After its debut season last year in the Center for Arts and Technology at Governors State University, the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra returns to the center in University Park to present its 1996-97 season.
The five-concert Orchestra Series begins Jan. 18, 1997, with music director Carmon DeLeone on the podium and Dickran Atamian as piano soloist. Other dates and artists are Feb. 22 (William Kanengiser, guitar); March 22 (Hal Grossman and Elaine Skorodin, violins); April 12 (Philip Fowke, piano); and May 17.
Members of the orchestra also will present chamber ensemble concerts Oct. 20, Nov. 24 and Dec. 15; a pops concert, “A Tribute to Kelly and Astaire,” Nov. 16; and a chamber orchestra concert Feb. 2 at Moraine Valley Community College, Palos Hills; 708-481-7774 for ticket information.
– Cynthia Quick has been named to the newly created position of executive director of the Chicago String Ensemble. The group under music director Allan Lewis will launch its 1996-97 season Sept. 27-29 at three city and suburban churches. David Schrader will be soloist in Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani; 312-332-0567.
– Orchestra Hall will preview the 1996-97 Chicago Symphony Orchestra and CSO Presents seasons in a weekend-long subscription sales drive Saturday and Sunday over WFMT-FM 98.7. A range of premiums, including the chance to win a Caribbean cruise, will be offered with every new subscription order during the CSO Preview Weekend; 312-294-3000.
– Itzhak Perlman will perform the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach conducting, as part of the 34th annual benefit concert for the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago, Nov. 11 at Orchestra Hall. Tickets are $35 to $250. Phone 312-357-4700.
– The Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra will celebrate its 50th anniversary season with three programs in 1996-97, including a reunion concert Jan. 5 at Medinah Temple that holds Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (“Symphony of a Thousand”). Joining music director Daniel Hege for the event will be former CYSO music directors Michael Morgan and Orcenith Smith, orchestra alumni and guest artists. The season will begin Nov. 2 at Orchestra Hall, with Hege conducting and cellist Max Lieblich as soloist in Bloch’s “Schelomo.” The season finale takes place April 27 at Orchestra Hall. Phone 312-939-2207.
– Baritone Gary Lehman, a former member of the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, was among the winners in the 16th MacAllister Awards for Opera Singers, held recently in Indianapolis. Lehman took the $1,500 fourth prize. The other finalists in the professional division were soprano Claudia Waite, $10,000 first prize; baritone Lester Lynch, $5,000 second prize; and mezzo-soprano Kathryn Moore, $3,000 third prize. Chicagoans Susan Foster, Patricia Risley and Helen Todd all were $1,000 finalists. Competition winners were selected from a field of more than 700 singers.
– John von Rhein
ARCHITECTURE
On Sept. 16, Chicago architect Dirk Denison will discuss the future of the Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side as part of the ongoing annual lecture series of the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
Denison, a professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture, will speak about two redevelopment projects on which IIT has cooperated with its neighbors in Bronzeville, once a thriving center of African-American culture; 312-670-7770.
– Architect Carlos Zapata of the University of Miami lectures at the University of Illinois Wednesday. The 5 p.m. talk is at the School of Architecture, 845 W. Harrison St., Gallery 1100. Admission is free; 312-996-3335.
– The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation holds a benefit at Wright’s Avery Coonley Estate in west suburban Riverside Oct. 5.
Tickets are $200 per person and include a tour of the masterful Coonley House and playhouse, as well as the gardener’s cottage and gardens. Proceeds support the non-profit foundation’s educational programs. Call 708-848-1976 before Sept. 21 for reservations.
– Blair Kamin
ART
Performance artist Mathhew Wilson will present a new choreographed piece, “We Want to Believe,” during the “First Friday” event from 6 to 11 p.m. Friday at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave. The program also includes a talk by Wilson plus music by Twigs, 78 Cents and Fritz Legros. Admission is $10.
– The Terra Museum of American Art, 666 N. Michigan Ave., will hold a “Celebrate America” reception and open house from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday. The event includes admission to “Vision of a Nation” and “American Treasures: Chase, Whistler and the Prendergasts.”
– Richard Townsend, curator of the department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago, and John Neff, curator of the collection of the First National Bank of Chicago, will discuss “The Sacred: Ancient and Contemporary” at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave. Admission is $8, $6 for seniors, students.
– Sculptor Stephen Schofield will speak on his work at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the auditorium of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 280 S. Columbus Dr. Admission is $5, $3 for seniors, students, faculty. The program inaugurates a series of lectures in conjunction with “The Presence of Touch,” an exhibition of work by eight artists from Canada and Europe that will open at the school’s Gallery 2 on Sept. 20.
– Alan G. Artner
JAZZ
Tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson plays Friday and Saturday at the Green Mill Jazz Club, 4802 N. Broadway; 312-878-5552.
– Singers E. Faye Butler, Aisha de Haas and Felicia Fields will perform at 4:30 p.m. Sunday in the DuSable Museum of African-American History, 740 E. 56th Pl. The benefit performance marks the first anniversary of the Onyx Theatre Ensemble. Tickets are $50; 312-561-5672.
– The superb cabaret singer Amanda McBroom opens a two-week engagement at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Toulouse Cognac Bar, 2140 N. Lincoln Park West; 312-665-9071.
– Cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm leads a new trio at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave. He’ll be joined by oboist Robbie Hunsinger and percussionist Michael Zerang in this installment of the Empty Bottle’s Wednesday night jazz series; 312-276-3600.
– Howard Reich
