Music – Page 9 – Clef Notes Chicagoland Journal for the Arts

Elgin Symphony Names Erik Malmquist Executive Director

June 17, 2020 Vickie Moore Elgin Symphony Orchestra

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.

Classical Music Music

Ravinia Cancels 2020 Festival Season Due to COVID-19 Concerns

May 7, 2020 David Henley Grant Park Music Festival, Ravinia

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.

Classical Music Music

Spektral Quartet Posptones Summer World Premiere of Solar Eclipse Inspired Work ENIGMA at Adler Planetarium

April 28, 2020 Vickie Moore Adler Planetarium, Spektral Quartet

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.

Classical Music Music

Ravinia’s Acclaimed Bernstein Mass Performance to Receive Broadcast Premiere on “Great Performances”

April 28, 2020 Vickie Moore Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Great Performances, Leonard Bernstein, Marin Alsop, Ravinia

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.

Arts Chicago Arts Administration Chicago Arts and Culture Music

Foundation Expedites $3M in Grants to Arts Organizations in Chicago and South Carolina

April 17, 2020 David Henley Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Gaylord Foundation

Acknowledging the potentially cataclysmic financial situation which hundreds of beloved regional small arts organizations are facing, the Board of the Chicago-based Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation (the Foundation) has unanimously voted to immediately put in place a series of funding mechanisms, including expediting a total of $2 million in general operating funds to its current roster of 175 arts grantees in the Chicago region and 40 in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

Classical Music Music

Lyric Opera to Move Remainder of 2019/20 Programming to Upcoming Seasons

April 3, 2020 David Henley Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opera

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.

Arts Music

Adler’s Newest Sky Show Ushers Viewers on the Hunt for the Ninth Planet

December 9, 2019 Vickie Moore

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft gave us our first close look at Pluto, the most famous dwarf planet in the outskirts of our Solar System. The New Horizons flyby was big news, and the pictures it continues to send back to Earth reveal a world far more complex than anyone realized.

Arts Classical Music Music

11th Chicago Latin Music Festival Lineup of Latin American and Classical Music Announced

December 9, 2019 Vickie Moore

The 11th Chicago Latino Music Festival, a program of the International Latino Cultural Center (ILCC) and Chicago’s only Latino-focused classical music festival, has announced the lineup for this year’s event. The festival will take place September 8 – December 1, 2016 at multiple venues throughout Chicago and a special performance in Bogotá, Colombia.