“Imagine walking down the street and encountering not amateur-level buskers but world-class musicians playing scores you’d sooner expect to hear in a concert hall,” writes Howard Reich in Tuesday’s (8/7) Chicago Tribune. “It doesn’t happen often enough, but it will this weekend at the third annual Thirsty Ears Festival, which will spotlight some of Chicago’s top musicians along a stretch of Wilson Avenue, between Hermitage and Ravenswood Avenues. The idea, says festival founder and composer Seth Boustead, is to transcend mistaken notions about how and why classical music takes shape…. The Thirsty Ears Festival counters … those clichés, thanks to a modest, suggested donation of $10; a mostly outdoor ambience in which formalwear would not be an ideal choice; and a vast range of sounds, including music by decidedly non-dead composers…. From its inception in 2016 [the festival] was designed to bring a music sometimes regarded as effete and aloof to street level, where everyone can partake—and the uninitiated can hear what they’ve been missing.” Performers this year include pianist David Schrader, Eighth Blackbird cellist Nick Photinos, the Grant Park Music Festival String Quartet, and the Chicago Composers Orchestra. Other events include an interactive performance of Terry Riley’s “In C.”
In photo: Crossing Borders Music at the 2017 Thirsty Ear Street Festival in Chicago, performing chamber music by composers from Egypt, Colombia, Haiti, the Chickasaw Nation, and more.
Posted August 9, 2018
