Grant Park Music Festival
What we’ve loved most this past month, and what will bring us back to Chicago again in the future, is the Grant Park Music Festival. (Okay, we’ll come back for the great restaurants, too, but this is about the music.)
The Grant Park Music Festival offers outdoor classical music concerts, free to the public, three times a week, from June to August. Musicians from major orchestras and universities across the country come together every year to perform as the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus. The Festival is a summer tradition that goes all the way back to the 1930’s and the Great Depression. Now, the concerts are held in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. There’s a distinctive stainless steel proscenium arch designed by Frank Gehry, a reserved seating area near the stage, and a huge, grassy field called the Great Lawn. A curved metal trellis over the Great Lawn supports a world-class sound system. Concertgoers can sit outside, on the grass, and hear the live music as clearly as if they were inside a concert hall.
We enjoyed the convenience of walking to the concerts, just a mile from our apartment. Our concert “gear” consisted of two lightweight collapsible camping chairs, a small insulated tote for our picnic, and a quick-dry beach towel. It was all compact and super easy to carry. We had the routine down pat and could set up our chairs and lay out our picnic in a couple of minutes.
Here’s the scene: We’re relaxing in our comfy chairs on the soft grass, with cheese, charcuterie, and a fresh loaf of bread. There are thousands of other concertgoers, but there’s plenty of room for everyone on the lawn. Beyond the people we can see The Bean (at left) and the BP Pedestrian Bridge (at right), and lots of trees. The weather is perfect, and as the sun gets lower in the sky, the skyscrapers change colors. And then the sounds of the city fade away as glorious music, crystal clear, surrounds us and transports us.
We love live music, but we don’t attend many symphonic concerts. The Grant Park Music Festival allowed us to savor familiar classical pieces and discover new ones. We attended five performances, and they were all outstanding. I wish we could stay and see more, but it’s time to move on. Kudos to Chicago for upholding this wonderful summer tradition!
Grant Park Music Festival concerts we attended (with links to program info):
Stravinsky Petrushka - Orchestra and chorus in the Harris Theater, beneath the Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Independence Day Salute - Great fun, with a big screen and everyone’s Fourth of July favorites
Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini - Probably my favorite classical piece, with that exquisite 18th variation (nice review HERE)
Star Wars and More: The Music of John Williams - Another exhilarating crowd pleaser, bringing us back to so many beloved movies
Beethoven Symphony No. 5 - Magnificent, and so much more than “BA-NA-NA-NAH”
