Saturday, April 12, 2025
Latest:

Music

Kelly-Hunt-Singer-Songwriter
MusicWinter 2021

LUMINARY: Q&A with Singer/Songwriter Kelly Hunt

Fred Cummings , 

When it comes to the core artistic tenants of the Folk/Americana genre, Kansas City-based singer/songwriter Kelly Hunt is what they call the genuine article. In a musical landscape that is in any given year ripe for reflection and authenticity, Hunt is an artist’s artist who revels in the stuff. And why should that surprise? Her entire ecosystem from an early age has fed a sensitivity to diverse musical voices impacting her trajectory, from her mother who sang professional opera and saxophonist father who marinated in the hottest jazz, all amid the musical ethos of Memphis, Tennessee, no less. It’s almost as if necessity dictated she evolve into a professional musician or something 180 degrees removed from the space. When that evolution did materialize, Hunt harnessed her considerable artistic resources to produce her debut album, Even the Sparrow, a stunning, stripped down acoustic paean to modern Southern roots music and the near-raw, evocative intimacy and immediacy that makes that sound so well beloved.

Read More
Singer-Camila-Meza
MusicSummer 2020

LUMINARY: Q&A with Singer/Songwriter Camila Meza

Fred Cummings

Chilean jazz musician Camila Meza is well-known for her fresh improvizations and her intuitive blending of voice and instrument in a seamless outpouring of music. Ever since the musical upstart left Chile for New York in 2009 to attend the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, she has grown more and more influential as an artist of rank. Almost immediately, she became a regular at jazz clubs in the Big Apple, and as such etched out a reputation of superlative mastery of both voice and guitar, something rare in the jazz world. And as a composer and arranger, she’s developed a voice that embraces both jazz and Latin American traditions, something that is clearly expressed in her recordings for Chilean record label Vertice Records. Having performed in South American, Europe and the US, Meza is already becoming a veteran on the global circuit. She’s performed at the Blue Note of Poznan in Poland and the Swindnica Jazz Festival.

Read More
Harper-Library-at-University-of-Chicago
ArchitectureClassical MusicMusic

Architecture and Music Meld in New University of Chicago Series

Vickie Moore , 

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.

Read More
Music

Lyric Opera Names Sylvia Neil First Woman Board Chair

Vickie Moore ,  ,  ,  , 

Anthony Freud, Lyric Opera of Chicago’s general director, president & CEO, has announced the election of Sylvia Neil as chair of Lyric’s Board of Directors, the first woman board chair in Lyric’s history. Neil was elected unanimously during Lyric’s Annual Meeting of members and the Board of Directors’ Annual Meeting in early September, after holding the position of board chair-elect for the last year. In her acceptance speech Neil said, “I am honored to be the first woman chair of Lyric, and am humbled and inspired by Carol Fox and Ardis Krainik, the extraordinary groundbreaking women general directors of our past. These are the folks that light my path forward.”

Read More
Music

Bach Week Festival Announces 2020 Fundraiser

Vickie Moore ,  ,  ,  , 

Illinois-based Bach Week Festival’s 2020 Bachanalia, its fourth annual fall fundraiser featuring pairings of classical music with wines selected for the occasion by an advanced sommelier, will take place this season as a free, prerecorded online video presentation. The performance will premiere at 3 p.m. (CDT) on Sunday, October 18, via Facebook and YouTube. Links will be posted on the festival’s website, bachweek.org.

Read More
Renee-Fleming
Classical MusicMusic

“For the Love of Lyric,” a Virtual Concert to Open Lyric Opera’s New “Reimagined” Season

Vickie Moore , 

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.

Read More