Grant Park Music Festival - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Grant Park Music Festival (formerly Grant Park Concerts) is an annual ten-week classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

concert series held in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, USA. It features the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra

Grant Park Symphony Orchestra

The Grant Park Symphony Orchestra or simply the Grant Park Orchestra is a publicly sponsored symphony orchestra that provides free performances in the Grant Park Music Festival during the summer months in Millennium Park in Chicago, Illinois. Its sister organization is the Grant Park Chorus; the...

and Grant Park Chorus along with featured guest performers and conductors. The Festival has earned non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

status. It claims to be the nation's only free, outdoor classical music series. The Grant Park Music Festival has been a Chicago tradition since 1931 when Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak

Anton Cermak

Anton Joseph Cermak was the mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1931 until his assassination by Giuseppe Zangara in 1933.-Early life and career:...

suggested free concerts to lift spirits of Chicagoans during the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

. The tradition of symphonic Grant Park Music Festival concerts began in 1935.

The Festival is housed in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion

Jay Pritzker Pavilion

Jay Pritzker Pavilion, also known as Pritzker Pavilion or Pritzker Music Pavilion, is a bandshell in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located on the south side of Randolph Street and east of the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan...

in Millennium Park

Millennium Park

Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, USA and originally intended to celebrate the millennium. It is a prominent civic center near the city's Lake Michigan shoreline that covers a section of northwestern Grant Park. The area was previously...

section of Grant Park

Grant Park (Chicago)

Grant Park, with between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, offers many different attractions in its large open space. The park is generally flat. It is also crossed by large boulevards and even a bed of sunken railroad tracks...

in the Loop community area

Community areas of Chicago

Community areas in Chicago refers to the work of the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago which has unofficially divided the City of Chicago into 77 community areas. These areas are well-defined and static...

of Chicago. The 2004 season, during which the Festival moved to the Pritzker Pavilion, was the 70th season for the Festival. On occasion, the Festival has been held at the Harris Theater

Harris Theater (Chicago)

The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance is a 1,525-seat theater for the performing arts located along the northern edge of Millennium Park on Randolph Street in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, US...

instead of the Pritzker Pavilion. Formerly, the Grant Park Music Festival was held at the Petrillo Music Shell

Petrillo Music Shell

James C. Petrillo Music Shell or simply Petrillo Music Shell or Petrillo Bandshell as it is more commonly known, is an outdoor amphitheater/bandstand in Grant Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...

in Grant Park

Grant Park (Chicago)

. The Festival began when the music shell was located in its original location and moved when it was relocated.

Over time the Festival has had various financial supporters, three primary locations and one name change. The Festival has at times been nationally broadcast and has consistently enjoyed the efforts of many of the worlds leading classical musicians. Recently, the Festival organizers have agreed to release some of the concerts to the public via compact disk recordings.

Funding

Originally, the series was almost completely funded by the Park District. The Park District was responsible for performer payrolls, concert advertising

Advertising

Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...

and marketing

Marketing

Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...

, administered orchestra audition

Audition

An audition is a sample performance by an actor, singer, musician, dancer or other performing artist.Audition may also refer to:* The sense of hearing* Adobe Audition, audio editing software...

s, coordinated the scheduling for each season list of guest artists. Advertising costs for printed media designed by Park District graphic designer

Graphic designer

A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...

s were funded through the Works Progress Administration

Works Progress Administration

The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...

(WPA) and the Federal Arts Program. The tradition of posters for Chicago Transit Authority

Chicago Transit Authority

Chicago Transit Authority, also known as CTA, is the operator of mass transit within the City of Chicago, Illinois and some of its surrounding suburbs....

buses, Chicago 'L'

Chicago 'L'

The L is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs. It is operated by the Chicago Transit Authority...

trains and stations and field houses continued even after WPA relief funding ended.

In 1977, the Grant Park Concerts Society evolved to coordinate all fund-raising for the Festival. It coordinated both general marketing and the membership program. By hosting fund-raising events and selling Festival memberships, it supplemented the Parks District funding, which was in the $1.5–2.0 million range. In 1996, the Park District and Festival staff discontinued their relationship with the Concerts Society. The Park District resumed its responsibility as the sole marketing and fund-raising department.

At the end of the 1990s the Festival was recognized as a non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

and developed ties with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The relationship had the city department taking charge of some administrative duties. As of 2009, The Festival featured the Grammy-nominated Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and is sponsored by the Chicago Park District

Chicago Park District

The Chicago Park District is the oldest and largest park district in the U.S.A, with a $385 million annual budget. It has the distinction of spending the most per capita on its parks, even more than Boston in terms of park expenses per capita...

, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Grant Park Orchestral Association. The park district provides over half of the operating costs, while the Department of Cultural Affairs contributes logistical support. The remaining funding come from a variety of private sources including foundations, corporations and thousands of individual patrons. The park district pays the salaries of principal conductor Carlos Kalmar

Carlos Kalmar

Carlos Kalmar is a Uruguayan conductor. He began violin studies at age six. At age fifteen, he enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Music where his conducting teacher was Karl Österreicher...

, chorus director Christopher Bell, and members of the orchestra and Grant Park Chorus. The Festival also receives grants and broadcast fees. In 2010, the $2 million of the total Festival $4 million budget that was not covered by the Park District and was raised through memberships and private philanthropy. This money finances guest soloists and major collaborations.

History

The first concert occurred after the completion of the original Petrillo Music Shell on July 1, 1935 with a march from Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...

. In the past, National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

and CBS Broadcasting Inc. (CBS)

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

have broadcast the free concerts. The first summer boasted an attendance of approximately 1.9 million for 65 concerts. In 1939, the single-concert attendance record was set with over 300,000 for the Lily Pons

Lily Pons

Lily Pons was a French-American operatic soprano and actress who had an active career from the late 1920s through the early 1970s. As an opera singer she specialized in the coloratura soprano repertoire and was particularly associated with the title roles in Léo Delibes' Lakmé and Gaetano...

concert. Pons shared the stage with her husband Andre Kostelanetz

Andre Kostelanetz

André Kostelanetz was a popular orchestral music conductor and arranger, one of the pioneers of easy listening music.-Biography:...

in what was described as the largest audience of her career. David Rubinoff

David Rubinoff

David Rubinoff, also known as Dave Rubinoff, was a popular violinist who was heard during the 1930s and 1940s on various radio programs playing his $100,000 Stradivarius violin. He also performed in theaters, clubs and schools, and he gave several concerts at the White House during the 1940s...

was estimated to have drawn as many as 225,000. Current attendance at the approximately thirty annual concerts is estimated at three hundred thousand in total. The free Festival has always had a picnic

Picnic

In contemporary usage, a picnic can be defined simply as a pleasure excursion at which a meal is eaten outdoors , ideally taking place in a beautiful landscape such as a park, beside a lake or with an interesting view and possibly at a public event such as before an open air theatre performance,...

-like atmosphere. In the 1930s, the concerts were presented on national radio broadcasts to dozens of radio station

Radio station

Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

s.

In addition to lifting spirits, the Grant Park Music Festival has been able to provide musicians a living wage. In 1938, when the minimum wage

Minimum wage

A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...

was $0.25/hour, the musicians were paid $10 ($ today) for a 2-hour concert. In the early years, through the 1940s the Chicago Woman's Symphony performed often at the Festival. In 1944, the Festival developed its own professional Grant Park Symphony Orchestra

Grant Park Symphony Orchestra

. Also in 1944, WGN (AM)

WGN (AM)

WGN is a radio station in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It is the only radio station owned by the Tribune Company, which also owns the flagship television station WGN-TV, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and Chicago magazine locally. WGN's transmitter is located in Elk Grove Village, Illinois...

began the nationally syndicated Theater of the Air live from Grant Park. In 1945, Nikolai Malko

Nikolai Malko

-Biography:Malko was born in Semaky, Ukraine. His father was Ukrainian, his mother Russian. He studied philology at St Petersburg University. He published articles on music criticism in the Russian press and performed as a pianist and later a conductor. In 1906 he completed his studies in history...

became the Festival's first resident conductor. He served in that role until 1954.

Between the scheduling of Van Cliburn

Van Cliburn

Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn Jr. is an American pianist who achieved worldwide recognition in 1958 at age 23, when he won the first quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, at the height of the Cold War....

's 1958 Grant Park Music Festival appearance and his actual July 16 appearance, he won the quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Competition

International Tchaikovsky Competition

The International Tchaikovsky Competition is a classical music competition held every four years in Moscow, Russia for pianists, violinists, and cellists between 16 and 30 years of age, and singers between 19 and 32 years of age...

in Moscow that April. He was catapulted to international fame for winning one of the world's elite music competitions. As a result he was greeted with a celebration that included a ticker tape parade down Michigan Avenue and his Grant Park Music Festival appearance was a major event.

In the 1960s, the Festival took a more adventurous direction featuring works by the likes of Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

, Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...

, Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

and Anton Werbern who highlighted the 1964 schedule under the new direction of Edward Gordon. In 1962, Thomas Peck became the leader of the newly formed Grant Park Chorus, which he directed until his death in 1994. In 1963, the Festival introduced the interactive daytime Young People's Concerts led by Irwin Hoffman

Irwin Hoffman

Irwin Hoffman is an American conductor, born in New York. He was a protege of Serge Koussevitsky. He conducted the Vancouver Symphony from 1952 to 1964, after which he became Associate Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He was Acting Music Director of the Chicago Symphony for one...

and at times by youth audience members. Gordon also introduced opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

in concert as part of the Festival in 1964.
The 1970s saw declining attendance at the Festival. Mitch Miller

Mitch Miller

Mitchell William "Mitch" Miller was an American musician, singer, conductor, record producer, A&R man and record company executive...

, who derived popularity from the Sing Along with Mitch television show was a regular conductor and one of the largest draws. Steven Ovitzy, became concert manager in 1979 and served until 1990. During the 1980s the Festival earned a reputation for performing works by American musical composers. Ovitzky focused on living American composers such as William Bolcom

William Bolcom

William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...

, John Adams, Michael Torke

Michael Torke

Michael Torke is an American composer who writes music influenced by jazz and minimalism. Sometimes described as a post-minimalist, his most postminimal piece is Four Proverbs, in which the syllable for each pitch is fixed and variations in the melody produce streams of nonsense words. Other works...

and Paul Freeman. The 1980s also saw a host of elite principal conductors such as Zdeněk Mácal

Zdenek Mácal

Zdeněk Mácal is a Czech conductor.Mácal began violin lessons with his father at age four. He later attended the Brno Conservatory and the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts, where he graduated in 1960 with top honors. He became principal conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra and...

, Leonard Slatkin

Leonard Slatkin

Leonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,...

, Hugh Wolff

Hugh Wolff

Hugh Wolff is an American conductor.He was born in Paris while his father was serving in the U. S. Foreign Service, then spent his primary-school years in London. He received his higher education at Harvard and at Peabody Conservatory...

, David Zinman

David Zinman

David Zinman is an American conductor and violinist.After early violin studies at the Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota and took up conducting at Tanglewood...

and Robert Shaw

Robert Shaw (conductor)

Robert Shaw was an American conductor most famous for his work with his namesake Chorale, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Shaw received 14 Grammy awards, four ASCAP awards for service to contemporary music, the first Guggenheim Fellowship...

.

The 1990s saw wide-ranging performances such as the Russian opera Prince Igor
Prince Igor
Prince Igor is an opera in four acts with a prologue. It was composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Polovtsian tribes in 1185...

, a narration of Casey at the Bat
Casey at the Bat
"Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888" is a baseball poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. First published in The San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888, it was later popularized by DeWolf Hopper in many vaudeville performances.The poem was originally published...

by Jack Brickhouse

Jack Brickhouse

John Beasley "Jack" Brickhouse was an American sportscaster. Known primarily for his play-by-play coverage of Chicago Cubs games on WGN-TV from 1948 to 1981, he received the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983...

with orchestral accompaniment, six Chicago Bulls National Basketball Association

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

championship celebrations and a celebrated return visit of Van Cliburn for the sixtieth season. The Van Cliburn visit rivaled the Pons attendance figures with estimates exceeding 300,000. In 1992, the Grant Park Concerts officially became the Grant Park Music Festival. From 1994 to 1997, Hugh Wolff

Hugh Wolff

served as principal conductor of the Festival and it took until 2000 for an elaborate search to yield Kalmar as his successor.

In 2000, the Festival reached an agreement with Cedille Records

Cedille Records

#REDIRECTCedille Records is the independent record label of TheChicago Classical Recording Foundation.-Company History:In 1989, James Ginsburg founded Cedille Records, as a...

to record the Grant Park Orchestra. It produced six CDs during the decade. In 2001, Boston Landmarks Orchestra

Boston Landmarks Orchestra

The Boston Landmarks Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.- History :The Boston Landmarks Orchestra was founded in January 2001 by Charles Ansbacher to perform free concerts for the Boston community in significant locations around the city...

was founded for the purpose of providing a free summer concert series in Boston's Hatch Memorial Shell and now claims to also provide an annual free summer music series. On July 16, 2004, the Festival moved to the state of the art Pritzker Pavilion, where it shares space with a regular world music series ("Music Without Borders"), a jazz series ("Made in Chicago") and a variety of annual performances by Steppenwolf Theatre, Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...

and Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...

. Nonetheless, the Festival remains the core of the summer program with its Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evening performances for ten weeks during the heart of the summer. At the end of the 2005 Grant Park Music Festival season in August, the Festival's Grant Park Orchestra and Carlos Kalmar

Carlos Kalmar

Carlos Kalmar is a Uruguayan conductor. He began violin studies at age six. At age fifteen, he enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Music where his conducting teacher was Karl Österreicher...

presented Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

-winning composer Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls
On the Transmigration of Souls
On the Transmigration of Souls, for orchestra, chorus, children’s choir and pre-recorded tape is a composition by composer John Adams commissioned by The New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center’s Great Performers shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks.Adams began writing the piece in...

, which was written at the request of the New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

to honor the victims of the September 11 attacks. In 2006, the Joffrey Ballet

Joffrey Ballet

The Joffrey Ballet is a dance company in Chicago, Illinois, founded in 1956. From 1995 to 2004, the company was known as The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. The company regularly performs classical ballets including Romeo & Juliet and The Nutcracker, while balancing those classics with pioneering modern...

celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in a collaboration with the Festival. During the decade, the Festival hosted an innovative array of talents such as Chinese erhu

Erhu

The erhu is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, which may also be called a "southern fiddle", and sometimes known in the Western world as the "Chinese violin" or a "Chinese two-stringed fiddle". It is used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles...

player Betti Xiang, pipa

Pipa

The pipa is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments . Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12–26...

player Yang Wei

Yang Wei

Yang Wei is the name of:*Yang Wei , Chinese badminton player*Yang Wei , Chinese gymnast*Yang Wei , Chinese aircraft designer...

, Portuguese fado

Fado

Fado is a music genre which can be traced to the 1820s in Portugal, but probably with much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar, Rui Vieira Nery, states that "the only reliable information on the history of Fado was orally transmitted and goes back to the 1820s and 1830s at best...

singer Mariza

Mariza

Mariza is the stage name of a popular fado singer. She was born Marisa dos Reis Nunes on 16 December 1973 in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique. At the time, Mozambique was known as the Portuguese Overseas Province of Mozambique....

, Cuban classical and jazz clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera

Paquito D'Rivera

Paquito D'Rivera is a Cuban alto saxophonist, clarinetist and soprano saxophonist. The winner of multiple Grammys and other awards, D'Rivera has lived in the United States since the early 1980s. He has worked in a variety of contexts, but is perhaps best known for playing Latin...

, Hungarian-Roma fiddler Roby Lakatos

Roby Lakatos

Roby Lakatos, the “devil’s fiddler”, is a Romani violinist from Hungary. He is renowned for his mix of classical music with Hungarian Romani music and jazz themes....

and Mediterranean singer Maria del Mar Bonet

Maria del Mar Bonet

Maria del Mar Bonet i Verdaguer is a Balearic singer from the island of Majorca.-Early life and career:She studied ceramics in the school of arts, but eventually she decided to dedicate herself to song. She arrived in Barcelona in 1967, where she began to sing with the group Els Setze Jutges...

Performances

The performance schedule includes ten consecutive weeks of performances on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from mid June to mid August. Currently, performances usually begin at 6:30 on Wednesday and Friday and 7:30 on Saturday with band shell seats reserved for subscribers. Unclaimed seats are released to the public 15 minutes before each performance. The lawn seating is free and commonly adorned with blankets and families. Harris Theater hosts occasional Grant Park Music Festival events. The orchestra and chorus have open rehearsals at the Pritzker Pavilion during performance season with sessions usually running from 11:00 am to 1:30 pm and approximately 2:30 or 3:00 pm until 5:00 pm. The Festival is represented by a staff of trained guides, called docents

Museum docent

Museum docent is a title used in the United States for educators trained to further the public's understanding of the cultural and historical collections of the institution, including local and national museums, zoos, historical landmarks, and parks. In many cases, docents, in addition to their...

, that field questions and provide educational talks during the rehearsals. The rehearsals have programs

Programme (booklet)

A programme or program is a booklet available for patrons attending a live event such as theatre performances, fêtes, sports events, etc. It is a printed leaflet outlining the parts of the event scheduled to take place, principal performers and background information. In the case of theatrical...

available.
In the 1930s, the concerts lured some of the most prominent performers and conductors in the world: Pons, Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...

, Bobby Breen

Bobby Breen

Bobby Breen is a Canadian-born actor and singer of the 1930s. He made his professional debut at age four in a night club in Toronto and was an immediate sensation. He made his radio debut soon after. He played in vaudeville and his sister paid for his musical education. Breen went to Hollywood in...

, Rudy Vallee

Rudy Vallée

Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...

, Helen Morgan

Helen Morgan

Helen Morgan was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s...

, conductor Andre Kostelanetz

Andre Kostelanetz

André Kostelanetz was a popular orchestral music conductor and arranger, one of the pioneers of easy listening music.-Biography:...

, violinists David Rubinoff

David Rubinoff

, Mischa Elman, Efrem Zimbalist

Efrem Zimbalist

Efrem Zimbalist, Sr. was one of the world's most prominent concert violinists, as well as a composer, teacher, conductor and a long-time director of the Curtis Institute of Music.-Early life:...

and Albert Spalding

Albert Spalding (violinist)

Albert Spalding was an American violinist and composer.-Biography:Spalding was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1888. His mother, Marie Boardman, was a contralto and pianist. His father, James Walter Spalding, and uncle, Hall-of-Fame baseball pitcher Albert Spalding, created the A.G...

, pianist Moriz Rosenthal

Moriz Rosenthal

Moriz Rosenthal was a great Polish pianist. He was an outstanding pupil of Franz Liszt and a friend and colleague of some of the greatest musicians of his age, including Johannes Brahms, Johann Strauss, Anton Rubinstein, Hans von Bülow, Camille Saint-Saëns, Jules Massenet and Isaac...

, sopranos Marion Claire, Edith Mason

Edith Mason

Edith Mason was an American soprano.She studied in Boston, Philadelphia, and Paris. She made her debut on January 27, 1912, as Nedda in Pagliacci with the Boston Opera Company. During the next three years, she sang in Europe at Nice, Marseilles, and Paris...

and Vivian Della Chiesa

Vivian Della Chiesa

Vivian Della Chiesa was an American lyric soprano who achieved a high level of popularity in the United States singing on the radio during the 1940s and the early 1950s. She performed a wide variety of classical and popular works from opera to musical theatre, jazz, and popular songs...

, tenors Tito Schipa

Tito Schipa

Tito Schipa was an Italian tenor. He is considered one of the finest tenori di grazia in operatic history...

, John Carter, Lawrence Tibbett

Lawrence Tibbett

Lawrence Mervil Tibbett was a great American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera company more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950...

and baritone John Charles Thomas

John Charles Thomas

John Charles Thomas was a popular American opera, operetta and concert baritone.-Birth, schooling and stage debut:...

.
The 1940s saw a broad spectrum of performers including Mario Lanza

Mario Lanza

right|thumb|[[MGM]] still, circa 1949Mario Lanza was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16....

, clarinetist Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

, soprano Kirsten Flagstad

Kirsten Flagstad

Kirsten Målfrid Flagstad was a Norwegian opera singer and a highly regarded Wagnerian soprano...

and actor-singer Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson

Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...

. Other performers included sopranos Claire, Eileen Farrell

Eileen Farrell

Eileen Farrell was an American soprano who had a nearly 60 year long career performing both classical and popular music in concerts, theatres, on radio and television, and on disc. While she was active as an opera singer, her concert engagements far outnumbered her theatrical appearances...

, Grace Moore

Grace Moore

Grace Moore was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film. She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience.-Early life:...

and Della Chiesa, tenors Giovanni Martinelli

Giovanni Martinelli

Giovanni Martinelli was a celebrated Italian operatic tenor. He was particularly associated with the Italian lyric-dramatic repertory, although he performed French operatic roles to great acclaim as well...

, Richard Tucker

Richard Tucker

Richard Tucker was an American operatic tenor.-Early life:Tucker was born Rivn Ticker in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of Romanian immigrants from Bessarabia. His father, Shmul Ticker, and mother Fanya-Tsipa Ticker had already adopted the surname "Tucker" by the time their son entered first...

and Jan Peerce

Jan Peerce

Jan Peerce was an American operatic tenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film director Larry Peerce....

, baritone Robert Merrill

Robert Merrill

Robert Merrill was an American operatic baritone.-Early life:Merrill was born Moishe Miller, later known as Morris Miller, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, to tailor Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife Lillian, née Balaban, immigrants from Warsaw, Poland.His mother...

, violinist Mischa Mischakoff

Mischa Mischakoff

Mischa Mischakoff was an outstanding violinist and concertmaster for 70 years, from the age of ten until the age of eighty....

and conductors Frederick Stock

Frederick Stock

Frederick Stock was a German conductor and composer.-Biography:...

, Leo Kopp, Arthur Fiedler

Arthur Fiedler

Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country...

and Antal Doráti

Antal Doráti

Antal Doráti, KBE was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1947.-Biography:...

.

Beginning in the 1950s Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley

Richard J. Daley

Richard Joseph Daley served for 21 years as the mayor and undisputed Democratic boss of Chicago and is considered by historians to be the "last of the big city bosses." He played a major role in the history of the Democratic Party, especially with his support of John F...

greeted the opening night crowds nearly every year during his 21-year tenure. Among the performers of the 1950s were sopranos Beverly Sills

Beverly Sills

Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s. In her prime she was the only real rival to Joan Sutherland as the leading bel canto stylist...

and Farrell, tenor Peerce, pianists, Van Cliburn, Jorge Bolet

Jorge Bolet

Jorge Bolet was a Cuban-born but mostly American-resident pianist and teacher.-Life:Bolet was born in Havana, and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he himself taught from 1939 to 1942...

, Gary Graffman

Gary Graffman

Gary Graffman is an American classical pianist, teacher of piano and music administrator.Graffman was born in New York City to Russian-Jewish parents. Having started piano at age 3, Graffman entered the Curtis Institute of Music at age 7 in 1936 as a piano student of Isabelle Vengerova...

and Earl Wild

Earl Wild

Royland Earl Wild was an American pianist widely recognized as a leading virtuoso of his generation. Harold C. Schonberg called him a "super-virtuoso in the Horowitz class". He was known as well for his transcriptions of classical music and jazz...

, violinists Elman and Michael Rabin

Michael Rabin (violinist)

Michael Rabin was an American virtuoso violinist whose fame has continued despite his death at the age of 35.Michael Rabin was of Romanian-Jewish descent. His mother Jeanne was a Juilliard-trained pianist, and his father George was a violinist in the New York Philharmonic...

and cellist Janos Starker

János Starker

János Starker |Kingdom of Hungary]]) is a Hungarian-American cellist. Since 1958 he has taught at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he holds the title of Distinguished Professor.- Child prodigy :...

.
The 1960s upheld the tradition of diverse audiences and performers such as contralto Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...

, pianists Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel KBE is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.-Biography:...

, Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim, KBE is an Argentinian-Israeli pianist and conductor. He has served as music director of several major symphonic and operatic orchestras and made numerous recordings....

, Leon Fleisher

Leon Fleisher

Leon Fleisher is an American pianist and conductor.-Early life and studies:Fleisher was born in San Francisco, where he started studying the piano at age four...

, Lorin Hollander and Christoph Eschenbach

Christoph Eschenbach

Christoph Eschenbach , born February 20, 1940, Breslau, Germany is a German-born pianist and conductor. He currently holds positions in Washington, D.C. as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra and music director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.-Early...

, violinists Itzhak Perlman

Itzhak Perlman

Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...

, Ruggiero Ricci

Ruggiero Ricci

Ruggiero Ricci is an Italian-American violinist known for performances and recordings of the works of Paganini. He was born in San Bruno, California. Ricci's brother was cellist and his sister Emma played violin with the New York Metropolitan Opera.He is the son of Italian immigrants. His...

, Charles Treger, Jaime Laredo

Jaime Laredo

Jaime Laredo is a violinist and conductor. Currently the conductor and Music Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, he began his musical career when he was five years old. In 1948 he came to North America and took lessons from Antonio DeGrass...

, cellist Leonard Rose

Leonard Rose

Leonard Rose was an American cellist and pedagogue.Rose was born in Washington, D.C., his parents were immigrants from Kiev, Ukraine...

, conductor Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, tenor Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...

, mezzo-sopranos Maryilyn Horne and Tatiana Troyanos

Tatiana Troyanos

Tatiana Troyanos was an American mezzo-soprano of Greek and German descent.-Early life:...

, soprano Martina Arroyo

Martina Arroyo

Martina Arroyo is an operatic soprano of Puerto Rican and African-American descent who had a major international opera career during the 1960s through the 1980s...

and Roberta Peters

Roberta Peters

Roberta Peters is an American coloratura soprano.One of the most prominent American singers to achieve lasting fame and success in opera, Peters is noted for her 35-year association with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York...

, as well as a host of dance companies such as the American Ballet Theater, Joffrey Ballet

Joffrey Ballet

and Maria Alba Spanish Dance Company. The Joffrey Ballet performed Gerald Arpino

Gerald Arpino

Gerald Arpino was an American dancer and choreographer. He was the artistic director and co-founder of The Joffrey Ballet.-Life and career:...

and George Balanchine

George Balanchine

George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...

works.
In the 1970s, the Festival hosted soprano June Anderson

June Anderson

June Anderson is a Grammy Award-winning American coloratura soprano. Originally known for bel canto performances of Rossini, Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, she was the first non-Italian ever to win the prestigious Bellini d'Oro prize...

, vocalist Gordon MacRae

Gordon MacRae

Gordon MacRae was an American actor and singer, best known for his appearances in the film versions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, Oklahoma! and Carousel and films with Doris Day like Starlift.-Early life:Born Albert Gordon MacRae in East Orange, New Jersey, MacRae graduated from...

, pianists Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck

David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...

, Alicia de Larrocha

Alicia de Larrocha

Alicia de Larrocha y de la Calle was a Spanish pianist from Catalonia. One of the great piano legends of the 20th century, Reuters called her "the greatest Spanish pianist in history", Time "one of the world's most outstanding pianists" and The Guardian "the leading Spanish pianist of her...

, Jerome Lowenthal

Jerome Lowenthal

Jerome Lowenthal is an American classical pianist. He is a professor of piano at the Juilliard School in New York, where he was also chair of the piano department. Additionally, Lowenthal is on the faculty at Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California.He made his debut at 13 with the...

and Sheldon Shkolnik and violinists Elaine Skorodin. Dancers from both the Chicago City Ballet and New York City Ballet

New York City Ballet

New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...

were also featured. Conductors included Mitch Miller, Leonard Slatkin

Leonard Slatkin

, Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

and David Zinman

David Zinman

. Dancer Edward Villella

Edward Villella

Edward Villella is an American ballet dancer and choreographer, frequently cited as America's most celebrated male dancer at the time....

and soprano Kathleen Battle

Kathleen Battle

Kathleen Battle , is an African-American operatic soprano known for her agile and light voice and her silvery, pure tone. Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid 1970s. She made her opera debut in...

also made appearances.
In the 1980s, featured performers included pianists Walter Klein, Hollander, André Watts

André Watts

André Watts is a classical pianist and professor at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University.-Life and early performances:...

and Garrick Ohlsson

Garrick Ohlsson

Garrick Ohlsson is an American classical pianist.Ohlsson was the first American to win first prize in the International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition, in 1970. He also won first prize at the Busoni Competition in Italy and the Montreal Piano Competition in Canada...

, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman

Richard Stoltzman

Richard Stoltzman is an American clarinetist. Born Richard Leslie Stoltzman in Omaha, Nebraska, he spent his early years in San Francisco, California and Cincinnati, Ohio, graduating from Woodward High School in 1960. Today, Stoltzman is part of the faculty list at the New England Conservatory...

, the Vermeer Quartet

Vermeer Quartet

The Vermeer Quartet was a string quartet founded in 1969 at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont and active until 2007.With performances in practically every major city in North and South America, Europe, the Far East, and Australia, the Vermeer Quartet achieved an international stature as one of...

, baritone Merrill, bass Paul Plishka

Paul Plishka

Paul Plishka is a Ukrainian-American bass opera singer.Mr Plishka comes from Old Forge, Pennsylvania and Paterson, New Jersey; his parents were American-born children of Ukrainian immigrants...

, soprano Arleen Auger

Arleen Auger

Joyce Arleen Auger was an American soprano singer, admired for her coloratura voice and interpretations of works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Monteverdi, Gluck, and Mozart.-Biography:...

and harmonica player Corky Siegel

Corky Siegel

Mark Paul "Corky" Siegel is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and composer. He plays harmonica and piano. He plays and writes blues and blues-rock music, and has also worked extensively on combining blues and classical music...

. Conductors included Macal, Slatkin, Wolff, Zinman and Shaw.

Performers in the 1990s included Van Cliburn, mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade

Frederica von Stade

Frederica von Stade is an American mezzo-soprano. Born in Somerville, New Jersey, she acquired the nickname "Flicka" in her childhood. Von Stade attended the Mannes College of Music in New York City. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 1970 and in 1971 appeared as Cherubino in The...

, Rosemary Clooney

Rosemary Clooney

Rosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the novelty hit "Come On-a My House" written by William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian , which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me" Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 –...

, violinist Joshua Bell

Joshua Bell

Joshua David Bell is an American Grammy Award-winning violinist.-Childhood:Bell was born in Bloomington, Indiana, United States, the son of a psychologist and a therapist. Bell's father is the late Alan P...

, conductor Maxim Shostakovich

Maxim Shostakovich

Maxim Dmitrievich Shostakovich is a Russian conductor and pianist. He was the second child of Dmitri Shostakovich and Nina Varzar.Since 1975, he has conducted and popularised many of his father's lesser-known works....

(who led works by his father Dmitry Shostakovich), trumpeter Doc Severinsen

Doc Severinsen

Carl Hilding "Doc" Severinsen is an American pop and jazz trumpeter. He is best known for leading the NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.-Early life:...

and soprano Deborah Voigt

Deborah Voigt

Deborah Voigt is an American operatic soprano. Voigt regularly performs in opera houses and concert halls worldwide.- Early life and education :...

.
In the new millennium's first decade the Festival welcomed sopranos Battle, Dawn Upshaw

Dawn Upshaw

Dawn Upshaw is an American soprano described as "one of the most consequential performers of our time" by the Los Angeles Times. The recipient of several Grammy Awards and Edison Prize-winning discs, Upshaw is at home both in opera and art song, and in repertoire from Baroque to contemporary...

, Karina Gauvin

Karina Gauvin

Karina Gauvin is an internationally-recognized Canadian soprano who has made several recordings and is especially recognised for her interpretation of Baroque music. Opera News stated that, "Gauvin knows how to rivet an audience in opera and concert. She has been a queen of Baroque opera for years...

and Erin Wall

Erin Wall

Erin Wall is a Canadian operatic soprano.She studied at the Vancouver Academy of Music, Western Washington University, Rice University and Music Academy of the West and was a finalist at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition in Wales in 2003, a competition where 951 singers from 56 nations...

, tenor Vittorio Grigolo

Vittorio Grigolo

Vittorio Grigolo is an Italian singer.Grigolo was born in Arezzo, but raised in Rome.He began singing by the age of four...

, pianist Stephen Hough

Stephen Hough

Stephen Andrew Gill Hough is a British-born classical pianist, composer and writer. He became an Australian citizen in 2005 and thus has dual nationality .-Biography:...

, violinists Rachel Barton Pine

Rachel Barton Pine

Rachel Barton Pine is a violinist from Chicago. Considered a child prodigy at the violin, she started playing at the age of 3 and a half. She played at many renowned venues as a child and teenager...

, James Ehnes

James Ehnes

James Ehnes, CM is a Canadian concert violinist.The son of Alan Ehnes, trumpet professor at Brandon University and Barbara Ehnes, former director of the Brandon School of Dance, James Ehnes began his violin studies at the age of four...

, Roby Lakatos

Roby Lakatos

Roby Lakatos, the “devil’s fiddler”, is a Romani violinist from Hungary. He is renowned for his mix of classical music with Hungarian Romani music and jazz themes....

, Christian Tetzlaff

Christian Tetzlaff

-Biography:Tetzlaff was born in Hamburg. He began playing the violin and piano at the age of 6, and made his concert debut at 14 years old. He studied with Uwe-Martin Haiberg at the Musikhochschule Lübeck and with Walter Levine at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.He is...

and Pinchas Zukerman

Pinchas Zukerman

Pinchas Zukerman is a world-renowned violinist, violist, and conductor. He is considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th and 21st centuries, and his ongoing 45-year career has seen him perform with the world's best-known orchestras and record over 100 works...

, vocalists Otis Clay

Otis Clay

Otis Clay is an American R&B and soul singer, who started in gospel music.-Life and career:...

, Mariza

Mariza

and Maria del Mar Bonet

Maria del Mar Bonet

and rock band Decemberists. Other performers include pianist Valentina Lisitsa

Valentina Lisitsa

Valentina Lisitsa is a Ukrainian-born classical pianist. Lisitsa resides in North Carolina in the USA. Her husband, Alexei Kuznetsoff, is also a pianist and her partner in a number of piano duets.- Biography :Lisitsa was born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1973...

, soprano Jonita Lattimore

Jonita Lattimore

Jonita Lattimore is an American operatic soprano and a faculty member of Roosevelt University's College of Performing Arts. She is a lyric soprano from Chicago's South Side who has performed a wide range of operatic roles as well as oratorio performances with major orchestras both internationally...

, baritone Nathan Gunn

Nathan Gunn

Nathan Gunn is an operatic baritone from the United States.He has appeared in many of world's well-known opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Opera,...

and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore

Jennifer Larmore

Jennifer Larmore is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer, noted for coloratura and bel canto.- Career :Jennifer Larmore is an American mezzo-soprano, well known for her versatility, natural beauty and stage craft...

. The Joffrey Ballet also performed with the Festival.

The principal conductor is Carlos Kalmar. Guests in the 2007 season included Marc-André Hamelin

Marc-André Hamelin

Marc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ, is a French Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer.Born in Montreal, Quebec, Marc-André Hamelin began his piano studies at the age of five. His father, a pharmacist by trade who was also a pianist, introduced him to the works of Alkan, Godowsky, and Sorabji when he was...

, Russell Braun

Russell Braun

Russell Braun is a Canadian operatic lyric baritone.Much sought-after as a soloist and for opera roles, Russell Braun performs regularly at the Metropolitan Opera, the Salzburg Festival, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, l'Opéra de Paris, the San Diego Opera, the San Francisco Opera and the Canadian...

, Erin Wall

Erin Wall

, Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus and many more performing the works of composers such as Brahms, Beethoven, Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

, Leo Brouwer

Leo Brouwer

Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida is a Cuban composer, conductor and guitarist. He is the grandson of Cuban composer Ernestina Lecuona Casado.-Biography:...

, Heitor Villa-Lobos

Heitor Villa-Lobos

Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...

, Tan Dun

Tan Dun

Tan Dun is a Chinese contemporary classical composer, most widely known for his scores for the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.-Early life in China:...

and Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

.

The 2010s included a scheduled Grant Park's screening of the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's nature documentary Planet Earth Live
Planet Earth Live
Planet Earth Live is a 2010 BBC nature documentary film that celebrated its premier in the U.S. with a tour featuring narration and live orchestral accompaniment featuring the score by composer George Fenton, who serves as conductor...

on July 21, with live orchestral accompaniment featuring the score by five-time Academy Award-winning composer George Fenton

George Fenton

George Fenton is a British composer best known for his work writing film scores and music for television, although he also writes music for the theatre. His real name is George Howe but he is better known by his pseudonym of George Fenton.-Selected film and television credits:Fenton has composed...

, who served as conductor.

Reception

Frommer's
Frommer's
Frommer's is a travel guidebook series and one of the bestselling travel guides in America. The series began in 1957 with the publication of Arthur Frommer's book, Europe on $5 a Day. Frommer's has expanded to include over 350 guidebooks across 14 series, as well as other media including the award...

describes the Festival as "One of the city's greatest bargains", and it notes that the series is popular. One of the special editions notes that the Festival is continuing to uphold its Depression era mission of lifting Chicagoans' hearts and suggests that you arrive at the Festival an hour early to get good lawn seats. It also notes that the afternoon rehearsals are a good substitute for the evening performances.

External links

www.grantparkmusicfestival.com

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.