Photo: Todd Rosenberg

By Dennis Polkow

Conducting his first Symphony Center concert as the tenth music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last Thursday, September 23, Riccardo Muti received more applause, cheers and accolades just for showing his face than his predecessor Daniel Barenboim used to receive for showing his stuff.

Indeed, you would have to go back to the heyday of the CSO glory years under Sir Georg Solti some three decades ago to encounter a comparable reception or experience such a solid marriage of conductor and orchestra.

The program—repeated through Tuesday, September 28—was a curious mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar: an all-Berlioz program that opened with his iconic “Symphonie fantastique” followed by its rarely performed sequel, “Lélio, or the Return to Life,” conceived to immediately follow “fantastique,” though those wishes are rarely respected today. (While barely a season or two goes by that the CSO has not performed “fantastique,” “Lélio” was being given its first-ever CSO performance on this occasion.) Muti had time-tested this pairing at concerts in Salzburg and Paris, even releasing a recording and DVD of performances in Europe with the same narrator that was used here, French actor Gérard Depardieu. Read the rest of this entry »

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The garage-rock wave seems to have ebbed into the resurgence of pop punk. Where these two crests meet splashing onto the local scene are Chicago trio the Sore Subjects.

Their Midwestern take on the easily accessible stylings of the Ramones places them alongside the new class of modern punks proudly upholding the “1,2,3,4″ ethos. Their songs are deceptively simple and wacky (such as their single “Back to the Jungle”). The guitarist Joey IPA’s downstrokes and drummer ChaChu’s 4/4 tempo will cause your feet to tap in time. Don your leather jacket and chew out the rhythm on bubble gum for a fist pumping blast of raw power. (John Wawrzaszek)

September 24 at Quenchers, 2401 North Western, 9pm.

Photo: Todd Rosenberg

By Dennis Polkow

Not since the Chicago Symphony Orchestra triumphantly returned from its first European tour some forty years ago and then-mayor Richard J. Daley hosted a parade in celebration has the CSO so dominated an event downtown.

Hopefully, you came early, because if you hadn’t, spaces were few and far between across a Millennium Park that eventually became so crowded Sunday afternoon, September 19, that the park was shut off to additional concertgoers.

“What a great day to be a Chicagoan!” exclaimed co-sponsor Bank of America’s Paul Lambert, to a sea of people waving small flags proclaiming “Festa Muti” so ferociously that if the celebrated Italian maestro were running for mayor, he would be a shoo-in.

Could the performance itself possibly live up to all of the hype and anticipation? By the time Riccardo Muti actually showed his face for the first time to the vast crowd as the tenth music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the crowd stood and went as ballistic as if Bono had walked onto the stage. Read the rest of this entry »

Clare Manchon and her group, The Reasons, play an upbeat chamber pop that works its way to curling up the corners of your mouth, coaxing you into a blissful smile. Raised on classic black American music, the likes of Sam Cooke and Bessie Smith, Manchon’s old influences seep into the new, creating a mesmerizing mixture of sounds.

Manchon’s father, Geoff Muldaur, is known for his work with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. She says the folk and blues musician was a “great teacher growing up.”

Now, Manchon is creating her own music and famously writes her songs in her kitchen, inspired by the city surrounding her. New York City. Read the rest of this entry »

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Soul Foundation’s monthly Saturday affair at the House of Blues continues with a visit from the inimitable Diz, a veteran Chicago DJ whose early achievements and funk-laden approach to house music are matched only by his enthusiasm for the city itself. With an impeccable ear and innate sense of arrangement, Diz turned his skills on the decks into vinyl treasures for the masses. As a longtime resident at Boom Boom Room, he delivers the grooves with a nod to his teeth-cutting nights on the loft circuit. Joined by Soul Foundation mainstays, Frique and Brenda D., Diz provides the soundtrack for your house music sanctuary this weekend in the House of Blues Foundation Room. Proper casual attire is required for this event. (John Alex Colón)

September 25 at House of Blues Foundation Room, 329 N. Dearborn, (312) 923-2000. 10pm. Free.

The Deep Dark Woods sound like winter. And while perhaps Chicagoans don’t want to be reminded that the season is creeping up, somehow the brooding, folksy Saskatoon, Saskatchewan band helps to remind us of the goodness of wrapping up in a warm sweater as the wind whips outside.

Geoff Hilhorst, the pianist/organist and newest member joined up in April of last year, though the band itself is relatively new to the scene, just starting in 2005.

But the group has seen a swift success, receiving nominations and awards from the Western Canadian Music Awards and the Canadian Folk Music Awards.

Though just a little ways to the south, playing in the States has been a bit more difficult but motivating experience. Read the rest of this entry »

In every font, there is a part of the letter, such as on a lowercase y or a g, that hangs like a tail below the base line. The typographic term for this is called a descender. So when four Brooklyn graphic-designers-turned-musicians-by-night decided to name their band, it made sense when they settled on this term.  The band’s drummer George Manolis is a born-and-raised Chicagoan who now finds it a bit different playing music in New York City. “None of us own a car,” says Manolis, “so we get a Zipcar van for every show. Even though it’s expensive to play in a band in New York, it’s definitely worth it.” Read the rest of this entry »

By Dennis Polkow

The excitement—not only throughout the city, but across the world—is palpable: Riccardo Muti, the maestro of the moment, is coming to Chicago, this time in earnest and for good. The long limbo that began when Daniel Barenboim abruptly left his position as longtime Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director in May of 2006 is ending, at long last. Leninesque banners of Muti dot the city proclaiming “Festa Muti,” fall arts previews all spotlight his inaugural appearances, music critics are traversing continents to cover his concerts in various languages.

Muti is scheduled to arrive in Chicago September 15—well after press time—but the curiosity as to what the man himself is feeling as what is already being dubbed “the Muti era” actually begins here prompts us to reach out to the maestro by phone in his suburban Salzburg villa to find out. The rest of us may be excited, but Muti, as we have seen here now on numerous press announcements and conversations, can be as funny and mischievous as a schoolboy, having one Italian paper report on the constant one-liners of his last press conference here under the headline, “Un clown nommé Riccardo Muti.” Perhaps it is the mountain air—“It has been cloudy and rainy here for forty days”—but today, however, Muti is initially introspective and somber as he discusses what he calls “his last adventure” as music director. Read the rest of this entry »

On the eve of the release of “Buzzard” on September 21, Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s will bring their new sound to Chicago, lead singer Richard Edwards’ home for the past few years. The group’s first output since the “Animal! /Not Animal” double release of 2008, “Buzzard” is the product of change.

This record, Edwards says, has “intricate work on composing it and arranging it and performing it. This time around, we decided we just want to go in with a really good band with as many good players as possible, do it really live and naturally generate the energy.”

And as is evident on the few singles available online from the upcoming album, it has taken the usual folksy, meandering songs to a more abrasive level, without losing its Midwestern charm. Read the rest of this entry »

Chicago’s pop-punk stalwarts the Scissors have been belting out tunes since early 2002. Eight years later, they are settling into their own, releasing a new album while solidifying a change to their lineup.

Last year they introduced members Ken Fletcher on bass (who played in Chicago’s Plain White T’s) and Yvonne Szumski on guitars and vocals (who was in local all-female outfit the Groodies). The band began writing new material and touring as soon as they could. “(Things) worked out perfectly and we’ve been going strong with this lineup for quite some time now,” says vocalist Darren Vorel, who’s been able to put down his guitar and pick up the microphone full-time thanks to the band’s new additions. Read the rest of this entry »