The Chicago Sinfonietta and the Chicago Humanities Festival will collaborate for a November 2 concert at Orchestra Hall, entitled “Laughter!” Michael Morgan, music director of California’s Oakland East Bay Symphony, will guest conduct the program, to include Ibert’s Divertissement, written as incidental music for Eugene Labiche’s farcical play The Italian Straw Hat; Michael Daugherty’s Dead Elvis, a comic take on Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, featuring bassoonist Lewis Kirk as Elvis; Milhaud’s surrealist work Le Boeuf sur le Toit; and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 (“Italian”). The annual Chicago Humanities Festival, in its twentieth year, encourages the study and enjoyment of the humanities by people of all ages. The festival begins with a day of programs on October 17 at Hyde Park, and continues with events from November 2 through 15 at venues throughout Chicago. Scheduled for the festival are a lecture at the Art Institute by composer John Adams; “Musical Jokes of the Baroque” performed by Ars Antigua; and lectures by cartoonist Roz Chast and writer Barbara Ehrenreich. More information on the festival can be found at the festival website http://www.chicagohumanities.org.
Posted September 15, 2009
Photo of Michael Morgan by Pat Johnson
