{"id":151786,"date":"2025-08-17T00:16:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T00:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/151786\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T00:16:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T00:16:10","slug":"grant-park-music-fest-brings-its-season-to-a-rousing-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/151786\/","title":{"rendered":"Grant Park Music Fest brings its season to a rousing close"},"content":{"rendered":"

Highbrow and lowbrow. Sacred and profane.<\/p>\n

Closing its 2025 season on Aug. 15 and 16, the Grant Park Music Festival argued that the distance between those two poles is rarely as great as it appears. The festival would know that better than most, juxtaposing classical music\u2014and its expectation of monkish silence\u2014with the heart of Chicago\u2019s downtown, and the human mix therein. Where else must a soprano nobly compete with police sirens zooming down Lake Shore Drive?<\/p>\n

The public face of such an organization needs to understand that \u2014 someone who marries musical excellence with a come-as-you-are approachability, so that classical music\u2019s audience base grows rather than grays.<\/p>\n

In his first season as Grant Park artistic director and principal conductor, Giancarlo Guerrero has proved he\u2019s that person. He\u2019s drawn remarkable precision and luster from festival musicians in a range of repertoire, from Mendelssohn\u2019s lacy violin concerto to bold new works. He\u2019s able to succinctly elucidate the \u201cwhy\u201d behind a program \u2014 like the holy\/unholy dichotomy tying together the finale program, with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov\u2019s \u201cRussian Easter Overture\u201d and Carl Orff\u2019s \u201cCarmina Burana.\u201d And he whirrs through it all with an infectious, Energizer-Bunny enthusiasm, practically bouncing through Friday\u2019s concert in a pair of white-soled sneakers.<\/p>\n

Sometimes that translated to a certain restlessness in still moments. Alan Hovhaness\u2019s Symphony No. 2, \u201cMysterious Mountain,\u201d was once ubiquitous in midcentury concert halls; today, it\u2019s the only one of the Armenian-American composer\u2019s 67 completed symphonies to get meaningful airtime. Per its nickname, \u201cMysterious Mountain\u201d is less a symphony than a 20-minute panorama, which Guerrero more or less strode through. But it was an Olympic feat in ensemble playing, gears large and small clicking into perfect place in the second movement\u2019s double fugue, and the violins taking their running lines in lockstep.<\/p>\n

The orchestra demonstrated the same massed virtuosity in the \u201cRussian Easter Overture.\u201d Rimsky-Korsakov wrote in his autobiography that he sought to reference pagan as well as Christian spirituality in the piece, resulting in a work that is at once vivacious and big-boned.<\/p>\n

From the podium, Guerrero allayed the overture\u2019s bombastic writing with a buoyant, supple spirit. The musicians even sounded relaxed, as though they were cruising over, rather than sprinting through, Rimsky-Korsakov\u2019s most demanding passages. The various solo spotlights were seized by the Grant Parkers with passion and originality: concertmaster Jeremy Black, principal cellist Walter Haman, acting principal flute Jennifer Lawson, and acting principal trombonist Jeremy Moeller.<\/p>\n

With all the choral-orchestral showstoppers out there, Grant Park ending its season with Carl Orff\u2019s \u201cCarmina Burana\u201d when it did the same in 2018 could seem a little close for comfort. This time, however, Guerrero is the one putting his mark on the blockbuster work, set to an irreverent set of poems by medieval clergy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no wonder Guerrero was so eager to show Chicago his \u201cCarmina Burana.\u201d Friday\u2019s performance\u2014with Guerrero conducting from memory and mouthing along with the chorus \u2014 sounded as dotingly prepared as the rest of the program, but with an unbridled emotional palette. The pacing here also felt just right: driven, but not hurried.<\/p>\n

One of Grant Park\u2019s great gifts is its platform for artists whose careers are right on the precipice, so we can all say \u201cI heard her when\u2026\u201d On Friday, that artist was the California-born Jana McIntyre, the same singer who went head-to-head with sirens in \u201cDulcissime.\u201d It\u2019s been a while since I heard a high soprano with so much poise and control, from her crisp articulations in \u201cAmor volat undique\u201d to her lofted upper extension in \u201cStetit puella.\u201d I\u2019m eager to watch her career continue to unfold.<\/p>\n

Orff doesn\u2019t let any solo singer off easy in \u201cCarmina Burana.\u201d Baritone Troy Cook was less adroit in his own sky-high passages, but in the sweet spot of his register \u2014 as in his purring \u201cOmni sol temperat\u201d and elastic \u201cEstuans interius\u201d \u2014 his voice was richly textured and full-bodied.<\/p>\n