I had some events to attend every day of that week, plus trying to get six hours of sleep every day (hopeless), plus everything else.
Out of the six cultural events I attended last week, one was “above categorization” (the screening of the “20 Days in Mariupol), two were in the category “OK, but I won’t lose much if I didn’t attend,” and three were great.
She is brilliant! It was so special to see her so close from our first-row seats, to see how the CSO musicians looked at her during her amazing solos, and to see David Chen nodding approvingly. And she enjoys what she is doing so much!
Still filling in the blanks for last week :). On Thursday, my neighbor and I went to the CSO. The program featured four pieces related to the sea: Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer, Tchaikovsky’s The Tempest, and Korngold’s Suite from The Sea Hawk. A real gift, each piece is a gem.
That was also the only time this season when we had tickets for a pre-concert Classic Encounter with Terry Hemmert.
As usual, it was a great discussion, this time with Clarinet John Yen, and they played the sciences from the Sea Hawk on the screen. A side note – as a part of the cost cuts, I guess, they stopped serving food and only served wine and cookies (and they gave you a drink token at the entrance). Just to know for the future to eat before going there 🙂
Thursday at CSO. A very French concert 🙂 The legendary Jean-Yves Thibaudet (not as young as in the pictures, but magnificent!). Conductor Stephane Deneve. All-French program: Boulanger (a woman composer who died young, I never heard of her!), Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Ravel. It appears to be my last concert of this CSO season: the Sunday concert was unfortunately postponed, and I exchanged all the rest of my tickets for the. next season since I will be out for the second half of June).
Friday: “English” in Goodman Theater. Full house. The audience laughed and cried. The program said that there would be a play discussion after the show, but there was no announcement, so we left. There was still enough to process, even without a discussion.
From the Goodman website:
“English Only.” Four adult students in Karaj, Iran are studying for the Test of English as a Foreign Language—the key to their green card, medical school admission or family reunification. Chasing fluency through a maze of word games, listening exercises and show-and-tell sessions, they hope that one day, English will make them whole. But it might be splitting them each in half.
On Saturday, I allowed myself to have a day of complete relaxation. I know that the description that will follow won’t sound like a relaxation to many people, but it definitely was for me.
For the first time that week, I had breakfast at home with Boris, and we took time, and talked, and I was not running anywhere. Then I took a train to the look to meet one of my peers with whom I wanted to talk but didn’t have time before or during the conference. I gave her a mini-tour of the Loop while we were walking to the CAC building, where her actual tour was about to start.
Then I returned home, and we had lunch. Then, we did a couple of small house projects and headed to the CSO. It was the first time that I booked a pre-concert dinner at the Thomas Club on the 9th floor of the Chicago Symphony Building -and we both loved it! Everything: the view, the ambiance, the food and drinks, and the service was just perfect!
As for the concert, it was something I never heard before! Both the CSO and the Jazz in Lincoln Center Orchestra were on stage, and the performance they gave together was smashing!
Both Shostakovich and Prokofiev’s pieces are more than well-known to us: most of them were often on the radio in the Soviet Union, but their interpretation was so unusual that we could hardly recognize them. Two hours of pure joy 🙂
On Thursday, I went to listen to Mendelssohn’s Elijah in the CSO: I needed to replace two matinee concerts for which I was going to take my mom and which I couldn’t make because of my schedule changes. I hadn’t heard Elijah before and was slightly unsure how the two-and-a-half hours of oratorio would go with my mom (and with me, for that matter).
And it turned out to be two-and-a-half hours of such joy that it was almost difficult to keep being joyful 🙂
Mom loved it and said that she never thought Mendelssohn would write something like that :). As usual, she did find things to complain about, but that was minor.
The CSO has an Instagram post about this concert; you can scroll to see the pictures of the singers, but unfortunately, you can’t hear them. I didn’t find any recordings with this particular cast; if I will find it, I will add a link here.
I wondered why it was performed in English, and then I learned that its premier was in English and that there were both English and German versions from the start.
After a questionable Aida last week, it was such a delight! The impeccable voices, the moving music, and all the performers united by the great masterpiece – it couldn’t be better!
The only outing Boris and I had in Chicago this week was going to the CSO on Thursday (and going to dinner in Forte before that). It was really-really great (I mean the concert, but the dinner was also good :))
Jakub Hrusa really impressed me, and Gil Shaham was great as usual!
With a different conductor, but the same piece, the same orchestra, and the same Gil Shaham 🙂
When he was called for an anchor, he shared a story from the beginning of the pandemic, when composer Scott Wheeler wrote a piece about isolation, and sent it to him. Gil Shaham performed this piece for his anchor; it is called Isolation Rag :))
I captured this moment of Mr. Chen chatting with the youth during the intermission. He always gets engaged with the audience, and this time, I saw him signing the program for one of the teens, and later, I saw them passing us on the way to their seats showing the happiest smiles!
I was at CSO twice last weekend: one time with Nadia and one time with my mom.
On Saturday, we had a “Carnival of the Animals” concert, which was supposed to be for “bigger kids,” but many parents still brought very small children there. I don’t know why they are doing this, and more importantly, why they won’t leave when the child is evidently not enjoying the experience. The concert was very good, though, with just the right duration overall, the musical pieces of the right size, and a very good narration.
Once again, I had my CSO for Kids Ambassador perk: we were invited to meet one of the musicians after the concert. He was a cellist, and he started by asking the kids what they knew about the cello. After Nadia was the first to answer his questions three times in a row, he asked whether she was playing some musical instrument :).
Then, we had a whole hour of activities. Anna and Kira were able to join us, and both girls (and Anna) had fun making animal masks and trying different instruments at the musical instruments “zoo”:
The Sunday concert featured Estonian conductor Paavo Jarvi and an amazing young cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. I tried to find some of his recordings online; there are not that many, but hopefully, you can see how awesome he is! The second act was Nielsen’s Symphony No. 5, another outstanding piece, and overall, it was one of the best concerts of the season.
That’s the concerto he performed at the Sunday concert.
The CSO is doing a fantastic job with the concerts for the little kids: “Once Upon a Symphony” series. Today was the third time for Nadia and the second time for Kira, and the performance was based on Three Little Pigs (the Big Bad Wolf was a Building Inspector, so nobody was eaten :)). I think it’s really admirable how they can keep even very little kids engaged for forty minutes! This time, Anna was able to come (John drove), and we all enjoyed the performance.
The girls wanted to go back to my house, but today we had time for the concert only, they had to go back home right away, and I am also trying to finish ten different writing projects. Next weekend, however, will be all about family events: my Christmas presents for Anna and John and for Nadia. Also, we are going to celebrate my and my mom’s birthdays.
Tomorrow, my Christmas Tree will be removed, and last night and today, I spent a lot of time putting down all the decorations, taking down the ornaments from the tree, and packing everything into boxes. As I promised to Nadia and Kira, I brought them the gingerbread ornaments, which they ate surprisingly fast (I was sure that they were too hard to chew).
Now I can see that I have several “groups” of Christmas ornaments:
the very old ones, some older than me, some from my very early childhood
my ornaments from the 1970s
the ornaments we hand-made for our first US Christmas
the ones I bought on garage sales during the first two years in the US when we had very little money
gifts from friends
ornaments I brought from different places
some cool ornaments I purchased because I wanted them 🙂
And I am going to make sure that each Christmas, even if I do not have all of my ornaments on the tree, I have some form each group!
On Friday, I took Naida to the CSO Christmas concert. We went to that concert last year, and at that time, I was surprised that Naida sat through the whole thing, even though I told her that we could leave during the intermission if she felt it was too much.
This season, since Anna could not come, and I would have both Nadia and Kira in my house, I asked her whether I should keep the tickets and find a sitter for Kira or return the ticket, and she said – the first one :).
So we went to the concert, and it was amazing! Probably the best concert since the time they stopped doing “stories” for these Christmas concerts.
We had first-row tickets right in front of the conductor. Thomas Wilkins was the best possible conductor for this concert, and Ashley Brown made it spectacular. Thomas Wilkins immediately noticed Nadia in her Sant hat and addressed her when he talked to the audience. Then he asked her to step forward for a second, and when she did, he snatched the Santa hat from her head but returned it right away.
The concert was perfect, with a mix of old and new melodies and a sing-along.
Santa arrived unannounced before the last two songs. They are doing Santa really well in the CSO! Nadia remembered each word Santa said last year, and she was pleased that he didn’t repeat himself. After the last song and applauses, Santa reappeared carrying a music stand, asking the maestro to play one more song, “which everybody from the audience wanted to hear” (audience burst into applause). He added that “although there are no words for this song in the program, everybody in the audience knew them.” Indeed, how could we not? I am so thankful to the CSO for keeping this tradition of “one more song, and we all know what song it is!”
(The recording is one of the previous years).
CHRISTMAS IN CHICAGO Christmas in Chicago is my kind of Christmas It’s just what Christmas ought to be Snowflakes fill the frosty air, skaters frolic on the square And on State Street dazzling windows are a beautiful sight to see Christmas in Chicago, as hearts fill with wonder Lights sparkle all along Magnificent Mile I love Christmas in Chicago, that’s my kind of Christmas At Christmas all Chicago wears a smile The City of Big Shoulders wears a robe of winter white The lion statues wear their wreaths of green Picasso’s sculpture wears a cheerful multicolored glow Reflected from the city’s Christmas tree Christmas in Chicago is music and laughter And singing carols here at Orchestra Hall I love Christmas in Chicago, that’s my kind of Christmas It’s like no other Christmas at all Christmas in Chicago is my kind of Christmas It’s just what Christmas ought to be We’ll make a trip to carol at the zoo in Lincoln Park We’ll sing for kangaroo and chimpanzee We’ll warm up with hot chocolate there and then we’ll go downtown To Marshall Field’s and sit on Santa’s knee Christmas in Chicago is my kind of Christmas It’s just what Christmas ought to be Sleigh bells ring on horsedrawn cabs near Water Tower Place Church bells peal from steeples ’round the town Salvation Army Santas add a joyful ring-a-ling The Loop is filled with happy Christmas sounds Christmas in Chicago is music and laughter And singing carols here at Orchestra Hall I love Christmas in Chicago, that’s my kind of Christmas It’s like no other Christmas at all Chicago’s kind of Christmas is a magic kind of Christmas It’s like no other Christmas at all –Music and lyrics by Gary Fry, Copyright 1996 Fry-By-Night Music (ASCAP)
Hettie's Reflections 