The Music Institute of Chicago, the community music school serving more than 8,000 students, from preschoolers to seniors, is headquartered in Winnetka. But its showplace is in Evanston.
Nichols Hall sits on the corner of Grove Street and Chicago Avenue. Built in 1912, it was designed by Solon S. Beman, a native New Yorker who came to Chicago in 1879 to design much of Pullman, the nation’s first planned company town on the far South Side. He designed many buildings here, and though most are gone, treasures remain: the Fine Arts Building (1884) and the Blackstone Public Library (1905).
And Nichols Hall, which functioned for most of its life as a Christian Science Church. It was always a place of music, with its 500 seats and perfect acoustics. It was reborn, after a loving 6-year-long restoration, in 2003, gaining a best adaptive use citation from the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois.
Given its size, it is surprisingly inconspicuous; Even Osgood, who frequently stops at a nearby coffee house, barely noticed it before venturing inside to take the lovely photo of Fiona Queen, who is the institute’s director of performance activities, a professional pianist and a native Canadian.
She is also responsible for “Fairs that Changed the World,” a weekly series of events with lively scholars and historians (in conversation with yours truly) and concerts featuring the work of composers–Brahms, Debussy, Ravel, Scott Joplin, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and others–whose music was performed at four world’s fairs or who were influenced by visits to those fairs.
You have missed the Weltausstellung in Vienna in 1873 and the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. But you can experience 1893’s Columbian Exposition (if you have to ask where that was, well …) on Wednesday; the New York World’s Fair of 1939 on Jan. 31; and a closing event, a sort of “best of,” at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 2. And it’s all free.
Queen has been working on this project since June. She has gathered great musicians. She has found memorabilia, such as the sheet music for “Ode to the World’s Fair” that she is holding in her hands. She has traveled back in time: “It’s been a joy. I actually feel as if I have been to these fairs and had a ball.”
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rkogan@tribune.com
