View from the lawn in Chicago’s Millennium Park, the Grant Park Music Festival’s performance venue

“For the first time since the Grant Park Music Festival was established in 1935, the institution will fall silent,” writes Howard Reich in Monday’s (5/4) Chicago Tribune. “The festival has canceled all its events running June 10 through Aug. 15 in Millennium Park and across the city due to the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘Just ensuring the safety of the (Grant Park) Orchestra and Chorus, the administrative staff, our production crew, our patrons—that really drove our decision,’ said festival President and CEO Paul Winberg….‘We’re going to see at least a 60 percent drop in revenues,’ he explained.… He anticipates that 28 full-time seasonal positions will be eliminated, as well as the entire production crew and others. ‘It’s … pretty devastating,’ said Winberg. The festival has received a Paycheck Protection Program loan of $694,538, and Winberg will meet with unions representing orchestral and choral musicians to determine how those funds will be distributed.” In addition to its regular concerts and events, “The festival was going to [present] programs, conceived by Grant Park Music Festival artistic director and principal conductor Carlos Kalmar, integral to the Year of Chicago Music initiated by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events…. That citywide celebration has been extended into 2021.”