“So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning.” The words of American composer Aaron Copland marry well with the mission of Rush Hour to bring great music to busy lives. As we come to the close [...]

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Tuesday marks the third year RH has partnered with the Poetry Foundation in combining words with music. We have had a history together of what I might call “experimental collaborations.” For the last two years, the Poetry Foundation commissioned poets to write for J.S. Bach’s Two Part Inventions and Three Part Inventions for keyboard. This [...]

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Last fall, Rush Hour was very pleased to invite Megan Balderston to join its staff as Executive Director. Her talents and vision beautifully complement Rush Hour’s mission to bring great music to busy lives throughout the summer. I thought you would enjoy hearing from her today.
- Deborah Sobol
For this week’s classical dance music of the [...]

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You know that old Beatles line, “I get by with a little help from my friends”? The back story to Tuesday’s music (Brahms’ Clarinet Trio, op. 114) gives new meaning to it. I’m pretty sure Mr. Brahms was a bit sad as he declared he was finished composing… but then along came Mr. Mühlfeld with [...]

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Dear Friends,
Welcome to the 2008 season of Rush Hour! We have been counting the days until Rush Hour means summer in Chicago – or summer means Rush Hour, whichever your pleasure!
The term “Rush Hour experience” has emerged in the course of the last few seasons. It describes a user-friendly format that is reliably the [...]

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More than a just a reception and great live music in the time frame of an hour at the end of the day, Rush Hour, like Starbucks, has now become known on the summer cultural landscape of Chicago as an “experience.”
The clever little dashboard icon on my Mac brings up a dictionary in addition to [...]

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Well, the Cubs and White Sox celebrated their Spring Equinox for our fair city a couple of weeks ago. This tells me that Rush Hour’s own “Opening Day” is just weeks away! Our season has been put in a beautiful box and tied up with a ribbon, ready to be opened on Tuesday, June 3, [...]

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March… have we had enough of winter? Are we longing enough yet for spring? Dare we dream of summer and the beaches of Chicago… and Tuesday Rush Hour Concerts? We’ve paid our dues this winter, to be sure.
Yes, March… that odd “lion/lamb” month - St. Patrick’s Day mixed in with the Christian church’s Lenten season [...]

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Ah, February… as I write this, yet another snowstorm is shaking its contents down on Chicago. I’m reminded of an opening line in “A Child’s Christmas in Wales“: “Winter in my memory is as white as Lapland.”
But it’s February. We counteract all this white with RED - fire, love, passion, red hearts, red roses (did [...]

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January is many things to many people. For me, January is Mozart and Schubert and the celebration of their birthdays, January 27 and 31, respectively.
When Mozart was 21 years old, he wrote the following to his father, Leopold: “I cannot write in verse, for I am no poet. I cannot arrange the parts of speech [...]

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