Author Archive

Agnieszka Rakhmatullaev (Artistic Operations Manager of the Grant Park Music Festival) is one of just two to be named a 2012 Orchestra Management Fellow by the League of American Orchestras.  I chatted with Agnieszka late last week on-stage at the Jay Pritzker Pavillion about her background and becoming a LAO Fellow.

Two classic Ma Rainey recordings for your enjoyment: See See Rider Blues (1925)   Deep Moaning Blues (1928)   And here’s Memphis Minnie singing her musical tribute to the “Mother of Blues Music,” appropriately titled “Ma Rainey.”  

Laurie Lee Moses from the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago shares the Richard Stams Collection..

Suzanne Flandreau from the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago tells us about The Staple Singers.   Here are The Staple Singers with I’m Coming Home (Parts 1+2)  

Suzanne Flandreau from the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago tells us about Thomas A. Dorsey.  

WFMT’s General Manager Steve Robinson and Critic-At-Large Andrew Patner presented the station’s first-ever Artist of the Year award to Riccardo Muti last week in a phone interview.  Listen to excerpts of the interview here: [Audio clip: view full post to listen]

WFMT is excited to collaborate again this year with the Chicago Humanities Festival.  Earlier this week we featured an encore interview with CHF headliner Laurie Anderson.  Here’s more on this year’s festival from Artistic Director Matti Bunzl: Anna Clyne and My Grandfather Growing up in Vienna, classical music was always in my life. It was more…

I’ve blogged about District 97 here at Offmic before.  If you are yet unfamiliar with this Chicago-based band, perhaps the first line from their web-bio will serve best in bringing you up-to-date: “District 97 is the only progressive rock band in the world to feature an American Idol finalist and a Chicago Symphony Orchestra virtuoso cellist.” more…

I don’t know how my office mate David Polk and I got on the topic of the Muppets, but we both agree that the trumpet note which ends the Muppet Show theme is one of the top 5 funniest musical notes of all-time. (We can’t think of what the other four might be, but perhaps more…