Home (against my better judgment)
Away in San Francisco.
I’m away from the home office this week in San Francisco for a reporting trip. Those who know me well know I have kind of a tortured relationship to the Bay Area — I’ll talk all kinds of smack about this place, then ugly-cry at the terminal when I leave.
I’m lucky to still have community here, even though my family has decamped. Family friends have put me up for both of my trips here thus far, for which I’m deeply grateful. Even though the city has changed beyond belief, returning here as a visitor feels a little closer to the old magic I felt as a kid, when we’d BART into the city from the suburbs.
In your eyeholes and earholes
The last couple weeks have been preternaturally busy. A work roundup:
For the Chicago Tribune: A review of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s twin stands at the Chicago Symphony. (Gift link.)
Also for the Chicago Tribune: A really fun Duke salute by the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. Since the organization started performing at the Kehrein Center for the Arts on the West Side and began offering $1 tickets — thanks to a bevy of grant support — its audience has reflected Chicago better than any other large presenting organization I’ve seen besides DCASE’s Millennium Park programming. Concerts are sold-out to boot. Where there’s a will… (Gift link.)
Yet again for the Chicago Tribune: A tribune to Sir Andrew Davis, who died of leukemia last year. Sir Andrew’s son, Ed, leads his impressive volunteer choir Vox Venti in a tribute concert on March 8; Lyric Opera already hosted its own, free of charge with a suggested donation to Lyric, per Sir Andrew’s wishes. (Gift link.)
For WBEZ: An article and rush-hour radio segment about a recent collaboration between Eighth Blackbird and My Brightest Diamond.
Two news items, both for the Chicago Tribune: A major renovation project at the Ravinia Festival, whose Pavilion has been the ire of Chicago Symphony musicians for decades. Plus, the Art Institute gets one of the biggest donations in its history, earmarked for the expansion and upkeep of its French art collection. (Gift links.)
Also for the Chicago Tribune: A preview of Frequency Festival, the brainchild of former Chicago Reader critic Peter Margasak. (More on the Reader below.) Peter is one of the most thoughtful, deep listeners I know, and Frequency Fest is always an invitation to surf along the circuitry of his brain. Whatever he’s into, I’m giving it a spin, too. (Gift link.)
If you don’t already follow Peter’s own extraordinary, enterprising Substack, fix that right now. 👇🏻 👇🏻 👇🏻
And three more reviews — two in Chicago, one in San Francisco — down and published soon.
Save the Reader!
Whether it’s friends trying to jump into freelance writing or artists looking for a publication that might give their little-show-that-could a shot, my answer is usually the same: Have you tried the Reader?
I can’t think of another publication in the city that covers the arts at such a high level while still welcoming green writers. Fresh out of college, in my magazine editing days, I didn’t have many chances to dust off my music writing chops. That all changed when I met Philip Montoro at a media workers’ bowling league (yes, that’s a thing), and he encouraged me to contribute to Soundboard. I’ve since contributed scores of Soundboard blurbs and about a half-dozen features to the Reader, all of them rooted in the time-intensive, granular, long-form reporting that is practically an endangered species these days.
My Reader fanboydom is by no means a slight against the other Chicago publications keeping arts coverage alive. It’s no more, and no less, than an astonished compliment to this singular alt-weekly — one of the last of its kind and scale, after The Village Voice ceased weekly publication in 2017. No matter how scrappy, no matter how lean, the Reader always keeps arts coverage as its bread and butter. They still employ, to my knowledge, the only full-time music critic in the city: Leor Galil, who is as thoughtful as he is dizzyingly prolific.
Speaking as a freelance contributor, I can say that getting feedback from Reader editors — not just Philip Montoro but Jamie Ludwig, Kerry Cardoza and Brianna Wellen, the last of whom is no longer with the paper but a certified GOAT — is like going to the spa. It’s vanishingly rare to get that kind of line-by-line, beat-by-beat care in this frenzied, resource-poor press landscape. It’s extra meaningful because I know they do it on a shoestring themselves.
That shoestring is poised to snap. The Reader’s latest missive is distressingly bleak:
Two weeks ago, the Reader was under threat of imminent closure. We had to confront the real possibility of shutting our doors after 53 years of service.
Since our January 14 announcement, we’ve raised over $125,000 in individual donations and received countless words of affirmation and Reader stories. Because of this outpouring of support, we’re able to stay afloat for at least a little while longer.
Every day we stay open we accrue costs. In full transparency, we reduced our weekly budget from $115,00 to $88,462. These costs allow us to continue our 63,000 print roll, payroll, office rent, and other necessary costs. By March 17, we’ll be down to $76,462. That’s the lowest we can go right now.
We’re continuing to cut costs without sacrificing the long-form, in-depth news the Reader is known for. Our unique approach to journalism allows our staff to produce investigative pieces like our recent cover story, a piece that questions the effectiveness of a multi-million dollar project that monitored people awaiting trial.
Although we’re in a better spot than we were on January 14, we have to continue to raise money if we want to continue operating for longer than three months. We’re working long hours, taking furloughs and voluntary pay cuts, all because we fundamentally believe that people shouldn’t pay to know what’s going on in their city.
We can’t afford to slow down. Please continue to share your Reader story widely, and let’s keep the Reader alive.
If you’re here, chances are you know and love the Reader, too. Some of you might not — but you probably know and love me, or at least love that a free, independent press exists. We need the Reader to ask tough questions and reciprocate the hard work artists pour into their craft every damn day, in America’s third-largest city.
Please, please, please, if you can: make a tax-deductible donation. A Reader-less Chicago is a whole lot poorer, and a whole lot more vulnerable to Whatever’s Coming.
Gig calendar 🌁
Feb. 19: Trupa Trupa (8 p.m., Kilowatt)
Feb. 20: Julian Lage solo show (7:30 p.m., SFJAZZ)
Feb. 21: Daniil Trifonov with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony (7:30 p.m., Davies Symphony Hall)
Already savored: Opera San José’s Bluebeard’s Castle (Feb. 15) and Yuja Wang with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony (Feb. 16).
Required Reading
Anne Midgette on Trump’s Kennedy Center coup, in VAN Magazine
A deeply reported investigation by Riya Misra on three decades of sexual harassment allegations against Houston Symphony principal horn Bill VerMuelen at Rice University, in The Barbed Wire
An art critics’ roundtable in The Brooklyn Rail
(By the way, I wouldn’t have known about this excellent feature had it not been pointed out to me in a recent Chicago Reader newsletter.)
Drop the Needle
Last week, the CSO programmed some rare Schoenberg in honor of the composer’s 150th year: Pelleas und Melisande. The last Schoenberg opus heard at Orchestra Hall was over a year earlier, when Michael Tilson Thomas led his hyperactive orchestration of Brahms’ first piano quartet.
When my community orchestra tackled the Quartet-for-Orchestra a few months later, I learned firsthand that Schoenberg’s arrangement is a beast to play and even more monstrous to balance. I also learned more about Schoenberg’s love of arranging other composers’ music — some of it surprising, coming from Mr. “If it is for all, it is not art.”
Like his “Funiculì, Funiculà,” backed by a clarinet, mandolin, guitar, and string trio:
His four-hand arrangement of Rossini’s Barber of Seville:
And Strauss’s Emperor Waltz, adapted by Schoenberg for seven-piece chamber ensemble: