Rush Hour Concerts 2015
Beloved summer concert series honors past, present and future of chamber music
Free concerts every Tuesday evening at St. James Cathedral in River North,
June 2 – August 25, 2015
CHICAGO – Rush Hour Concerts celebrates its 16th season of free classical music with the return of its beloved Summer Concert Series in the serene and historic St. James Cathedral, 65 E. Huron Street, June 2 – August 25, 2015. Launched in 2000 to create free public access to high-quality chamber music, Rush Hour Concerts offers live concerts every Tuesday evening after work.
All concerts begin at 5:45pm. Doors open at 5:00 for a pre-concert reception and curated conversation, followed by the 30-minute concert at 5:45 pm. All performances are free and open to the public; tickets and reservations are not required. For the sixth consecutive year, 98.7 WFMT broadcasts the Summer Concert Series live from St. James Cathedral each week.
Curated by new Rush Hour Concerts Artistic Director Anthony Devroye, this year’s series will weave together diverse repertoire into a cohesive theme that celebrates the lineage of chamber music – first by honoring its gloriously rich past with works from celebrated composers including Mozart, Brahms and Richard Strauss; embracing chamber music of the present in three special “Here and Now” performances and lastly, showcasing compositions looking to the future with works that look beyond their time by Beethoven, Wagner and more.
“Our sixteenth Summer Concert Series will be filled with beauty, diversity and excitement,” said Devroye. “There are so many ways composers can interact with their time and place through music, or look beyond their time in homage to the past or in anticipation of what is to come. These impulses provide the framework for our whole season and for the exhilarating performances that Chicago’s finest musicians will bring to our stage all summer long.”
Additional season highlights include a special memorial concert to honor Rush Hour Concerts’ late founder Deborah Sobol featuring Civitas Ensemble; the Rush Hour Concerts premiere of young artists from Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute; the return of “Lyric Shorts” featuring talented singers from the Lyric Opera’s Ryan Opera Center and a season finale performance featuring musicians from some of Chicago’s most renowned orchestras including the Lyric Opera Orchestra, Grant Park Orchestra, Chicago Philharmonic, Illinois Philharmonic and more!
Rush Hour Concerts 2015 Summer Concert Series
June 2: Season Opener
Program: Petr Eben: Okna
Artists: Christopher Martin (trumpet) and Nathan Laube (organ)
June 9 Deborah Sobol Memorial Concert
Program: Johannes Brahms: Piano Trio in B Major, op. 8
Artists: Civitas Ensemble
June 16 Here and Now I
Program: Music of Stacy Garrop and Dan Visconti
Artists: Fifth House Ensemble
June 21 Make Music Chicago
Presented by Rush Hour Concerts, Make Music Chicago is a one-day, city-wide, free music festival taking place annually on the Summer Solstice. Make Music Chicago is completely free for musicians and audiences alike and no tickets are required. Festival highlights include a “Sousapalooza” play-along for band instrumentalists; the Rise and Shine Orchestra which invites amateur players to play alongside Chicago Symphony Orchestra members; a Father’s Day Solstice Sing-Along event synchronized across Chicago through a specialized smart phone app; mobile piano karaoke and more!
June 23 Baroque Arias and Ensembles
Program: Music of George Frideric Handel, Jean-Baptiste Lully and Alessandro Stradella
Artists: Haymarket Opera
June 30 Brass Through the Ages
Program: Jacob Druckman: Dance With Shadows
Patrice Caratini: Passages
Artists: Axiom Brass Ensemble
July 7 Ravinia in Chicago
Program: Repertoire to be determined
Artists: Young Artists from Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute
July 14 Here and Now 2 – A Spektral Sampler Pack
Program: Arvo Pärt: Fratres
David Reminick: Ancestral Mousetrap
Artists: Spektral Quartet
July 21 Viennese Romanticism
Program: Richard Strauss: Cello Sonata, Op. 5
Artists: Brant Taylor (cello) and Kuang-Hao Huang (piano)
July 28 Spanish Dances
Program: Joaquin Turina: Piano Trio No. 1
Enrique Fernández Arbós: Seguidilla
Artists: Trio Voce
August 4 Lyric Shorts
Program: W.A. Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro
Artists: Featuring singers from Lyric Opera’s Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center
August 11 Beethoven Quartets
Program: Ludwig van Beethoven: Op. 14, No. 1 (arr.) and Op. 133 “Grosse Fuge”
Artists: Avalon String Quartet
August 18 Here and Now 3
Program: Music of Glenn Kotche, Augusta Read Thomas and David Skidmore
Artists: Third Coast Percussion
August 25 Season Finale
Program: Richard Wagner: Siegfried Idyll
J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 2
Artists: John MacFarlane (conductor) and musicians from Chicago Philharmonic, Grant Park Orchestra, Lyric Opera Orchestra, and the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra.
About Rush Hour Concerts:
Since its inception in 2000, Rush Hour Concerts has reinvented the classical music experience through a dedication to artistic quality, a concert format suitable to contemporary lifestyles and a policy of admission-free events. Rush Hour Concerts has created groundbreaking programs and community engagement initiatives that have revolutionized music-making in Chicago and forged trendsetting partnerships with the city’s arts and cultural community.
In addition to the Summer Concert Series, Rush Hour Concerts unites the city every year on the Summer Solstice, June 21, during Make Music Chicago, a citywide, daylong celebration of everyone’s ability to make music inspired by the Parisian tradition of Fête de la Musique. Now in its 5th year, Make Music Chicago, invites thousands of Chicagoans of all ages and backgrounds to participate in over 200 performances and participatory events across 70 locations in over 20 Chicago neighborhoods from sunrise to sunset including Millennium Park’s Wrigley Square, Maggie Daley Park, the International House at the University of Chicago, Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago Cultural Center’s Preston Bradley Hall, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Newberry Library, the recently created 606 Bloomingdale Trail and Chicago Riverwalk plus over 30 Chicago Park District sites and many others. To learn more about Make Music Chicago, please visit the event online at makemusicchicago.org
Rush Hour Concerts is committed to broadening arts access and launched its Community Engagement Residencies to bring expert musical instruction to under-resourced neighborhoods in Chicago through a long-term strategy of artistic and community collaboration. Now in its 16th year, Rush Hour Concerts has expanded into a year-round arts organization, yet remains grounded in its mission to reach across all communities with new ways for audiences to experience world-class music in Chicago.
About Rush Hour Concerts Leadership
Anthony Devroye (Artistic Director) enjoys a varied and active career as chamber, orchestral and solo violist and teacher. He has been violist of the Avalon String Quartet since 2004 and on the faculty at the Northern Illinois University School of Music since 2007. Devroye has performed with the quartet at major venues throughout the United States, as well as in France and South Korea. He has taught at the Interlochen Advanced String Quartet Program, the Icicle Creek Music Center and Madeline Island Music Camp, and has given master classes at UCLA, BYU, DePaul and the University of Tennessee.
Pianist Kuang-Hao Huang (Associate Artistic Director) has performed throughout the United States as well as in Europe and Asia. Huang is most often heard as a collaborator, performing concerts and radio broadcasts with Chicago’s finest musicians, from instrumentalists of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to singers with the Lyric Opera. He has been a guest of the Chicago Chamber Musicians and has performed with the Avalon, Chicago, Spektral and Vermeer String Quartets and on multiple Rush Hour Concerts’ performances. Huang can be heard in recordings on the Cedille and Naxos labels. An advocate of new music, Huang is a member of Fulcrum Point New Music Project. Also a dedicated teacher, Huang serves on the faculties of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University and Concordia University-Chicago.
Born in New York, Brant Taylor (Consulting Artistic Director) began cello studies at the age of 8. His varied career includes solo appearances and collaborations with leading chamber musicians throughout North America, Europe and Asia, as well as orchestral, pedagogical and popular music activities. After one year as a member of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Taylor was appointed to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) by Daniel Barenboim in 1998. In Chicago, Taylor’s recital appearances include the Dame Myra Hess Concerts, First Monday Concerts, Rush Hour Concerts, the Ravinia Festival’s Rising Stars recital series and regular live radio broadcasts from the studio of WFMT. He has appeared regularly with the Chicago Chamber Musicians and on the CSO’s contemporary chamber music series MusicNOW. In 2002, Taylor began a seven-year association with the band Pink Martini. With this eclectic ensemble, he has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Late Show with David Letterman, and at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Active as a teacher of both cello and chamber music, Taylor serves on the faculty of the DePaul University School of Music. He has also been a faculty member at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts and Northwestern University’s National High School Music Institute. From 1992-97, Taylor was cellist of the Everest Quartet, prizewinners at the Banff and Fischoff chamber music competitions.
Kitty Rothschild (Executive Director) brings her extensive real-world experience as an organizational strategist, specializing in operations, product development, branding, marketing and production to help pinpoint an organization’s core strengths, reveal operational inefficiencies and, ultimately, increase the impact of its mission and goals. Rothschild served as Managing Partner and Director of Operations, Business Affairs and Production for over six years at ROI Ventures, a strategy firm focused on social impact businesses from its inception through its acquisition and transition into the digital marketing firm Frequency540. As Director of Production at FQ540, she ensured a high standard of production values, efficiency and integrity in the production and creative departments. Prior to ROI Ventures, Rothschild had a substantial career in marketing and advertising, working in executive leadership positions at top ad agencies such as Hal Riney & Partners, BBDO and Draft/FCB. Additionally, she is an alumna of Smith College, Francis W. Parker School, Interlochen Arts Academy and The Aspen Music Festival’s Vocal Institute.
To learn more about Rush Hour Concerts visit www.rushhour.org.
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