Elgin Symphony Orchestra Welcomes Marc Thayer as Executive Director
The Elgin Symphony Orchestra welcomes Marc Thayer as executive director effective July 1. He was selected following a nationwide search involving dozens of candidates.
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Classical Music
Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra Announces Public Phase of $5.1M Campaign for the Future
Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO), named 2020 Professional Orchestra of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras, recently announced the public phase of its $5.1 million Campaign for the Future. The Campaign is supported in large part by The Davee Foundation, which donated $3 million to IPO in March 2018, creating IPO’s first-ever endowment. Building on this transformational investment, IPO’s Executive Director Christina Salerno and Board of Directors sought to use the endowment as a launching pad to increase the overall financial stability of IPO while cementing artistic director Stilian Kirov’s vision for the orchestra’s artistic relevance and importance in Chicago’s Southland region.
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Architecture and Music Meld in New University of Chicago Series
As one of the world’s leading institutions of higher learning, the University of Chicago is renowned for combining critical research and understanding of the past with free and open inquiry that drives new ways of thinking. The University’s campus reflects this duality with dramatic neogothic structures juxtaposed with provocative modern architecture conceived by some of the most forward-thinking designers in the world. In a new series called Sound Sites, the University of Chicago Department of Music and UChicago Presents will join past and present in music and architecture with performances by the Department’s performance faculty in some of the University’s most notable spaces.
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“For the Love of Lyric,” a Virtual Concert to Open Lyric Opera’s New “Reimagined” Season
Lyric Opera of Chicago will open the company’s reimagined fall season with “For the Love of Lyric,” a virtual concert from the stage of the Lyric Opera House, on Sunday, September 13, available for free streaming starting at 6:00 p.m. CDT.
“Lyric’s Opening Night Opera Ball has long been a signature project of Lyric’s Women’s Board,” says Lyric’s general director, president and CEO, Anthony Freud.
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Lyric Opera to Cancel Remainder of 2020 Programming
Based on guidance from the city, state, and federal agencies regarding the ongoing health crisis, Lyric Opera of Chicago’s general director, president, and CEO, Anthony Freud, has announced the decision to cancel performances in the Lyric Opera House from September to December in Lyric’s 2020/21 Season.
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Elgin Symphony Names Erik Malmquist Executive Director
The Elgin Symphony Orchestra has named Erik Malmquist to the post of executive director effective May 15th. Erik has been the ESO’s director of artistic planning and operations since January 2020. Prior to joining the ESO, he spent six years as artist manager and director of operations at Zemsky Green Artists Management in New York City, managing a roster of some of today’s most prominent operatic talents, and general manager of Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity on New York’s Upper West Side.
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Ravinia Cancels 2020 Festival Season Due to COVID-19 Concerns
In response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Ravinia, the oldest music festival in the country, has been forced to cancel its 2020 season. Ravinia has operated continually since its 1904 opening except for 1932–1935, when the park was silenced by the Great Depression. The not-for-profit festival was to have presented more than 120 events from June 12 through September 16, including the annual summer residency of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The festival’s summer conservatory, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, will also be closed this summer.
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Spektral Quartet Posptones Summer World Premiere of Solar Eclipse Inspired Work ENIGMA at Adler Planetarium
Out of an abundance of caution, and prioritizing the safety and wellbeing of its artists and guests, the Grammy-nominated Spektral Quartet has postponed its world premiere of the multimedia work ENIGMA, in partnership with the Adler Planetarium. The work was to be presented June 11 and 12 in the Adler’s Grainger Sky Theater. A new premiere date will be announced later this year.
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Ravinia’s Acclaimed Bernstein Mass Performance to Receive Broadcast Premiere on “Great Performances”
When Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kauffman and Chief Conductor and Curator Marin Alsop presented Leonard Bernstein’s little-seen music theater masterwork Mass as the centerpiece of Ravinia’s 2018 celebration of the iconic conductor and composer’s centennial, the Chicago Tribune declared it one of the best concerts of 2018, and audiences clamored for a repeat performance. Ravinia obliged, reuniting more than 200 onstage artists—including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Vocality, a cast of “Street Singers,” and even the local high school marching band—for a single 2019 encore that Ravinia arranged to have filmed.
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Lyric Opera to Move Remainder of 2019/20 Programming to Upcoming Seasons
Lyric Opera of Chicago’s General Director, President & CEO, Anthony Freud, announced today that all public performances, events, and activities remaining in the 2019/20 Season have been moved into upcoming seasons. This includes the musical 42nd Street, the new chamber opera Blue, Family Day at the Lyric Opera House, and all backstage tours, in order to heed social distancing recommendations and continue to support the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois in controlling the spread of COVID-19. This announcement signals the end of public performances and activities through June 30, 2020 – the end of Lyric’s current fiscal year.
Working to postpone rather than cancel planned artistic and engagement events, Lyric has announced that all of Lyric’s May and June performances and events have been successfully moved into upcoming seasons.