JazzFest ’96, this year’s installment of the free music festival at the South Shore Cultural Center, 71st Street and South Shore Drive, will offer a weekend’s worth of performances dedicated to the late Ella Fitzgerald.
The music will run from 1 to 8 p.m. on Saturday along the lakefront.
On Saturday, the lineup will feature pianist Gene Harris, the Jose Valdez Latin Jazz Sextet, saxophonist Teodross Avery, the Primal Connection percussion group and singers Bill Henderson, Geraldine de Haas and Shirley King.
On Sunday, the festival will present the Jazz Members Big Band, drummer Max Roach, pianist Bethany Pickens, Primal Connection and singers Ernie Andrews, Big Time Sarah and Aisha de Haas.
As always, the event is presented by Jazz Unites Inc., a nonprofit organization. For details, phone 312-667-2707.
– Howard Reich
ART
In the six weeks since ticket sales began, the Art Institute of Chicago has issued 24,700 tickets for “Degas: Beyond Impressionism,” the exhibition of 90 late works that will have its only U.S. showing in Chicago from Sept. 30 through Jan. 5, 1997.
Members’ tickets are, as usual, free. However, unlike at last year’s retrospective for Claude Monet, museum members must have tickets for specific dates and times. They may be received in person at the Institute or ordered by phone (with a $2.75 surcharge per ticket).
General admission is $8 Monday through Thursday, $10 Friday through Sunday. For phone orders: 1-800-929-5800.
– The Museum of Contemporary Art surpassed its June 30, 1997 membership goal of 10,000 on July 23. Membership for the museum, which in June opened a new building at 220 E. Chicago Ave., currently stands at 10,133.
This week’s “First Friday” event at the MCA will present performance artist Brigid Murphy and the band Black Family from 6 to 9 p.m. Admission is $10.
– The Midwest advance screening of Louis Messiah’s documentary film, “W.E.B. DuBois–A Biography in Four Voices” will take place at 6 p.m. Friday in Rubloff Auditorium of the Art Institute, Columbus Drive near Monroe Street. Admission is $15. Messiah is a recent recipient of a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation.
– Jodi Benson, an actor and singer for animated films, will speak about her career from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday at the Stay Tooned Animation Gallery, 272 E. Deerpath Rd., Lake Forest. Free admission.
– Alan G. Artner
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Violinists Rachel Barton and her sister Hannah, pianist Sylvia Toran and singers Elena Kolganova and Patricia Risley will appear as soloists with Concertante di Chicago as part of the chamber orchestra’s 1996-97 season at the DePaul University Concert Hall.
The season, conducted by music director Hilel Kagan, will open Sept. 27 and 29 with a program of works inspired by childhood. Composer Manuel de Falla will be celebrated as part of a festival of Spanish and Latin-American music presented in cooperation with the Instituto Cervantes Dec. 15 and 18. The season continues with an all-Mendelssohn program Jan. 31 and Feb. 2 and concludes with a concert performance of Emmerich Kalman’s “The Csardas Princess” April 18 and 20. Phone 312-454-3030 for ticket information.
– WFMT-FM 98.7 will broadcast programs from the 1994-95 and 1995-96 seasons of Concerts under the Dome in Oak Park’s Ascension Church at 4 p.m. Sundays and 8 p.m. Mondays, beginning next week. Among the highlights are two all-Beethoven recitals presented by cellist Janos Starker (Sunday and Aug. 26), a Rachmaninoff tribute by pianist Frederick Moyer (Monday) and a collaboration by the Ying Quartet and pianist Menahem Pressler (Aug. 25).
– Music director Hugh Wolff will conclude the Grant Park Music Festival’s Beethoven festival this weekend with one of the composer’s late, sublime creations, the “Missa Solemnis.” Joining the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Chorus will be vocal soloists Rebecca Copley, soprano; Karen Brunssen, mezzo-soprano; Carl Halvorson, tenor; and Richard Zeller, baritone. The free performances are 8 p.m. Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Petrillo Music Shell.
– Members of the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists will present “The I.O.U. Wedding,” director Richard Pearlman’s witty Boston-Brahmin updating of Rossini’s comic opera “La Cambiale Matrimonio,” at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Hutchinson Courtyard on the University of Chicago campus. Barbara Schubert will conduct the fully-staged production. For reservations, phone 312-702-8484.
– The Chicago a cappella chamber choir His Majestie’s Clerkes will present five programs during the 1995-96 season conducted by artistic director Anne Heider. Two of the Clerkes’ programs will be collaborations with other area ensembles. The season opener, Oct. 19 and 20, will enlist organist David Schrader and the Chicago Baroque Ensemble in works by Sweelinck and Buxtehude. The Clerkes and CBE also will join forces with the Newberry Consort for an all-Bach program May 4. Heider’s group will honor the centennial of Brahms’ death April 19 and 20. For ticket information and locations, 312-461-0723.
– James Conlon, principal conductor of the Paris Opera, will return to Ravinia to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in concerts at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Leif Ove Andsnes will be the soloist Friday, playing Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto. Yo-Yo Ma performs cello works by Boccherini and Tchaikovsky on Saturday. Conlon recently was decorated as an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.
– WNIB-FM 97.1 is broadcasting series of concerts by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic, alternating for 26 weeks at 9 p.m. Fridays.
– John von Rhein
THEATER
Lookingglass Theatre plans its first-ever subscription series next season, with offerings to include a new rock and roll musical from actor Bruce Norris (“Up Against It”) and a revival of Laura Eason’s haunting, experimental “In the Eye of the Beholder.”
Norris’ new piece, “The Vanishing Twin,” described as “a Gothic horror rock-and-roll comedy,” opens Nov. 8. Norris conceived and directs the project, with music by the cast.
Eason’s “Beholder,” an award-winning, visually arresting 1993 study of male and female role play, returns March 6, with much of the original cast.
There will also be a winter workshop production showcasing 6 to 10 new works March 6-23, a more elaborate version of the process that in the past lead to such Lookingglass shows as “The Secret of the Wings,” “Treatment” and “In the Eye of the Beholder.”
The 1996-97 series concludes with “28,” a new piece conceived and directed by Eason, about ways in which modern media and technology promote voter apathy and isolation, opening May 30. For subscription information: 312-477-8088.
– Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co. has been holding its “Abbie Hoffman Died for Ours Sins” festival every summer since 1989, an effort to revive the spirit of the original Woodstock fest. Some 20 theater groups perform for three days together, from Aug. 16-18 at 731 W. Sheridan Rd.
The 1996 installment should boast additional electricity thanks to the coming Democratic Party Convention, the first in Chicago since 1968, when Hoffman’s activities led to his arrest and a later conspiracy trial. Richard Cotovksky will portray Hoffman at opening and closing ceremonies. For more information: 312-871-0442.
– Sid Smith
