[regularly scheduled programming]

Bits and bobs for February

Lately.

Welcome back.

Like many of us, I’m distraught. And, no, I’m not much finding solace in art. Or anything else, really.

Most I can say is I spent Jan. 20 — inauguration day — with Flutronix (Nathalie Joachim and Allison Loggins-Hull) and the Chicago Sinfonietta, for a live version of the former’s Black Being. The suite sets a poem of the same name by Jaki Shelton Green, the poet laureate of North Carolina. It was, of course, the Sinfonietta’s annual MLK Day concert. This concert tends to be an uplifting, feel-good affair. That wasn’t quite the case this year, which felt appropriate. Black Being is throbbing, intense — beautiful, yes, but often achingly so.

Many an ending sounds triumphant because the music has overcome or vanquished something. Both this orchestrated version and the duo version Joachim and Loggins-Hull first presented at the Arts Club of Chicago in 2021 make it very clear that’s not the case in Black Being. Like the title promises, sometimes the triumph is merely being, in a world that wants to obliterate so many of us.

An excerpt from Green’s poem:

            but we keep coming

            from white lightning 

            moon pies and stardust

            we keep coming 

            from bloody Sundays

            muddy roads and tin roof

            we keep sprouting wings

            we keep coming […]

            from prickly roses

            honey suckle vines

            potato patches

            hand me down blues

            from chi-town wind

            baltimore brownstones

            finger sucking good georgia peaches

            friday night salsa in spanish harlem 

            crenshaw bump and grind

            we keep coming

            great grandmother

            grandmothers

            mothers

            daughters

            granddaughters

            great granddaughters

            we keep coming […]

In your eyeholes and earholes

An overview of recent bylines:

• For Musical America: I reviewed a richly textured, lovingly crafted Jan. 24 recital by Michelle Cann, hosted by the University of Chicago Presents. The Philadelphia-based pianist built a program around women composers of the Black Chicago Renaissance; if you’ve been following Chicago-area programming of the past year and scholar Samantha Ege’s research for much longer than that, you know Florence Price was just the beginning. I’ve been wowed by Cann again and again in local concerto performances. It was a pleasure to hear her — and her encore of choice, Hazel Scott’s zany Rachmaninoff/Beethoven sendup — in this new context. (Paywalled review)

• Also for Musical America: Chicago-based composer Kari Watson is still early in their career, but what a wonder it’s been so far. (Darmstadt and The Washington Post agree.) They’ve already written across a remarkable range of mediums, just a few of which are captured on their recent album enclosures. We sat down together, at last, for this New Artist of the Month feature.

• For WBEZ: Maybe my favorite project this month was producing this radio spot on Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, which CSO musicians Stephen Williamson, Danny Jin, and John Sharp performed with pianist Umi Garrett on Feb. 2. WBEZ’s Reset then hosted me and Danny to talk more about the piece and performance. I’m very grateful to be doing more radio these days — not only is it a fun challenge, but it nicely breaks up the end-to-end writing doldrums.

  • And one other thing: Danny will be playing the Bruch Violin Concerto with Lakeview Orchestra, the community orchestra I play in, at the Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture on Feb. 16. I actually can’t play the concert itself, owing to a work trip, but I’ve played along with this cycle’s rehearsals and think the orchestra is playing at its peak. Nicholas Koo, a talented up-and-coming conductor with his own CSO bona fides, conducts.

Symphonia domestica

In the realm of personal updates, one leads the newsletter: Breck and I adopted a new cat!

No, we don’t know why our vet’s office looks like a Christian influencer’s Instagram.

Possibly the only animal more heartbroken than we by the loss of our cat Steven (on New Year’s Day 2024, no less) was Māomī, our resident feline. So, we’re pleased, though not at all surprised, it only took him a week to take the new arrival under his wing. Or furry armpit, I guess.

Photographic evidence.

Thing is, we still haven’t settled on a name. “Miss Kitty” is her shelter name, and at this point, it’s sticking. Which is unfortunate, because Māomī’s name already means (sigh) “kitty.” We won’t be commended for our creativity anytime soon.

Some names we’ve already cycled through:

• Junie B. Jones

• Caper

• Massive Joe

• Sellie (short for Seldom Seen)

• Various dinosaur genus names, e.g. Compsognathus

• Gay Whipple

• Johannes Crab

• Hemiola

• Dirty Computer

• Smooch

• Debutante

• Eugene V. Debutante

• Soubie (short for soubresaut, a ballet leap)

• Sissy (for sissone, another ballet leap)

• FOMO

• Freaky (for “Frequency Festival 2025”)

• Clara (for Schumann and the young protagonist in Nutcracker)

• Ida B. Wells

• Blue Face Leicester

• Itsy Bitsy

• Dr. Miami

• Firefly

• Greta Thunberg

• King Arthur

• Tipper Gore

Any and all suggestions welcome.

Filed under “no regrets”

One of the last things force-fed to me by Facebook before deactivating. Good riddance.

Gig calendar 🗓️

Feb. 5: A memorial concert for Lee Newcomer, the late proprietor of Performer’s Music (7 p.m., Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building)

Feb. 6: Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the CSO in Bluebeard’s Castle, featuring Christian Van Horn and Ekaterina Gubanova (7:30 p.m., Symphony Center)

Feb. 8: The premiere of Orbert Davis’s Ellingtonia, with the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic (1 & 7 p.m., Kehrein Center for the Arts)

Feb. 9: Release show for Kari Watson’s enclosures (4 p.m., Tusk)

Feb. 13: Sondra Radvanovsky in “Puccini’s Heroines” (7 p.m., Lyric Opera House)

Feb. 14: David Afkham conducts the CSO in Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande, feat. Christian Tetzlaff playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto (7:30 p.m., Symphony Center)

✈️ Feb. 15–22: In San Francisco for a reporting trip

Feb. 25: Trupa Trupa (9 p.m., Empty Bottle)

Feb. 27: Karim Sulayman in recital, presented by the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago (7:30 p.m., Ganz Hall at Roosevelt University)

Drop the Needle

Driving home from Michelle Cann’s recital in Hyde Park, I tuned into NPR’s World Cafe. The episode focused on Boston’s music scene, one I’m generally unfamiliar with. I appreciate the episode belatedly turning me onto “Cure for Pain,” off alt-rock band Morphine’s 1993 album of the same name. Juicy, juicy sax playing here, courtesy of Dana Colley.

While performing with Morphine in Italy in 1999, lead singer Mark Sandman died onstage of a heart attack. The band disbanded until a decade later, when the same festival which hosted that fateful show invited Morphine back for another gig. The surviving members formed Vapors of Morphine, which still tours.

I always want to you hear from you. (Yes, you.)

Concerts you’re looking forward to? Heinous AI? Boston-based musicians or groups you love? Sound off below, if you’re so moved.