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Music to Feed the Spirit
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 When Deborah Sobol and I had
our first conversation last summer about my joining the Rush Hour team,
I told her about my love of chamber music- and that's the point at
which we really clicked. It's not just that I like chamber music in
the more traditional sense, although I have a particular fondness for
piano trios. It is the immediacy and intimacy of being in the presence
of people creating art, and of knowing that as an audience member you
are critical to the success of the performance. You are close enough
to feel the vibrations of the lower instruments, and the musicians can
see firsthand their effect on you. It is powerful. I've laughed,
wept, and hurt my hands applauding at concerts. I leave with the melodies
and memories very much in focus, and I often turn to recordings to recreate
the feelings I've just experienced.
Please click here to read the full article >>
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Fanfare Committee Corner
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 Rush Hour's Fanfare Committee held its fall recruitment event at 3rd Coast Cafe on Monday, November 5. Thank you to all who attended to learn more about the committee's goals and projects in audience development, special event production, and product development for the '08 season. We are pleased to welcome all of the committee's new members to its ranks. The committee also appointed President Reba Levy, Secretary Kristin Lunardini, and Treasurer Charles Cooney as officers to shepherd its growth over the coming year.
The committee is also working with Loyola University Chicago to present a winter concert event at its Water Tower Campus on Monday, December 3. Owen Clayton Condon and Peter Martin of Third Coast Percussion Quartet will be performing in this special event to promote Rush Hour and Loyola's community partnership. We are greatly looking forward to this great evening of refreshments and music!
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Recommendations from the Artistic Director
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 After a rather beautifully
extended Indian summer, it seems as though the colder months will soon
be upon us. Scottish poet and physician John Armstrong (1709-79) in
The Art of Preserving Health (1744), writes of the healing quality
of music. I share it with you as an additional boost to your flu shots:
Music exults each joy, allays
each grief,
Expels diseases, softens every
pain,
Subdues the rage of poison
and the plague. There are four concerts I'd
like to recommend in the coming weeks to our Rush Hour audiences:
* Sunday, 11/18 - Masterworks for Solo Piano II - St. James Cathedral Concert Series * Sunday, 11/18 & Monday, 11/19 - Chicago Chamber Musicians Subscription Series * Wednesday, 11/28 - Quintet Attacca - Dame Myra Hess Concert * Monday, 12/3 - Chicago Chamber Musicians' First Monday Series
As I bid you happy listening
this month, a note of humor from Austrian-Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti
(b. 1938), in defining Muzak (the sounds we hear around us daily in
elevators, grocery stores, malls, etc. - often confused by some as
"music"!):
"Musak goes in one ear
and out some other opening."
Cheers!
-- Deborah Sobol |
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