Clik here to view.
Lollapalooza Day 3: PHOTO GALLERY — Storm forces temporary evacuation
Storms rolled in to Grant Park this afternoon, prompting an an hourlong emergency evacuation of Lollapalooza. The festival resumes at 4 p.m. Here’s a look at some of the images from the fest:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lollapalooza Day 3: TV on the Radio, Twenty One Pilots, Marina & the Diamonds
What a final day for Lollapalooza 2015 — a day that saw an evacuation and an early dismissal and a load of dust storms and rescheduling in the hours in between to accommodate for the stormy weather...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Muti’s final fall concert with CSO an ideal musical mix
Assembling a concert program is an art in itself. And for the final concert of his fall season with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Riccardo Muti has mixed and matched four works in a most...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Musicmakers: Elvis Presley, Trey Anastasio, Disney, Def Leppard
Some recent CD releases worth listening to — or not: “If I Can Dream,” Elvis Presley with the Royal London Philharmonic Orchestra (Legacy) It’s been a yearlong celebration of what would have been Elvis...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The machinery of death looms large in Lyric Opera’s ‘Wozzeck’
Sick, sick, sick. And a musical drama that just might be the most intimate and chillingly prophetic anatomy of 20th century manifestations of human cruelty, suffering and experimentation. Alban Berg’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
REVIEW: Adele marvelously soulful on ’25’
Adele, “25,” (Columbia Records); ★★★★ Oh how Adele conquered the music world with her release of “21” four years ago. That album-of-the-year Grammy-winner, with its impossibly perfect anthem “Rolling...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Miley Cyrus exposes a lot, but not all, in scatterbrained tour kick-off in...
By Selena Fragassi | For the Sun-Times Like the 2016 summer Olympics, Chicago once again lost its chance to be a host city — this time for Miley Cyrus’ hugely touted “naked show.” Everyone seemed sure...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Under Muti, the CSO’s musicians probe the human voice in their instruments
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is in exceptionally glorious form at the moment. For proof you need look no further than the final concerts of 2015 being led by Maestro Riccardo Muti. Listening to this...
View ArticleChris Brown breezes through mini-tour kickoff in Chicago
Chris Brown hasn’t been making many fans in recent weeks. Officials in Australia and New Zealand abruptly pulled the plug on the R&B singer’s December appearances. So did “The Daily Show with...
View ArticleAdele announces 2016 Chicago concert dates, North American tour
Adele, who Sunday night debuted a new, short haircut, today announced her 2016 North American tour dates, her first in five years, and Chicago is among the cities the singer will visit. The...
View ArticlePitchfork Music Festival dates set, tickets available now
The Pitchfork Music Festival announced that the 10th edition of the festival will run July 17-19 at Union Park on Chicago’s near West Side. Headliners are not yet announced, but tickets for the...
View ArticleLiam Hayes scales back his sound after years of orchestrated pop
Liam Hayes shares many of the same compulsions of the classic pop auteurs with whom we are already familiar. Like Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach, Pete Ham or Todd Rundgren, his music ruminates with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Katy Perry brings fireworks to Super Bowl halftime show
Katy Perry entered the University of Phoenix Stadium on an animated jungle cat and she exited above the field in a sparkly gown. Her 12-minute, nine-song set at Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Arizona, on...
View ArticleU2 adds fifth Chicago show at United Center
U2 announced early Tuesday it was adding a fifth show for its “iNNOCENCE + eEXPERIENCE” world tour at the United Center. The Irish rock band will now play July 2, completing a five-night run starting...
View ArticleA maturing Marilyn Manson says mid-life forced him to refresh his sound
Growing older being Marilyn Manson takes practice. The singer came on the scene in 1996 playing pop-friendly industrial rock, but a ghoulish image and skill set for self-mythology quickly made him a...
View ArticleOn new album, Billy Idol sings of sacrifices of being a former rock idol
For a singer whose curled upper lip and primal shrieks are his most recognized signatures, Billy Idol has made a new album that is surprisingly a retrospective of all the things we don’t know him for...
View ArticleReview: Billy Idol lives up to his name at the Riv
BY SELENA FRAGASSI | FOR THE SUN-TIMES It’s not often you’ll hear a band play the same song twice in one night, but Billy Idol was not going to let this crowd remember him for choking on “Whiskey and...
View Article‘Tannhauser’ redeemed by powerhouse voices, choreography at Lyric Opera
BY KYLE MACMMILLAN | FOR THE SUN-TIMES Richard Wagner’s fifth opera, “Tannhäuser,” revolves around a series of interrelated dualities, including mythological vs. earthly worlds, unfettered sensuality...
View ArticleREVIEW: Jason Isbell brings literate roots-rock to Symphony Center
EDITOR’S NOTE: Due to an inaccuracy in the reporting of Jason Isbell’s February 12 show at Orchestra Hall, a portion of this review has been edited out. Symphony Center is not typically known for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sleater-Kinney reunited in a bombastic blaze of glory: review
BY SELENA FRAGASSI | FOR THE SUN-TIMES Nine long years have passed since Sleater-Kinney played Chicago, but 21 years of memories did not fade for the legions of die-hards who packed the Riviera to pay...
View ArticleCSO, Riccardo Muti deliver triumphant Mozart ‘Requiem’
By Kyle MacMillan | For the Sun-Times When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died Dec. 5, 1791, he famously left incomplete his Requiem, K. 626, but the valedictory work has nonetheless gone on to claim a place...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘The Passenger’ soars in profoundly moving staging at Chicago’s Lyric Opera
BY WYNNE DELACOMA | FOR THE SUN-TIMES There’s a school of thought that the Holocaust should be off-limits as a topic for artists of all sorts. How can a movie or a play or a painting or a symphony...
View ArticleRiccardo Muti, CSO continue their Scriabin odyssey with solid Symphony No. 2
BY KYLE MACMILLAN | FOR THE SUN-TIMES While we certainly expect conductors to perform the staples of the orchestra repertory, we also want them to occasionally enliven programs with offbeat, overlooked...
View ArticleClik here to view.
REVIEW: Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México at the Harris Theater
By Kyle MacMillan | For the Sun-Times The Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México (Symphony Orchestra of the State of Mexico) plays its share of Brahms, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, but it only made...
View ArticleREVIEW: Contempo music collective showcases two world premieres at Logan Center
BY KYLE MACMILLAN | FOR THE SUN-TIMES Even for Contempo, whose defining mission is championing top-level contemporary music, a concert Sunday afternoon in the Performance Hall at the Logan Center for...
View ArticleReview: Ariana Grande’s production extravaganza too much, too soon
By all accounts, pop singer Ariana Grande started her show at the Allstate Arena Tuesday night with a “Bang Bang.” After a prerecorded video message wished her fans “the best night of their lives,”...
View ArticleBeethoven’s ‘Triple’ and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 2 a winning combination...
BY KYLE MACMILLAN | FOR THE SUN-TIMES During an especially fertile creative period in 1803-04, Ludwig van Beethoven composed the first-ever concerto for piano trio, and it remains the only work for...
View ArticlePentatonix tips the scales with vocal performance
BY SELENA FRAGASSI | FOR THE SUN-TIMES If there was any doubt that reality singing competitions might soon be nearing their end, Pentatonix is sure to silence the noise. The five-member a capella group...
View ArticleAll-French program a tres chic evening for Dutoit, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
By Kyle MacMillan | For the Sun-Times For an assortment of reasons, starting with the dominance of Beethoven, Brahms and the other big-name Austro-Germanic composers, French works simply don’t get...
View ArticleKendrick Lamar’s ‘Butterfly’ an impressive outing
By Jonathan Landrum Jr. | Associated Press Kendrick Lamar, “To Pimp a Butterfly” (Interscope Records) Rapper Kendrick Lamar went three years without releasing an album, taking his time to craft an...
View ArticleCitizen Cope begins mini residency at City Winery on laid-back, high note
By Selena Fragassi | For the Sun-Times At the opening of his five-night residency at City Winery on Thursday night, Citizen Cope was a quiet man with lots to say. The soulful folk artist, also known as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘St. John’s Passion’ soars to new heights in Chicago Bach Project concert
BY KYLE MACMILLAN | FOR THE SUN-TIMES As he ended an aria contemplating Jesus’ death on the cross, countertenor Lawrence Zazzo slowly sang the words, “It is accomplished,” with hushed, devastating...
View ArticleHits, misses dot the Rising Stars landscape for Lyric Opera’s Ryan Center...
BY KYLE MACMILLAN | FOR THE SUN-TIMES To have a shot at a professional career in opera, it has become standard practice for young singers to take part in one or more of the dozens of apprentice and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
REVIEW: Reinvigorated Decemberists turn up the heat at Chicago Theatre
BY JEFF ELBEL | FOR THE SUN-TIMES Dispersing in early 2012 to spend time with family and other pursuits, the Decemberists called time-out as the band crested the peak of its popularity following...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Opera, mariachi blend smoothly in Lyric’s ‘El Pasado’
BY KYLE MACMILLAN | FOR THE SUN-TIMES It might be hard to imagine the words “mariachi” and “opera” in the same sentence, but recent experience has shown that these two seemingly disparate musical...
View ArticleMusic of the Baroque steps beyond baroque, with polished results
BY KYLE MACMILLAN | FOR THE SUN-TIMES Despite the Music of the Baroque’s seemingly time-specific name, music director Jane Glover likes to push the chamber orchestra’s programming boundaries beyond the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Belle and Sebastian dance the night away in all-out party at The Riv
Belle and Sebastian were not shy about asking people to dance on Friday night — and they brought with them a small orchestra to ensure the Riviera felt like a bustling ballroom during their 16-song...
View ArticleRarely performed Mahler Seventh a rousing success for CSO, Haitink
BY KYLE MACMILLAN | FOR THE SUN-TIMES Because Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 does not easily ingratiate itself with listeners and can even seem a bit impenetrable at times, the 1904-05 work is the...
View ArticleBychkov, Trifonov and CSO deliver powerhouse Russian program
BY KYLE MACMILLAN | FOR THE SUN-TIMES Thursday evening’s memorable Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert featured an all-Russian program in more ways than one. It paired 20th-century Russian masterworks...
View ArticleLang Lang up to his usual abilities, excesses in Lyric Opera concert
By Kyle MacMillan | For the Sun-Times In a classical-music scene starved for mainstream attention, pianist Lang Lang is one of just a handful of artists who have truly achieved wide popular...
View ArticleA common Scriabin thread for CSO, Riccardo Muti this season
By Kyle MacMillan | for the Sun-Times One of the appealingly offbeat threads running through the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s repertory this season and next is music director Riccardo Muti’s commitment...
View ArticleClik here to view.
CSO program unlocks all the colors of the orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s final program of the season offers something old (Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5) and something new (the world premiere of Mason Bates’ “Anthology of Fantastic Zoology”)....
View ArticleLady Gaga on gay marriage ruling: ‘What a special day for love’
Lady Gaga took a moment during her Cheek to Cheek tour stop with Tony Bennett Friday night at Ravinia to comment on the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier in the day, lifting the ban on gay marriage in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga totally jazzed at Ravinia
Call it a fabulous case of classy meets sassy. For it was clear during their two-hour set Friday night at Ravinia, that Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga are having a blast on the road, as their Cheek to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lollapalooza Day One: Alt-J, The Weeknd start off the fest just right
BY SELENA FRAGASSI | FOR THE SUN-TIMES Lollapalooza returned to Grant Park for a record 11th year on Friday, and it was a packed affair with crowds building almost from the times that gates opened....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lollapalooza Day 2 PHOTO GALLERY: Metallica, Sam Smith, Kid Cudi, Charli XCX...
Here’s a look at some of the happenings at Day 2 of Lollapalooza in Chicago’s Grant Park. Saturday, August 1, 2015 Metallica rocksLollapalooza on August 1, 2015. | Saiyna Bashir/Sun-Times. James...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lollapalooza: Metallica closes out Day 2 with nostalgic set
As Metallica frontman James Hetfield graced the stage at Lollapalooza to close out day two — with fans eager to mosh — he wasted no time getting to the hits that have made the band a heavy metal staple...
View ArticleClik here to view.
CSO responds to magical touch of a Russian maestro
There were no vocalists or dancers on stage at Symphony Center on Thursday night as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed an enchanting program of works by Sibelius, Mozart, Arvo Part and...
View ArticleReview: Kanye West, ‘The Life of Pablo’
By Ryan Pearson | Associated Press Kanye West, “The Life of Pablo” (GOOD Music/Def Jam) Some two decades ago, Prince re-named himself with an unpronounceable symbol and scrawled “SLAVE” on his cheek in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Stellar reincarnation of the ‘Soulful ’60s’ at Black Ensemble Theater
First things first: Every member of the Black Ensemble Theater revue “Those Sensational Soulful ’60s” not only lives up to the names and voices of the many fabled artists they channel so brilliantly,...
View Article
