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Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
CSO hires a new chorus director; cancels next season's MusicNOW series
This week, Symphony Center saw a one-two punch of good news and bad news. On Tuesday, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra announced that Donald Palumbo, the former chorus master of the Metropolitan Opera, would lead its award-winning chorus on an initial three-year contract — a cheering development for an ensemble that has been without a director since 2022. That was followed on Thursday by word that MusicNOW, the CSO's contemporary music series, would be 'paused' next season. A statement from Cristina Rocca, the orchestra's vice president for artistic planning, said the organization intended to 'imagine new possibilities for connecting Chicago audiences with new music.' Once the domain of the CSO's composer-in-residence, MusicNOW programming is typically unveiled after the bulk of season programming has been announced. Instead, series subscribers were notified of the cancellation via a mailer. Palumbo will prepare the 2025-26 season's previously announced Chicago Symphony Chorus programs: Mozart's Requiem (Nov. 20-23), an Italian operatic potpourri conducted by music director emeritus Riccardo Muti (March 19-21, 2026) and Poulenc's 'Gloria' (May 14-16, 2026). He will also work with the chorus for 'Merry, Merry Chicago!', a CSO holiday tradition (Dec. 19-23). Palumbo spoke with the Tribune by phone between sessions with young singers at Lyric Opera's Ryan Opera Center. Rehearsals were well underway with the Chicago Symphony Chorus for Verdi's Requiem (June 19-24), his debut as chorus director designate. 'The rehearsals of the Verdi have gone really, really well so far,' Palumbo says. 'If I sound like a kid in a candy store, well, I kind of am.' Palumbo is only the third director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus in its nearly 70-year history. At 76, his tenure will doubtlessly be shorter than predecessors Duain Wolfe and founding director Margaret Hillis, the latter leading the chorus for a whopping 37 seasons. But Palumbo — whose remarkable career trajectory saw him ascend from being a primarily self-taught hobbyist musician to the most in-demand choral director in the country — says he's approaching the job like any other. 'I'm going to do my job, and it's going to go on as long as I'm doing a good job, I want to do it, and they want me,' he says. Palumbo's résumé made him a contender to watch after Wolfe's mid-season departure from the chorus in 2022. Prior to his appointment at the Met, the country's most storied opera house, Palumbo directed the Lyric Opera chorus from 1991 to 2007. He is still a known quantity to scores of local singers, including some who sang under him during his Lyric tenure. 'He prepares you in such a way that you feel so understanding of the piece of music that you're doing,' says Chicago Symphony Chorus alto Emily Price, whom Palumbo also hired to the Lyric Opera Chorus in his final season there. 'The language is so important, and the intensity of each line has to be so specific.' Palumbo's preparation of the chorus for two Muti-led programs in 2022 and 2023 — an unstaged 'Un ballo in maschera' and Beethoven's 'Missa solemnis,' respectively — sealed the deal. Muti made his affinity for Palumbo known when, after 'Missa solemnis,' the outgoing CSO music director implored Palumbo to consider leading the chorus 'permanently' in onstage remarks. 'That was very unexpected,' he recalls, laughing. But in time, the prospect began to make natural sense. Palumbo feels he'd done his time in the opera world, where margins are getting ever tighter. At this stage in his career, he prefers to focus on the music — a stated position of Muti, once again his collaborator in the forthcoming Verdi Requiem concerts. The CSO post, Palumbo says, allows him to get down to fundamentals. 'I was just in Japan for a month doing a 'Traviata' production with a chorus of young singers. … I told them, 'For better or for worse, this could be my very last 'Traviata,' and it's your first,'' he says. 'It's a progression.' The appointment comes at a time when the CSO is in need of steady leadership. Klaus Mäkelä, the CSO's music director designate, does not begin his term at the organization until 2027. While he continues to spearhead orchestral hires, Mäkelä did not participate in Palumbo's search committee, owing to the timing of his own appointment, in 2024. 'When we engaged Klaus, we informed him of any number of things artistically that were going on here, including the search for a new chorus director. Knowing that he wouldn't be working with the full chorus for quite a while, he agreed that we should just move ahead and have the committee make the selection,' says CSO president Jeff Alexander. Mäkelä will, however, be part of Palumbo's renewal talks in 2028, which were intentionally timed to the end of Mäkelä's first season. Though Mäkelä and Palumbo are not working together next season, Alexander confirmed they would begin working together on programs beginning in the 2026-27 season. The CSO has pointed to the same contractual awkwardness in its curtailing of MusicNOW, its contemporary music series. Last year, the CSO did not appoint a composer-in-residence, citing the interregnum between music directors Muti and Mäkelä, who have hiring power over the position. (Despite this, the CSO filled a similar gap between Muti and former music director Daniel Barenboim 20 years ago with a twin appointment of composers Osvaldo Golijov and Mark-Anthony Turnage.) Alexander reaffirmed the CSO's commitment to hiring a new composer-in-residence, 'probably' during Mäkelä's first season in 2027-28. But he acknowledged that MusicNOW, or anything like it, may not be under that person's aegis. 'It may still include some curation of some kind regarding our contemporary music offerings, and the rest will probably remain pretty much the same: writing a new piece for the orchestra each year, et cetera,' Alexander says. Above all, economic factors prevailed. Alexander noted that MusicNOW — essentially a chamber series featuring members of the CSO — tended to follow the ticket-sale trends of those programs, filling just a fraction of Orchestra Hall's capacity. That's despite having costs not usually associated with those programs, like music licensing fees or guest artist expenses. (Featured composers and, occasionally, soloists and conductors were typically flown out for the series.) Instead, Alexander signaled that a short-term strategy may be to program more contemporary music on the CSO's mainstage. Though the CSO's 2025-26 season includes just one premiere (Matthew Aucoin's 'Song of the Reappeared' in December), subscription concerts feature works by 16 living composers: Camille Pépin, Carlos Simon, Thea Musgrave, Unsuk Chin, Jörg Widmann, Paquito d'Rivera, Gabriella Smith, Kevin Puts, Joel Thompson, Jennifer Higdon, Erkki-Sven Tüür, John Adams, Wynton Marsalis, Joe Hisaishi and former CSO composer-in-residence Jessie Montgomery. 'The word we're using is 'pause,' because, as we thought about it, we're a symphonic organization first of all,' Alexander says. 'If we put a contemporary piece on a CSO subscription program and it's performed three times, on a good week, 6,000 people are hearing it. If we put it on a MusicNOW concert, maybe 300 people were hearing it. … Part of our thinking is, let's beef up the contemporary offerings on the CSO main (series). Cautiously, of course. But more than normal.' Rocca's written statement went on to say that 'conversations with the artistic planning team' and Mäkelä 'are underway to guide future plans' for contemporary music programming at the CSO.
Los Angeles Times
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Five L.A. and O.C. chefs and restaurants nominated for 2025 James Beard Foundation Awards
On Wednesday morning the James Beard Foundation announced the chefs, beverage programs, restaurants and bars nominated for its 2025 culinary awards — vastly scaling back the number of Los Angeles-area names previously in the running. In January the James Beard Foundation recognized nearly 20 L.A.-area restaurants, chefs and others as semifinalists. As of this morning, only five from L.A. and Orange County will proceed as nominees. Each year the James Beard Foundation Awards recognize individuals, businesses and programs in the dining and hospitality industry; the accolades are widely regarded as some of the country's most prestigious in the culinary world. This year's winners will be announced in a ceremony held June 16 at Lyric Opera of Chicago. L.A.-area chefs have been on a roll in the category of best chef: California. Last year Kuya Lord chef-owner Lord Maynard Llera won the honor, and in 2023, Justin Pichetrungsi of Anajak Thai was awarded the title. This year's nominees include two chefs named on the L.A. Times 2024 101 Best Restaurants guide: Jon Yao and Daniel Castillo. Yao serves a celebrated tasting menu informed by his Taiwanese heritage. Not only did his Arts District restaurant, Kato, land in the No. 1 spot on the L.A. Times' list of top restaurants two years in a row, it also garnered a Michelin star and placement in the World's 50 Best Restaurants. Yao was a semifinalist or nominee in the rising star chef of the year category in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Castillo helms Heritage Barbecue in San Juan Capistrano, where some of the most tender brisket, creative smoked sausages and genre-bending, cross-cultural specials can regularly be found. This is the first James Beard nomination (or semifinalist nod) for Castillo and Heritage. Castillo said he's celebrating the win as a team effort, and that he hopes the nomination will shed more light on Orange County and its culinary community — as well as barbecue as a whole. 'The light has been shown on the amount of work that goes into being able to operate a barbecue restaurant,' Castillo said. 'It's a marathon and it's a lot of hard work, it's a lot of dedication. It's no different than having a chef working in a fine-dining restaurant: Consistency is important. Above all else, you're working with live fire versus a switch in a kitchen that you can turn up and down; you're working with something that's wild and that takes a lot of patience. It takes a lot of time to master something like that.' In San Diego, Tara Monsod is also a nominee. Monsod made waves with modern Filipino cuisine at Animae, and also leads the kitchen at sibling restaurant Le Coq, a French steakhouse in La Jolla. Two San Francisco chefs are the other finalists for the state's best chef: Richard Lee of Saison and Kosuke Tada of Mijoté. Gusto Bread in Long Beach returns as a nominee in the category of outstanding bakery; the artisanal panadería from owners Arturo Enciso and Ana Belén Salatino began as a homespun operation but blossomed into a full-fledged bakery focusing on heirloom grains and local, seasonal sourcing. Anaheim's Strong Water was also a nominee in its category last year. The ambitious tiki destination from husband-and-wife duo Robert Adamson and Ying Chang is once again a contender in the category of outstanding wine or other beverages program, and one of the best tiki bars in Southern California. Tobin Shea — bar director of Redbird — is a contender for outstanding professional in cocktail service alongside beverage colleagues in Honolulu, New York, Cincinnati and Denver. This is Shea's first Beard nod, as well as Redbird's. At the downtown restaurant he focuses on themed menus with elevated classics, as well as a no-ABV program. Shea, now in his 30th year bartending, distinctly remembers listening to a podcast that announced the foundation was adding a category for bar programs in 2012, finally recognizing cocktails after a long history celebrating wine. 'In my head I was like, 'God, this is the justification I need to keep on bartending,'' he said. 'My parents were always accepting of it, but they were always like, 'Are you thinking about getting a job other than bartending now?' In 2012 I just remember listening to that podcast and being like: That would be absolutely amazing to have that for my career, or just in general — something to work towards.' Shea was a member of Redbird's opening team and has been with the stalwart restaurant for more than a decade. He considers the nomination to be in recognition of his whole bar staff, not simply himself. Shea's 50th birthday is the week before the 2025 James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony — so he and his family might wind up celebrating both events in Chicago. 'It's going to be a great week,' he said. The majority of L.A.'s 2025 semifinalists did not proceed to the nominations round. In the best chef: California category, nearly half of the semifinalists stemmed from Los Angeles or Orange County. In addition to Yao, Castillo and Monsod, the foundation's semifinalists included Kwang Uh of Baroo, Alex and Elvia Garcia of Evil Cooks, Evan Algorri of Etra, Charles Namba of Camélia, Danielle Duran-Zecca of Amiga Amore, Melissa López of Barra Santos and Roberto Alcocer of Valle in Oceanside. In national categories, Holbox's Gilberto Cetina was named as a semifinalist in the outstanding chef category, while Santa Monica's Pasjoli was a semifinalist for outstanding restaurant. Damian's Jesus 'Chuy' Cervantes was the only Southern California semifinalist up for this year's emerging chef award, and Bridgetown Roti was noted as a semifinalist in the best new restaurant grouping. République was a semifinalist for outstanding hospitality while Thunderbolt was a semifinalist in outstanding bar and Nicole Rucker was a semifinalist for outstanding pastry chef or baker.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Daywatch: What to know about today's elections in Chicago suburbs
Good morning, Chicago. It's Election Day in some suburbs, with races ranging from mayoral to referendums. The races we're closely watching include Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin seeking reelection. Irvin announced his bid in August, following a failed run for governor in the 2022 election. Dolton will see a new mayor in this election, after Mayor Tiffany Henyard was defeated in the Democratic primary by Dolton Trustee Jason House. He faces Casundra Hopson-Jordan, who is running as an Independent. In Evanston, Mayor Daniel Biss faces a challenger in his reelection effort from Jeff Boarini. Check back after the polls close for coverage of these races and more at Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day, including the impact of aluminum and steel tariffs on local developers, Illinois becoming first state to mandate halal, kosher meals in public schools and a review of 'The Listeners' at the Lyric Opera. Today's eNewspaper edition | Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History Majority control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court will be decided today in a race that broke records for spending and has become a proxy battle for the nation's political fights, pitting a candidate backed by President Donald Trump against a Democratic-aligned challenger. Wisconsin voters to choose top education official and consider voter ID amendment Chicago Teachers Union educators voted on a final proposed contract deal with the school district Monday, capping off months of contentious negotiations and leadership conflicts that threatened to destabilize the nation's fourth-largest district. Northwestern University reported an 88% drop in reports of antisemitic conduct over the last year in a report that outlined several steps the university has taken to secure its campus for Jewish students, faculty and staff. New tariffs on steel and aluminum could force Chicago apartment developers, already affected by elevated interest rates and soaring labor costs, to further delay breaking ground on new projects. It's been more than two years since a fiery derailment in rural Ohio made Norfolk Southern and the village of East Palestine household names for all the wrong reasons. The crash and chemical plume forced the town to evacuate, and residents still fear long-term effects of pollution. NASCAR and the city announced the traffic plan for the third Chicago Street Race, with buildout and breakdown of the pop-up racecourse in Grant Park reduced to 25 days, shaving nearly two weeks off last year's construction schedule for the July Fourth weekend event. The NFL owners meetings are in full swing at The Breakers in south Florida, a gathering where the Chicago Bears will continue to push forward with their 2025 reboot under new coach Ben Johnson. At the end of an active March that saw the team add at least five potential starters to the roster while also fortifying their depth, the Bears have now turned their attention to April's NFL draft. Johnson, general manager Ryan Poles, team president/CEO Kevin Warren and chairman George McCaskey are all expected to offer thoughts on the Bears' progress and plans over the next few days. In the meantime, here are three things we've learned so far. With seven games left following Josh Giddey's homecoming last night in Oklahoma City, it's time to give credit where credit is due to Bulls coach Billy Donovan. Not only for refusing to let his team tank down the stretch for the possibility of a slightly better percentage in the draft lottery, but also for making it fun to watch, writes Paul Sullivan. Oklahoma City Thunder rout the Chicago Bulls 145-117 for their 10th straight win The Bulls, Blackhawks and White Sox have a new TV home. Here's what to know about Chicago Sports Network. The Faith by Plate Act, also known as the Halal/Kosher bill, ensures that public schools and state-owned or state-operated facilities, such as prisons and hospitals that provide food services or cafeteria services, offer halal and kosher food options upon request, making Illinois the first state in the country to do so. A court cleared the way yesterday for the release of investigative records from the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, as long as depictions of the deceased couple are blocked from view. 'The Listeners,' the wild new opera with music by Missy Mazzoli and a libretto by Royce Varek, begins with a coyote dancing across the stage of Chicago's Lyric Opera and proceeds thereafter to the operatic consideration of a perpetual ringing in the ears that afflicts numerous modern-day Americans in the southwestern United States, and elsewhere. Tribune theater critic Chris Jones has this review.
Chicago Tribune
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: ‘The Listeners' at Lyric Opera loses its story as it follows the Hum
'The Listeners,' the wild new opera with music by Missy Mazzoli and a libretto by Royce Varek, begins with a coyote dancing across the stage of Chicago's Lyric Opera and proceeds thereafter to the operatic consideration of a perpetual ringing in the ears that afflicts numerous modern-day Americans in the southwestern United States, and elsewhere. We learn of this condition through meeting Claire, sung by soprano Nicole Heaston, a schoolteacher who has a dull hum in her ears so unyielding, disruptive and invasive that it causes her work in the classroom to fall apart. She finds solace in the discovery that one of her students, Kyle (the fine young tenor Jonas Hacker) can hear the same sound, called the Hum, that the rest of the community, including Claire's confused husband and daughter (played by Zachary Nelson and Jasmine Habersham) apparently see as some kind of mental health issue. 'How do you murder a sound?' Kyle is driven to ask, as he grabs his ears in despair. As creepy and weird as all that sounds, and 'The Listeners,' which is based on a story by Jordan Tannahill and was first seen in the U.S. at Opera Philadelphia, is indeed creepy and weird, there's a certain aesthetic logic in an opera about an unavoidable sound. Choral passages of Mazzoli's music explore the various potential dimensions of the aforementioned Hum and its ability to drown out all of life's beautiful sonorous experiences and yet also function harmonically. So is the Hum nihilistic? Seductive? Soporific? Dangerous? Or a kind of unifying bass note? Does it represent dissonance and discord, or does it offer a communal possibility? Mazzoli's music explores all of those questions. Claire and Kyle, spurned by their loved ones, look for solace in the like-minded, as so many of us do. They find a group led by a patriarch named Dillon (John Moore), who has assembled a room full of people from all walks of life, unified by their ability to hear the same Hum. Their voices hum together and, in those moments, Mazzoli's music is both beautiful and disturbing. Up to that point in 'The Listeners,' while the piece stayed grounded in the reality of place, time and ordinary suburban experience, beautifully designed in a mid-century fashion by Adam Rigg, I was entirely on board with the whole provocative endeavor. But that gets you not quite to intermission. Dillon, it transpires, is a cult leader and, in Act 2, the opera spins off into various digressions involving low-frequency radio waves, sexual misconduct and the kinds of conspiracy theories that seem to cling to the people of the American desert. Conflict also emerges between a woman named Angela (Daniela Mack) and Claire over who gets to be Dillon's preferred subordinate. Claire's family, which is the most interesting part of the opera along with Kyle, disappears for most of Act 2 and we're left with Moore's Dillon who, in the end, is little more than a one-note cliche, even as he conducts strange video interviews with his adherents. I don't lay that at the door of the booming baritone; it's just not a character with any nuance. One intuits his nefariousness quickly and tension, musical and otherwise, dissipates; you just wait for him to be revealed for what he claims not to be. And so it goes. Cult leaders, artistically, are easy targets. In other words, director Lileana Blain-Cruz's production (restaged at Lyric by Mikhaela Mahony) jumps the shark, if that's an appropriate metaphor for a show preoccupied with the desert landscape. Blain-Cruz, who makes her Lyric debut, is a noted avant gardist who helmed a controversial production of 'The Skin of Our Teeth' at Lincoln Center, where she serves as resident director. I've seen some of her previous work and she's highly creative and laudably fearless, but the roots of reality, and the clarity of the storytelling, have a habit of slipping away, leaving the audience unmoored. And it seems to me that 'The Listeners' needs that anchor in reality to work. Without it, the price paid is the loss of empathy. It's far easier for us to care about the person than the Hum itself. If only we spent more time with Claire and her husband Paul, or got to know Kyle better or Bram, an enigmatic man with a history, as beautifully sung by Christopher Filipowicz. But we're stuck with Dillon and his camera, both standard-issue villains who seem to have been covered with a coat of gray powder, befitting their black-and-white roles. Daniela Mack, Jonas Hacker, Nicole Heaston and the company of "The Listeners" by Missy Mazzoli at Lyric Opera of Chicago. (Andrew Cioffi) I won't spoil how the opera ends. Suffice to say that it lands as a piece about the validity of choosing your family, and as a cautionary tale about listening to your loved ones when they say, or sing, they feel something you do not understand. Those themes are the most interesting ones, for me, in 'The Listeners,' which is not without its artistry or its musical pleasures, especially when voices are raised in a fusion of despair and release. But like Claire, the opera gets trapped and struggles to emerge. Chris Jones is a Tribune critic. cjones5@ Review: 'The Listeners' (2.5 stars) When: Through April 11 Where: Lyric Opera of Chicago, 20 N. Wacker Drive Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Chicago Tribune
26-03-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Afternoon Briefing: Dolton board defends salary increase for superintendent making $450K
Good afternoon, Chicago. Tiwanda Parker, a college and career coach at Marshall High School, wonders how she could make a convincing argument for students to apply for jobs at Chicago Public Schools without a more stable pension picture. 'We have to make sure that we believe in this profession,' she said. 'And a part of believing in this profession is … making sure that those basic benefits are in place.' Who picks up the bill for the disputed $175 million pension payment for nonteaching CPS staff has been a looming question mark for the district in recent weeks and months. It is part of what led to the resignation of the previous school board and the subsequent firing of schools' chief Pedro Martinez late last year. Fast forward three months, and the ongoing back-and-forth is part of what led to last week's delay of a budget amendment to balance the city's books by the end of March. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Dolton 148 Board defends salary increase for superintendent making $450,000 Dolton Elementary School District 148 Board members say they were excluded from discussions leading to a salary increase for Superintendent Kevin Nohelty, boosting his $450,000 salary $30,000 each of the next two years. Read more here. Illinois AG pushes for more funding amid legal battles with Trump administration Will County Board member Jacqueline Traynere cited after accident with child bicyclist @properties Christie's International Real Estate CEOs talk about 'secret sauce' for success, sale to Compass Once a Chicago-based firm with only a local presence, @properties has grown into the largest residential real estate brokerage in the Chicago region and the eighth-largest residential brokerage in the U.S. by sales volume. Read more here. More top business stories: Former Chicago Bulls player Zach LaVine lists Chicago condo for nearly $7M Evanston OKs lakefront mansion's 40-year lease as event venue, hotel Column: Wait, are the Chicago Bulls good now? Here's what to make of their 8-2 stretch. The Bulls' success is propelled by a thunderous series of performances from Coby White, who became the first Bulls player since Michael Jordan to earn back-to-back Eastern Conference Player of the Week awards. Read more here. In Lyric Opera's 'The Listeners,' one little sound drives a woman to the edge About 2% of the global population reports hearing what researchers and conspiracy theorists alike call 'the Hum.' The real-life phenomenon, which is still unexplained, inspires a new opera at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: Lady Gaga announces 'Mayhem' tour with Chicago concerts in September Northlight Theatre breaks ground in Evanston, plans to open in fall 2026 Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard calls Signal chats a 'mistake' as Trump officials face grilling over leaked military plan Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said today it was a 'mistake' for national security officials to discuss sensitive military plans on a group text chain that also included a journalist — a leak that has roiled President Donald Trump's national security leadership.
