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The construction of the Petrillo Music Shell in 1931. The Grant Park Chorus. INSIGHT What: The Grant Park Music Festival's 2014 lineup includes Gustav Holst's The Planets, Beethoven's beloved Pastoral Symphony, Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins, and more. When: June 11–August 16 Where: Jay Pritzker Pavilion, 205 E. Randolph St., Millennium Park Info: Call 312-742- 7638, or visit grantparkmusic festival.com MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 77 L ong before Lollapa looza a nd Ta ste of Chicago became Grant Park mainstays, the classically oriented Grant Park Music Fest iva l put our g ra nd urba n g reenswa rd on t he cult u ra l map. Since it s opening concer t on July 1, 1935 —with a march from R ichard Wagner's Tannhäuser on the bill—the festival's m i x of ser ious music a nd popula r prog ra m- ming has proved irresistible, making it one of t hose event s t hat def ine summer in t he cit y. Now, as the festival celebrates its 80th anni- versary season, artistic director and principal conductor Carlos Kalmar and chorus director Christopher Bell are offering audiences a wide ra nge of musica l exper iences, including a world premiere from t he renow ned, Pulit zer Prize – winning composer William Bolcom and the debut of The Legend of the Northern Lights, with a score by Grammy-nominated composer Christopher Theofanidis and stunning images from astronomer Dr. José Francisco Salgado. From the start, the festival's "come one, come all" mission has made for an interesting mix of listeners, with highbrow music aficionados sitt ing a longside folks just look ing for some- thing to occupy a summer's night. And while t he rela xed at mosphere m ight seem det r iment a l to cla ssica l per for ma nce, t he fest iva l ha s never had a problem att racting top-tier talent, with appearances by dozens of stars over the years, including sopra nos L ily Pons a nd Beverly Sills, pia nist s Va n Cliburn and A ndré Watts, and v iolinist s Ja scha Heifet z a nd Joshua Bell—as well as marquee g uest conductors like A nd re Kostelanetz, Arthur Fiedler, and Erich Leinsdorf. The festival's principal conduc- tors (and Kalmar is no exception) have long championed American music and shown an unwavering commitment to present new work by a variet y of composers. "We feature things that our colleagues all over A merica cannot really play because t hey have t he bu rden of selling t icket s," says K a lma r. "For exa mple, The Book with Seven Seals, by Austrian composer Franz Schmidt—a tremendous piece, with chorus, orchestra, solo- ist s. Nobody would touch t hat because t he return at the box office is so risky. And we pro- gram this type of thing all the time." That kind of daring does have its drawbacks, however. Cla r inet ist Cha rlene Zim mer ma n, who has played with the Grant Park Orchestra for 3 8 yea rs, laugh ingly reca lls t he t ime t he ensemble essayed A nton Weber n's t y pica lly thorny Five Pieces for Orchestra: "It's all 'beep, beep, bloop, bloop,' and with traffic and sirens, nobody could have heard that piece. You have to listen to it on headphones at home to actually hear every note." Leonard Slatkin, music director of both the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre National de Lyon, France, and principal con- ductor of the Grant Park Orchestra in the mid- '70s, returns this celebratory season to conduct Dmit r i Shost a kov ich's ra rely per for med The Execution of Stepan Razin. Of h is days in Chicago, Slat k in says, "There is no quest ion that I learned much from the expe- rience, especially when it came to f inding new a nd not - of ten-hea rd pieces. T h is helped shape my course of thinking for the remain- der of my career." Whether rendering the familiar or going out on a limb with something new, the Grant Park Music Festival has soot hed t he souls a nd opened t he ea rs of count less Ch icagoa ns. And along the way, it has also cre- ated a sense of community. In 1940, t he newslet ter of t he Ch icago Federation of Musicians included a poem t it led "W ho Goes to Gra nt Park Concerts?" While much of it is now dated, one couplet remains so t r ue, so ma ny decades later: "T he rich, the poor, the sad, the gay/ The weak, the proud, in rich array." MA Culture Night Music THE GRANT PARK MUSIC FESTIVAL CELEBRATES 80 YEARS OF KICKING OFF SUMMER IN CHICAGO. BY THOMAS CONNORS HOTTEST TICKET