It’s probably due to those old Salvation Army bands that used to play around the holidays, but nothing quite says Christmas like a brass band and, of course, there is no brass band in the world quite like the legendary fifteen-member brass section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Legendary for its sound for more than a century, early music directors such as orchestra founder Theodore Thomas and Frederick Stock gave many important American premieres of Austro-Germanic works heavily associated with brass, and the legendary recordings of Rafael Kubelik, Fritz Reiner and Sir Georg Solti further galvanized the international reputation of the section as the one by which all others are measured. There have been a number of renowned CSO brass players, but none more famous than longtime principal tuba player Arnold Jacobs (1915-1998) who was universally considered the world’s foremost expert on brass breathing, and legendary fifty-three-year principal trumpeter Adolph “Bud” Herseth, who still attends concerts and about whom the late Dizzy Gillespie told me was the first trumpeter in classical music that “didn’t make the trumpet sound sissified.” During these music-directorless days the section includes trumpeters Christopher Martin, Mark Ridenour, John Hagstrom and Tage Larsen, horn players Dale Clevenger, Daniel Gingrich, James Smelser, David Griffin, Otto Carillo and Susanna Drake, trombonists Jay Friedman, James Gilbertson, Michael Mulchay and Charles Vernon and tuba player Gene Pokorny. Last year’s holiday performance quickly sold out so this year there are two, but the December 20 concert is already sold out because of the Midwest Clinic, an international band and orchestra concert. That leaves this performance for the rest of us, which will include music by Dukas, Gounod, Tomasi, Debussy and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” (Dennis Polkow) Sunday, December 9 at Symphony Center
Scenes From A Season: An Inside Look at a Year with Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Walking out onto the stage last September, Muti was receiving his first applause at Orchestra Hall in over nineteen months. The celebrated Italian-born music director of the CSO, who had turned eighty two months earlier, was clearly moved. What made the acclamation unusual was that the hall was empty. The orchestra itself was providing heartfelt and sustained applause, greeting Muti…
A Positive Light: The Soul Children of Chicago Sing "O-o-h Child" at Chicago Live! The Chicago Live! concerts coincide with the last weekend of “State of Sound: A World of Music from Illinois” music exhibit. As a sendoff, the Soul Children of Chicago will sing “O-o-h Child” in tribute to this socially significant Chicago song. The thirty-piece choir has been rehearsing the song for a month and the pier audience will be encouraged to…
