April showers Chicago with music, art, and theater

Passover will be arriving in late April this year, but there will be a feast of artistic events throughout the month, and here is a sampling of just some of them.



Hershey Felder as Chopin:

 

Born into a Yiddish-speaking household in Montreal, Hershey Felder is the son of a Polish-born, Holocaust survivor father, and a mother from Budapest, Hungary. Now 55, he might easily be dubbed the quintessential Renaissance man of the 21st century.

 

The pianist, actor, singer, writer, producer, and stage and film director-who now lives in Florence, Italy-frequently tours his self-created shows, performing the music of, and sometimes in the role of, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, and Debussy as well as Jewish musical giants George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and Irving Berlin. One of his favorite subjects, and characters, is Chopin.

 

In addition, he recently was appointed artistic director and general manager of the Teatro Nazionale (formerly the Teatro della Signoria), a formidable structure in the center of Florence; now being renovated, it is scheduled to re-open in October.

 

Felder is now headed to the Glencoe-based Writers Theatre, where he will perform his one-man show, Monsieur Chopin: A Play With Music , from April 10 – May 12.

 

Felder noted that Chopin gave only about 30 mostly small concerts in his rather brief life (he died in 1849 at the age of 39).

 

He, then, observed: “It has always been said about Chopin that he was a 20th century composer wandering in the 19th century. Besides his invention of forms-the ballades, the use of John Field’s invention of the nocturne that he took to unseen levels, or the crafting of mazurkas not only as a country dance but as whimsical ghostly dreams about his homeland-Chopin was apart and above in his sense of musical invention and drama.”

 

Felder also recalled: “It was a television commercial for Polish tours that I heard at the age of four or five, and its music mesmerized me. I sang the tune over and over again to everyone in my family, until someone told me it was Chopin’s Polonaise in A Major . I demanded the sheet music. Within in a couple of years, I was making my way through the notes, as difficult as they were, and as mesmerizing as they were.”

 

Felder’s show about Chopin also brings another character into the picture- George Sand (the pen name of the prolific French female novelist), who had a formidable relationship with the composer.

 

For tickets to Felder’s show-which will include mazurkas, polonaises, nocturnes, preludes and more-visit writerstheatre.org or call 847-242-6000.

 

Introducing AI Artist Alex Kagan

 

I should confess upfront that I am more than a little worried about the phenomenon of AI (Artificial Intelligence), the application of computer science that is said to “develop, study, and simulate intelligent machines.”

 

But Alex Kagan-who was born in the Soviet Union, emigrated to Rogers Park in 1993, and is now in his early 80s-always had a passion for great art and artists. He became an expert in the field of computers in their early days, and in recent decades has become a master of AI, manipulating and transforming existing images. He estimates he has created about 2,000 new works of digital art. Some have been included in exhibitions in Europe and Chicago. His latest interest focuses on creating two-minute videos.

 

Landscapes, cityscapes, and flowers are among some of the images he has worked with as he explains that he “runs his source imagery through a variety of AI programs that draw on many sources, including the work of both the great masters and my own photos.”

 

A grand-scale exhibition of Kagan’s fascinating digital work, which has won a number of awards, can be seen online.

 

Visit: alexkaganart.blogspot.com.

 

Concerts, musicals, and plays

There is so much to choose from on Chicago stages this April:

 

First up is Felix Mendelssohn’s grand-scale Elijah (April 11, 12 and 13), described as “the 19th century’s most enduring oratorio.” It will be performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and four soloists (singing in English). It captures the story of the Biblical prophet who has been described as “a miracle worker, who defended the worship of the Hebrew G-d, and who ascends to heaven on a flaming chariot.”

 

On the afternoon of April 14, Yefim Bronfman the Soviet-born, Israeli-American pianist-winningly described as “Bronfman the brontosaur” in Philip Roth’s book The Human Stain – will perform a program including Schubert’s “Sonata in A Minor” and Bartok’s folk melody-infused “Sonata.”

 

For fans of the great Broadway musical classics of the 1950s-largely the work of Jewish musical-theater producers-there is Guys and Dolls , the 1950 Tony Award-winning show with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and a story by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. Set in New York, it focuses on gambling men and the women they pursue. The show runs April 10 – June 9 at the Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace.

 

For fans of Tom Stoppard, the Czech-born British playwright- whose grandparents all died in Auschwitz, but who only learned about his Jewish heritage in the early 1990s- there is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead . This widely heralded absurdist play, that dates from 1966, spins a deft twist on Hamlet .  The play runs March 29-April 21 at Court Theatre.

 

And then there is Judgment Day , starring Tony and Emmy Award-winning Jason Alexander, who was born into a Jewish family in New Jersey, and is widely known as George Constanza on Seinfeld . The irreverent comedy-about a crooked lawyer who’s threatened with eternal damnation-runs April 23 to May 26 on Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Yard stage.

 

Hedy Weiss, a longtime Chicago arts critic, was the Theater and Dance Critic for the  Chicago Sun-Times  from 1984 to 2018, and currently writes for WTTW-TV’s website and contributes to the  Chicago Tonight  program.