Tag: music

Shostakovich’s 11th

It was definitely not the first time I heard Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony, but I guess it has been a while. Or it’s just how it feels these days. Usually, I leave the CSO uplifted, with the general feeling that “life is not so bad,” but the 11th Symphony left me feeling hopeless, especially the finale. Too many cultural references, plus too many parallels with today’s situations (more than one). After the last accord, when the audience exploded with applause, I felt almost insulted by this sound: how could anybody applause after hearing that?!

There was one interesting episode at DevOps Day. I met one person at the beginning of the day (he was a partner of one of the speakers). He approached me later in the day, asking my opinion about some abstract situation (and he told me that he was constructing this situation based on the previous responder’s feedback). After several clarifying questions, I finally realized which moral dilemma he was trying to solve. I told him: you do not need to ask me about the hypothetical situation; I have been in a similar situation for the past three years. And I hate myself for not doing enough years before. I hate myself for not doing enough now, for having my spoon being too small to scoop the water out before the people drown. And I feel guilty for “living a life” and worrying about a million non-critical things while some seriously evil things are happening all over the world…

At the end of our conversation, that person thanked me for sharing my opinion and said that he was sure I would have something to say. I asked him why he was so sure, and he said that he listened to my talk and knew I had opinions.

I don’t know why I feel this conversation is related to Shostakovich’s 11th, but somehow, in my mind, it is!

Last Week In Review

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.

The two were “The Fat Ham” in Goodman

and “Clue” at the CIBC theater.

The audience was ecstatic at both shows, so I guess I should attribute my ambivalence to “I am not in the mood for “just funny” things” these days.

The ones I loved.

Continue reading “Last Week In Review” →

CSO Concert – Stella Chen

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!

Classic Encounter At The CSO

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 🙂

You Can’t Plan Anything With This Weather

It’s a very hot week! Boris tried to choose a week with less chance of a heat wave when we planned his coming, but it ended up being a week with several extremely hot and humid days.

I had three good-seat tickets for a “Broadway Rocks!” concert at Millennium Park, and Boris and I agreed we could go (the tickets were originally for my French friend and her daughter, who were going to visit me but had to cancel). Retrospectively, I should have returned these tickets and gone to the indoor Bruckner concert on Friday, but it was hard to tell in advance: even when you know the weather forecast, it’s hard to say how it will feel.

It was definitely too hot, and also the music was not what I was hoping for (and not Boris’ thing) so it was almost a disaster. My neighbor to whom I gave the third ticket said she enjoyed it, but maybe she was just polite. I felt like I ruined the evening for all of us, but I finally agreed with Boris that it was impossible to tell in advance.

For this visit, I tried to minimize the outings and just come home after work – partially because of the weather and partially because I felt like we were not doing it enough – just two of us being together, not on a mission.

On the other hand, we had one unexpectedly positive experience: going swimming in the evening. I never went to Fargo Beach to swim before (technically speaking, it is not allowed 🤷🏻‍♀️), but it is a three-minute walk from our building, and – well, it’s the same lake, and it’s getting deep pretty fast.

Another Chicago Weekend

I love having Lena in Chicago because she likes the same things that I like, so her favorite weekend is also my favorite. If she had a mini-vacation (which I hope she did), I also had it!

She arrived on Friday, and we even had some time to talk, but I was too tired to stay up late (on Thursday evening, my Amazon Fresh order was delayed, and I had to wait until 11:30PM!). But the next two days, we had a blast!

I made salmon and broccoli quiche for breakfast. My balcony is in the middle of repair, but they allowed us to but the furniture back during the non-working hours
Millenium Park had only two entrances open because of the 20-years celebration, and some parts were permanently closed, so we had to go through security multiple times
We were the first to enter the Art Institute on Saturday, and it was my third time to see the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit.
We also saw the Christina Ramber retrospective, but I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would.
Then we went to the Member’s Lounge Bar
… and took tons of pictures of ourselves. BTW, Lena talked me into wearing a dress that day, saying that her only opportunity to wear a dress was when she visited me in Chicago.
Continue reading “Another Chicago Weekend” →

More Cultural Activities

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.

Mother’s Day Weekend

It was the busiest Mother’s Day weekend I ever had, and I worried that it would be too hectic, but it was great! On Saturday, Nadia and I went to the CSO matinee concert “for big kids.”

It was great as always. The concert was called “The Sound Waves,” and all the pieces that were performed had something to do with water and its symbolism. The program included music by Saint-Saens, Wagner, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, and Mendelssohn, and at the end, the orchestra played Stravinsky’s Suite from The Firebird.

After the concert, there was a kid-friendly reception at Forte. Anna was skeptical about how “kids-friendly” it was going to be, but it was amazing! They had both adult’s and kids’ food (even peanut butter/jelly sandwiches :)) and lots of fruits and vegetables.

Then, we all went to Milwaukee because Nadia had a recital later the same day. That was the part I was unsure about: obviously, we didn’t plan on the concert and recital on the same day! However, everything went perfectly, Nadia was the first to perform at the recital, and she did great. Anna accompanied her, which was especially enjoyable.

In the evening, we had one more adventure. Somehow, we all missed the news about the Northern Lights (and even if we knew, there was no time to go anywhere after the Field Museum Night). Then, we became jealous of all the people posting amazing photos, and since there were more chances for the Northern Lights to reappear the next night, Anna suggested we go away from the city lights pollution and try to catch them.

We didn’t get a chance to see them; as it turned out, they appeared after 11:30PM, and we left at about 10:30, but we didn’t regret that we went on this adventure. I can’t recall when was the last time I saw a clear night sky away from the city. All the constellations, and the Milky Way, and a shiny half-moon – everything was up there above us! The parking lot of the forest preserve was full of cars: many people had an idea similar to ours. We asked for the way to the beach and followed the stone steps down to the lake. We stood there together with other people, staring into the sky. Then, we saw the lights of the police car. We were sure they would kick us out: the park closing time was 10 PM, but the officer got out of the car, approached us, and asked sympathetically: nothing yet?

He said that the night before, there was a huge crowd at the beach, but the police didn’t kick the people out: it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event; how could we! We were just making sure everybody’s fine.

We stayed there for a little bit longer, but since we were unsure whether anything was going to happen, we left. It was still amazing :).

Then, there was an actual Mother’s Day, and Anna cooked the most delicious breakfast (and I didn’t take pictures!), and then I went back to Chicago. The weather was gorgeous, I could actually go to the beach, but I decided in favor of biking – I didn’t have a chance to go biking for several days. Then I went to see my mom, and there was a little bit of disaster, but that’s a separate story. The most important thing is that my Mother’s Day was amazing, and I also got a new Dunes t-shirt from Igor and also my friend mailed me this very special gift:

Saturday

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 🙂

Elijah At CSO

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!