There are a whole lotta 90th birthdays in jazz this year, and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble is celebrating them Fri., March 14, with Happy 90th Birthday to Nat, Diz, Ella & Monk. The four celebrants in question—alas, none still walking among us, although their brilliant music lingers on—are Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and the most out-there of them all, Thelonious Monk. The Chicago Jazz Ensemble ( CJE ) concert features classic Gillespie big-band arrangements, plus Monk's music as arranged by Michael Philip Mossman, plus CJE vocalist Bobbi Wilsyn highlighting songs popularized by Cole and Fitzgerald. The performance is at 8 p.m. at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park; 312-344-6600 or 312-334-7777; $45-$15.
Before all that jazz, the Harris Theater kicks off March with a true classical spectacular as the Apollo Chorus of Chicago—150 voices strong—performs the Bruckner Mass in E Minor and Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass on a single program under director Stephen Alltop. Sun., March 2, 3 p.m.; 312-334-7777; $20-$45 or www.harristheaterchicago.org
We don't know much about video games—we still think pinball is cool—but they often feature original musical scores. One of the most popular vid games, the Final Fantasy series, is scored by Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu. Concerts and CDs of game music have been very popular overseas, and now the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra is turning Game Boy by offering the U.S. premiere of Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy, which gets the full symphony orchestra treatment Sat., March 1, 8 p.m. at the Rosemont Theatre, with the music accompanying projected game images. The Rosemont performance will feature a special guest appearance by Uematsu and will include new music from the video game performed live for the first time. Tickets are expected to sell fast, so if video gaming is your groove, ya' better move: 312-559-1212; $35-$150. The $150 VIP tickets include a meet-and-greet with Uematsu, a copy of the new Distant Worlds: music from Final Fantasy CD and a special program book.
The City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs continues to offer some of the most varied musical programming in the city—mostly free and during daytime hours—at the Chicago Cultural Center in The Loop. One of the most popular programs is the Sunday Salon Series, which regularly draws capacity crowds to the Center's Preston Bradley Hall. The weekly series showcases a wide variety of classical music by local, national and internationally based classical artists.
The March line-up features the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, March 2, in works by Haydn, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Bach; the Protege Philharmonic, March 9, in Kodaly's Hary Janos Suite and Sibelius' Symphony No. 2; Contempo: Sound Matters!, March 16, offering contemporary serious music by several composers performed by the Pacifica Quarter, eighth blackbird and Tony Arnold ( soprano ) ; and the New Millennium Orchestra, March 30, in a Viennese program of Mozart and Schoenberg. Performances are at 3 p.m.; admission is free. There is no concert on Easter Sunday, March 23.
If we think of recorder music at all, most of us think of Renaissance and Early music. The innovative Quartet New Generation takes a different tack in a Wed., March 12, concert in which early recorder music will be paired with the premiere of a new recorder suite composed by Simon Fink specifically for the Quartet New Generation. The group performs on something like 20 different recorders. This concert, too, is presented at the Chicago Cultural Center in the Claudia Cassidy Theater, 7 p.m. Free admission.
Northwestern University ( NU ) also keeps music on the boil most of the year-round, with major name artists at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall and frequent faculty and student recitals at Lutkin Hall, both on the Evanston campus. Of course, the NU programs aren't free, but tickets are modestly priced, compared to Downtown venues. NU's March offerings include Grammy Award-winning guitarist David Russell, Sat., March 1, at 7:30 p.m. ( $23 ) , in works by Bach, Couperin and Albeniz; the JACK Quartet, a contemporary string group, Wed., March 12, at 7:30 p.m. ( $7 ) , in works by Northwestern School of Music faculty composers Jay Alan Yim and Hans Thomalla; pianist Jeffrey Siegel, Fri., March 21, ( $23 ) in a program of Russian music by Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Stravinsky entitled Rebels on the Red Carpet. Tickets for all concerts: 847-467-4000 or www.pickstaiger.org .
Northwestern also takes the opera cake this month with Thurs.-Sun., Feb. 28-March 2, performances of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Nights Dream, based on Shakespeare's romantic comedy. The fully-staged production by NU's School of Music is at Cahn Auditorium on the Evanston campus; $18.
March also marks the close of Lyric Opera of Chicago's 2007-2008 season with performances ( through Sun., March 30 ) of highly praised productions of Rossini's The Barber of Seville in repertory with Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Lyric tickets are pricey but, hey, this is world-class stuff and Lyric tickets are a lot cheaper than they are in New York, London, Paris, Vienna, Milano, Bayreuth and other European opera capitals. 312-332-8120; $187-$31.
