honorees of the second annual Fifth Star Awards, celebrating Chicago’s creativity while honoring exemplary Chicago artists and arts institutions that have made significant contributions in arts and culture. This year’s recipients are Sandra Cisneros, acclaimed author of several books including The House on Mango Street; beloved children’s music performer and educator Ella Jenkins; prominent architect, theorist and designer Stanley Tigerman; Norm Winer, program director of legendary rock station, WXRT; and The Joffrey Ballet, celebrating 60 years in Chicago this season.

Among those presenting tributes performances at the September 16th awards presentation are internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, It all takes place in Millennium Park (201 E. Randolph).

In addition to live performances, the free event, presented by The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, will include video tributes to this year’s honorees.

For more information, visit cityofchicago.org/dcase.

Cockwise From Top Left: Elgin Symphony Conductor Andrew Grams (photo courtesy of the Elgin Symphony); Actress Jane Lynch (photo courtesy of Lyric Opera of Chicago); Cast of Lookingglass Alice at the 2013 Madhatter's Ball of Lookingglass Theatre Company (photo courtesy of Lookingglass Theatre Company); Members of Sweet Honey in the Rock (photo courtesy of the City of Chicago); Comedian Jay Leno (photo courtesy of Paramount Theatre).

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autumn 2015

Cultural Almanac

Autumn2015CNCJA•57

Music & Dance

Theater

58•CNCJAAutumn2015 The CNCJA Cultural Almanac listings are representative of schedules from participating institutions available at time of publication.

Theater

Art Museums

(L-R): Adjaye Associates. Aishti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon, current. Courtesy of Adjaye Associates; Charles Ray. Sleeping Woman, 2012. Glenstone. Copyright Charles Ray, Courtesy Matthew Marks; Edgar Degas.

Cafe-COncert (The Spectators), c. 1876-77. The Art Institute of Chicago. Bequest of Brooks McCormick.

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Art Museums

Art Galleries

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The CNCJA Cultural Almanac listings are representative of schedules from participating institutions available at time of publication.

Autumn2015CNCJA•61 Museums

Art Galleries

SPACE

Planning

The work of visionary architect David Adejay is on display in a stunning new Art Institute exhibition that examines the bold, innovative and artistic

By ALEX KEOWN aesthetic of the acclaimed global planner.

P

Perhaps it's due to our priority of function over form, but architectural and furniture design is often overlooked as an artistic effort. But, beginning September 19, the Art Institute of Chicago will change our focus by celebrating the work of David Adjaye, a noted figure in international architecture and design.

Born in Tanzania, Adjaye grew up living in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and England, which gave the architect a unique perspective in the appreciation of global design, something he has incorporated into projects the world over.

Visitors to Making Place: The Architecture of David Adjaye at the Art Institute of Chicago will delve into the unique and talented mind of this visionary architect.

Adjaye has designed more than 50 projects across the globe, with some notable structures including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway and the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management in Russia.

In addition to the large public works projects, Adjaye has designed private homes for high profile artists and actors like Ewan McGregor. The idea of a personal retreat is at the center of Adjaye’s residential work.

His work is bold with complexity and contemporary focus. His buildings simultaneously belong to and diverge from their surroundings. They make a noticeable impact on their environments by standing out, rather than blend in, while still imbedding themselves aesthetically as indigenous elements of their surroundings.

His civic buildings contrast starkly from traditional institutional design, making bold statements through both plan and materials.

Adjaye's building designs incorporate unique angles and shapes, such 62•CNCJAAutumn2015

as the triple-inverted trapezoid structure that is the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

It makes for a striking profile adjacent to the sleek Washington Monument.

The structure’s bronz alloy surface also points to Adjaye’s unique incorpora-

tion of diverse textures and material.

Adjaye’s bold visions can be found succinctly in his native Africa, including the design for the downtown of Libreville, the capital city of Gabon. In that country, Adjaye has been tasked to design and develop 40 municipal buildings around the presidential palace creating a municipal core. Part of his work for the project will leverage the local environment providing natural ventilation and making the use of airconditioning systems only secondarily. Designs from the project will be on display during the Making Place exhibition.

In all, Adjaye has completed more than 50 projects across the world. Each tends to be unique and adaptive to the local influences.

Adjaye’s structures address local interest and conditions through both a historical understanding of context and a global understanding of modernism. Adjaye has been described, like other international architects, as itinerant, with design practices defying cultural borders and geopolitical categories. However, because of his background influenced by multiple cultures, Adjaye’s eye is singularly unique in his ability to incorporate the finest of those elements into his work.

While Adjaye has never adhered to a discrete style, his projects coalesce around certain distinct ideas. Often set in cities struggling with diversity and difference, his public buildings provide spaces that foster community and explore how neighborhoods evolve, how new

societies are created, and how unexpected junctures weave diverse urban identities and experiences into the tapestry of multiculturalism. A proponent for architecture from beyond the traditional Western canon, Adjaye brings a distinctive contemporary “Afropolitan” view to his battery of global projects.

When it comes to furniture design, Adjaye has created a diverse portfolio of unique pieces, some designed for manufacturers like Knoll, Sawaya and Moroni and Moroso. What’s more is Adjaye’s furniture deFrom Bottom Left (opposite page): Architect David Adjaye (photo © Ed Reeve/ courtesy of Adjaye Associates); Adayje Associates. Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC. Courtesy of Adjaye Associates (photo by Steve Hall, Hedrich Blessing); Francis A. Gregory Neighborhood Library, Washington DC, 2012 (photo © Ed Summer/courtesy of Adjaye Associates); Autumn2015CNCJA•63

signs provide a fertile testing ground for form and materials that can later be incorporated into his architectural work.

Making Place: The Architecture of David Adjaye is the first comprehensive museum exhibition dedicated to the architect’s work. This exhibition offers an in-depth overview of the Adjaye’s distinct approach and visual language with a dynamic installation design conceived by Adjaye Associates, his architectural firm based in London.

Adjaye’s influences range from contemporary art, music and science to African art forms and the civic life of cities, and he has collaborated with contemporary artists to add plurality to his design perspective.

The new exhibition, which includes both furniture designed by Adjaye as well as housing, public buildings and master plans, will fill the first-floor Abbott Galleries and the second-floor architecture and design galleries in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute. In addition to drawings, sketches, models, and building mock-ups, a specially commissioned film featuring Adjaye’s collaborators—an international roster of artists, the exhibition curators, and other influential figures in the hemisphere of art— helps bring his projects to vibrant life and makes clear the important role that Adjaye plays in contemporary architecture today.

Making Place runs through Jan. 3, 2016 at the Art Institute. Visit artic.edu for tickets and more information. Top (inset): Architect David Adjaye (photo © Ed Reeve/ courtesy of Adjaye Associates); Top (right): Adayje Associates. Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC. Courtesy of Adjaye Associates (photo by Steve Hall, Hedrich Blessing) Bottom From Left (both pages): Moscow School of Management, Skolkovo, Russia, 2010 (photo © Ed Reeve, courtesy of Adjaye Associates); Rivington Place, London, UK, 2007 (photo © Lyndon Douglas, courtesy of Adjaye Associates); William O. Lockridge/Bellevue Library, Washington DC, 2012 (photo © Jeff Sanders, courtesy of Adjaye Associates); Lost House, London, UK, 2004 (photo © Lyndon Douglas, courtesy of Adjaye Associates).

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Museums

The CNCJA Cultural Almanac listings are representative of schedules from participating institutions available at time of publication.

Music & Dance Autumn2015CNCJA•67

Music & Dance

Theater

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The CNCJA Cultural Almanac listings are representative of schedules from participating institutions available at time of publication.

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Listings for permanent and ongoing exhibits at museums listed within the Almanac may be found on pages 59-61 & 66

Art Galleries

Mammoths Mastodons Why we just love and

Chicago loves mammoths. We just do. They were among the first creatures featured in the great World’s Columbian Exposition here in 1893.

Back at the Field Museum by popular demand (and for a limited time), Mammoths and Mastodons, is a reflection of our adoration of those lovable creatures that are themselves reflection of the Chicago’s collective spirit. Here’s why we continue to love them:

We Love Big Things!

We are the City of Big Shoulders, after all. And, yes, neither mammoths nor mastodons have shoulders, exactly, but they certainly make up for it on the “big” part.

These giants of the Ice Age are simply gargantuan when compared with puny humans and we admire them for that.

Just like other things in Chicago, (like beans and buildings)...

...we simply like our Ice Age creatures big!

We Love Our Skirmishes!

Who in the Windy City doesn’t like a good rivalry? Chicago is a sports town through and through, and kicking up a fracas is the kind of thing mastodons lived for. Think Bears vs. Packers and you’ll get the picture. We just love their competitive spirit.

Clockwise From Top: Columbian Mammoth Installation Shot (photo © The Field Museum); Cloudgate installation in Chicago's Millennium Park (photo by Alex Krueger); Mastodon Combat, young male mammoths and mastodons would fight for mating rights, sometimes to the death (illustration by Velizar Simeonovski © The Field Museum); Four female woolly mammoths in their herd (illustration by Velizar Simeonovski © The Field Museum); A Columbian mammoth, an African elephant, and an American mastodon (from back to front) next to a 6-foot-tall human (iIllustration by Velizar Simeonovski © The Field Museum).

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We Love Their Tusks!

Tusks are some very Chicagoesq things. They’re strong, pointy and they are used to get things done, things like foraging, moving large objects that are in your way. They just get things done.

We’re a city that gets things done, so we can relate to tusks. We like tusks!

We Love The Cold!

Well, maybe “love” is a strong word, but we’re made of tough stock here in Chicago. And like the Wooly Mammoth, we know how to dress for cold winters in the Windy City. You just gotta respect that in an Ice Age creature when you’re from the Midwest. And we do!

From Top: Visitors to Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age will be able to see fossil skulls, as well as life-size replicas of these ancient beasts (photo © http:// www.paleoart.com); An artist’s rendering of what the baby mammoth Lyuba might have looked like while alive (illustration by Velizar Simeonovski © The Field Museum).

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Photo Courtesy of Stephen Petronio Company

Shall We Dance?

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Honoring their

Over the next five years, choreographer Stephen Petronio will take his talented company on a journey back to where everything began for them, his earliest inspirations, in a program called, aptly enough, "Bloodlines."

By JORDAN REINWALD

E

Exciting programming begins the new season for The Dance Center of Columbia College this fall as the Stephen Petronio Company prepares to grace the venue’s stage for the fourth time in its history.

During a big 30 year anniversary season for the company last year, they embarked on a new initiative called “Bloodlines.” Petronio caused ripples in the dance world as he set out on this projected five-year collection that presents work by legendary and influential choreographers in the field of modern and postmodern dance.

Curated by Petronio himself, these works will be performed by the Petronio Company members and, as the choreographer explained to me, instead of elucidating his own ideas, this project looks deeper into the influences that likely served as their catalyst. “I’ve had a company for over 30 years,” Petronio explained. “And for these past years, it’s been all about my work so now “Bloodlines” pays homage to some of the postmodern masters that have influenced me and made my investigations and career possible.”

Petronio goes further than simply staging these momentous works on his company; in the next five years, he also plans to present them alongside his own, as he continues to choreograph new works that compliment the historic ones. While many choreographers might

Pictured: Stephen Petronio Dance Company in "Bloodlines."

shy away from such a daring feat, Petronio owns the challenge. “Of course I was nervous about it,” he explained. “Merce Cunningham is a master, he is the master...and I have these moments where I’m very aggressive and brave about what I want to do and then, of course, the night before I’m going to do it I think, ‘What are you thinking?’ You know, because of course it can go so many ways.”

After the original premiere in New York City however, Petronio explained that the risk paid off in droves, “The dance community was incredibly supportive, and I think they watched the work in the spirit that it was brought to them.

We tried to do the most loving rendition of the work that we could, and in the end I was very happy.”

For each of the works chosen, this will be the first time they will be performed by an American contemporary company outside of their company of origin.

The Stephen Petronio Company makes its visit to The Dance Center in October bringing three distinctive works with them: Merce Cunningham’s Rainforest, Petronio’s own Non Locomotor (the second part of a two part work), and Trisha Brown’s 1979 work, Glacial Decoy. “I unveiled Cunningham’s Rainforest last year, which was really exciting and so the second part of that project is Trisha Brown’s Glacial Decoy. Columbia College Chicago is the first place to get all three together,” he told me.

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Shall We Dance?

“Bloodlines” will be closely followed for its historical significance and will set a precedent in the wider dance community for preserving its moving history.

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dancers’ bodies, up and down spines, from heads to toes, and across the sagittal plane of the arms. Non Locomotor shares Locomotor’s sound designer, Clams Casino, and employs Narciso Rodriguez as the costume designer.

Said Petronio of the work, “It’s abstract movement exploration at a fast clip.”

Trisha Brown’s Glacial Decoy appears on the bill as a newer addition, and as the next part of the fivepart “Bloodlines” lineup.

Glacial Decoy hits a more personal note for Petronio than the Cunningham work as he actually danced in it himself. “I entered Trisha’s company at that moment, when they were just completing that work so it is quite important for me,” Petronio reflected.

The work which happens in silence, employs visual and costume design by Robert Rauschenberg.

Though it is yet to be seen whether the entire “Bloodlines” project will grace Chicago stages as it progresses over the coming years, it proves an exciting opportunity for the city’s audiences to see two of its first installments in one program. “Bloodlines” will be closely followed for its historical significance and will set a precedent in the wider dance community for preserving its moving history.

As Petronio pointed out, “the idea is to bring history in an embodied way instead of just an intellectual way.” And that it does, with “Bloodlines,” recreating moving moments from American modern dance’s potent and historic timeline. Photo Courtesy of Stephen Petronio Company

Rainforest, Cunningham’s 1968 masterpiece incorporates visual design by Andy Warhol, and music by David Tudor in a much anticipated work for Chicago audiences. For those audiences, it will be a rare treat to see a Cunningham work restaged after his death in 2009 and the disbanding of his company, upon his posthumous request, in 2011. When asked whether he thought his dancers, most of them not traditionally Cunningham trained, would be able to dance the work up to standard, Petronio explained, “I was not too sure how it would work, but here’s what I am confident about: I’ve got great dancers and their curiosity is part of their greatness. I think the challenge is that they’re masters of Petronio so to take those who are a master in the Petronio language, that haven’t studied Cunningham technique, and to go with an open heart and open mind into Merce’s work is just a testament to how brave they are.”

Non Locomotor, Petronio’s own work will grace the stage in the same program. Petronio speaks about the piece, appropriately drawing inspiration from his mentor, Cunningham.

The work is a continuation from his previous work, Locomotor, which focused on hysterical movement through space, carving patterns on the stage. The companion, Non Locomotor, appearing in Chicago this time without its partner piece, is Petronio’s expression of “taking that instinct to move through space and turning it into the body…

It deals more with energy pathways that can go up and down the spine,” Petronio explained.

Especially interesting is the use of these physical ‘pathways’ from the previous Locomotor. These patterns are used as a map for movement within the spine in Non, and will be seen coursing through

Stephen Petronio Company will bring "Bloodlines" to the Dance Center stage October 1-3, 2015.

Pictured: Stephen Petronio Dance Company in "Bloodlines."

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Music & Dance

The CNCJA Cultural Almanac listings are representative of schedules from participating institutions available at time of publication.

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The CNCJA Cultural Almanac listings are representative of schedules from participating institutions available at time of publication.

Listings for permanent and ongoing exhibits at museums listed within the Almanac may be found on pages 59-61 & 66

Art Galleries