With all the news about ethnic hatred and bloodshed in Bosnia, it’s nice to know music has managed to survive in that beleaguered part of the globe.
As part of its season finale this weekend, the Chicago String Ensemble will perform the local premiere of “Three Meditations” for solo cello and string orchestra by Serbian composer Dejan Despic. Young German-born cellist Alban Gerhardt will be the soloist. Music director Allan Lewis will round out the all-Slavic program with works by Dvorak, Janacek and Shostakovich.
Concerts will be given at 8 p.m. Friday at Union Church of Hinsdale, 137 S. Garfield; and 3 p.m. Sunday at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Northwestern University, Evanston. 312-332-0567.
– The nine-voice chamber choir Chicago a cappella will present an eclectic program ranging from Renaissance works to arrangements of pop tunes by Paul Simon at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Church of St. Luke, 1500 W. Belmont Ave. Jonathan Miller will lead his group in the Midwest premiere of Daniel Pinkham’s “Bugs” and music by the French Renaissance composer Mathurin Forestier, previewing the choir’s forthcoming Centaur recording of the complete Forestier masses. 708-383-7599.
– Pianist Charles Pettee will be soloist in Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, Dieter Kober conducting, in a free concert presented in observance of the 100th anniversary of the German-American Medical Society at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St. Works by Haydn and Persichetti complete the program. 312-922-5570.
– Another chamber group, the Orion Ensemble, will wrap up its 1996-97 season with an all-Brahms concert at 7:30 p.m. Monday in Roosevelt University’s Ganz Hall, 430 S. Michigan Ave. The program will include both the Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor and Clarinet Quintet, Opus 115. 630-628-9591.
– Cuban guitarist Manuel Barrueco will conclude the Segovia Classical Guitar Series for the season at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Evanston. His program holds works by J.S. Bach, Rodrigo, Schubert and Falla. 847-491-5441.
– More than 200 musicians ages 4 to 50 will take part in a 10-hour performance marathon from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at the DePaul University School of Music building, 804 W. Belden Ave. “Performathon 97” is a project by the school’s Community Music Division to raise scholarship funds. There is no admission charge. 773-325-7262.
– John von Rhein
THEATER
Two important theatrical organizations in our area, with vastly differing specialties, have lined up their programming for next season: Shakespeare Repertory downtown and Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in Summit.
Shakespeare Rep, at 1016 N. Dearborn St., will mount “The Merchant of Venice” Oct. 10-Dec. 7, “Henry V” Jan. 23-March 15 and “The Comedy of Errors” April 10-May 31, 1998.
Barbara Gaines, the company’s artistic director, will stage “Merchant” and “Henry,” which launched the company, by the way, in an outdoor version in 1986 at the Red Lion Pub. David Bell, a veteran musical director now working out of Atlanta, will direct “Comedy.” For subscriptions: 312-642-2273.
Candlelight plans the musicals “Funny Girl” Oct. 23-Jan. 18, “Some Like It Hot” Jan. 22-April 19, “Can-Can” April 23-July 19, 1998, and “Jekyll & Hyde, the Musical” July 23-Oct. 18, 1998. The theater strangely declined to release details about the last show, however, and producers with the current Broadway version say there are no plans to release residential theater rights to that “Jekyll & Hyde” next season.
In the smaller Forum Theatre, the lineup includes Nicky Silver’s “The Food Chain” Sept. 24-Dec. 21 and Ken Ludwig’s “Moon Over Buffalo” Feb. 25-May 17. For subscription information: 708-496-3000.
– Sid Smith
ARCHITECTURE
The annual open house of student work at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture will be held May 15 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at S.R. Crown Hall, 3360 S. State St.
Among the design problems students considered this year was Meigs Field, which remains an airport through 2002, but which Mayor Daley wants to transform into a park.
The students had two choices: keeping Meigs open, with an aviation and aeronautics museum alongside it, or turning it into parkland that would include an aviary, a large enclosure in which birds are kept. 312-567-3104.
– Jeffrey Nelson, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture, is the 1997 winner of the Schiff Foundation Fellowship, bestowed annually on a local architecture student by the architecture department of the Art Institute of Chicago.
This year’s award carries a $10,000 prize, which Nelson can use in any way he chooses to advance his education. He was cited for a design for the Arts Club of Chicago, in which he sought to explore the perceived conflict between traditionalism and modernism. The club last month opened a new building at St. Clair and Ontario streets.
The Schiff prize is the result of an endowment fund established by Harold Schiff, a now-retired partner in the construction firm of Schal Associates.
– Mary Beth Blatner, formerly with the Chicago Architecture Foundation, has been named executive director of the Pleasant Home Foundation in Oak Park.
The non-profit foundation is dedicated to preserving the John Farson House, known as Pleasant Home, designed in 1897 by the Prairie Style architect George Maher. Tours are available. 708-383-2654.
Blair Kamin
ART
Chicago-based painter and educator Kerry James Marshall has received a $50,000 award from the Herb Alpert Foundation in conjunction with the California Institute of the Arts.
Marshall was the sole visual artist to be honored. Other recipients were choreographer Victoria Marks, filmmaker Craig Baldwin, composer Chen Yi and performance artist Lisa Kron.
Marshall is also one of the artists chosen to represent the United States in “Documenta X,” an international exhibition of contemporary art held this summer in Kassel, Germany.
– “PRINTfest CHICAGO,” an exposition by 10 dealers in contemporary graphics from Great Britain, New York and Maryland, will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Drake Hotel, 140 E. Walton Pl. Free admission. 212-219-1446.
– Artist Lorenzo Pace will discuss his 30-year career and his award-winning sculpture designed for New York’s recently discovered African-American burial ground at 3 p.m. Saturday in Fullerton Auditorium of the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave. Free admission. 312-443-3680.
– Curator J. Stewart Johnson will give a free lecture, “Charles Rennie Mackintosh: A Reappraisal,” at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Fullerton Auditorium of the Art Institute, 111 S. Michigan Ave. A Mackintosh retrospective exhibition will continue at the institute through June 22. 312-443-3600.
– Princess Giorgiana Corsini will present the international edition of “The Guide to Historic Houses and Gardens Open to the Public in Italy” at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the gallery of the Italian Cultural Institute, 500 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1450. Free admission. For reservations: 312-822-9545.
– Alan G. Artner
JAZZ
Keyboardist Jim Trompeter will appear with trumpeter Scott Wendholt Friday and Saturday at the Green Mill Jazz Club, 4802 N. Broadway. 773-878-5552.
– 8 Bold Souls will perform at 6 p.m. Sunday in Unity Temple, 875 Lake St., Oak Park. 708-383-8873.
– Maynard Ferguson and his Big Bop Nouveau Band will play Sunday at the Chicago Blue Note, 1550 N. Rand Rd., Palatine. 847-776-9850.
– Singer Fontella Bass and saxophonist David Murray play Monday in the Traffic series at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St. 312-335-1650.
– Singer Stephanie Browning, who’s in residence at the Gold Star Sardine Bar, 680 N. Lake Shore Drive, will be moonlighting this month at Pops for Champagne, 2934 N. Sheffield Ave. She’ll sing at Pops every Thursday in May. 312-472-1000.
– Howard Reich
