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A Dixie feast
A hot New Orleans breeze blew into Symphony Center over the weekend, inspiring more than a few Chicagoans to stand up and holler as if they were on Bourbon Street rather than Michigan Avenue. Keep reading »
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Marsalis Takes Jazz To Church
Years from now, they’ll still be talking about the concert that lit up a grand old church on the South Side of Chicago. They’ll reminisce about the jazz band that dared to offer a three-hour show from the pulpit of a 19th Century house of worship. They’ll recall how brilliantly the seven musicians played, how frequently the congregation sprang to its feet, how often it fell silent during passages of mystery and reverie. Keep reading »
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Marsalis proves to be bigger hit before concert
We interrupt this review for a public service announcement: Wynton Marsalis isn’t such a stuffed shirt after all. He joshed playfully with a group of kids from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago at a reception before they went to his concert Monday night at Orchestra Hall. Keep reading »
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Devilishly Entertaining
Igor Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du Soldat” (“The Soldier’s Tale”) endures as one of the most haunting works in the 20th Century chamber repertory for at least two reasons. First, its startling dissonance and brittle instrumental writing sum up radical musical ideas that were emerging during the years of World War I (Stravinsky completed the piece in 1918). Second, its storyline—which traces the devil’s seductions and the consequences his victims must face—clearly holds universal appeal. Keep reading »
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Marsalis heats up night with one hot trumpet
LIKE JACK’S beanstalk, Wynton Marsalis is likely to grow a great deal on any given night. Gifted with a remarkable trumpet technique and a similarly startling musical imagination, Marsalis is, at age 22, already an important artist and one who should continue to develop foe some time to come. Keep reading »