The title of Bella Voce’s spring program, “Silence & Music,” is taken from twentieth-century British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose choral works will be heard in this program commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of his death. Bella Voce music director Andrew Lewis is using Vaughan Williams as an entry point into an examination of the British choral tradition, past and present, that will also include secular and sacred music by Vaughan Williams predecessors William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and Henry Purcell and Charles Villiers Stanford and his contemporaries Benjamin Britten, Gerald Finzi, Herbert Howells and John Tavener. The program will also be repeated next weekend in Glenview and River Forest. (Dennis Polkow)
4 p.m. April 26, St. James Cathedral, 65 E. Huron, (312)479-1096.
Dennis Polkow is an award-winning veteran journalist, critic, author, broadcaster and educator. He made his stage debut at age five, was a child art prodigy and began playing keyboards in clubs at the age of fourteen. He holds degrees in music theory, composition, religious studies and philosophy from DePaul University in Chicago. Polkow spent his early years performing and recording in rock and jazz bands while concertizing as a classical pianist, organist and harpsichordist and composing, arranging and producing for other artists. As a scholar, Polkow has published and lectured extensively and taught at several colleges and universities in various departments. As an actor, narrator and consultant, Polkow has been involved with numerous films, plays, broadcasts and documentaries. As a journalist, Polkow helped co-create the experiential Chicago Musicale and Spotlight, the award-winning tabloid arts and entertainment section of the Press Publications chain of newspapers, which he later edited. He also created and ran the nationally recognized journalism program at Oakton College and was faculty advisor to its award-winning student newspaper; many former students went on to major media careers, including Channel Awesome’s the Nostalgia Critic. Polkow’s research, interviews, features, reviews and commentaries have appeared across national and international media and he has corresponded from the Middle East, Asia and Africa for the Chicago Tribune. Contact: dpolkow25@aol.com
