Still Downtown

So, here is the continuation to the tale of Downtown Chicago in Millennium Park.

After I left that small jazz presentation by the youth band, I wandered back towards the Art Institute when I heard some more music, this coming from the main band shell.  And it turned out that the Grant Park Orchestra was rehearsing for the Fourth of July Concert there.

​The Grant Park Orchestra is no slapdash group.  Basically, it's the second major orchestra in the city, right behind the Chicago Symphony Orchestra -- but not very far behind.  It's largely made up of members of the Chicago Civic Orchestra that plays for the Lyric Opera of Chicago.  And during the summer, while the CSO puts on a full season of concerts at the Ravinia Music Festival, the Grant Park Orchestra has 2-3 free concerts a week at the band shell for a couple of months during the summer.

This is a couple of minutes of the rehearsal.  It's from a symphonic piece based on American themes.  And it was so wonderful -- not just this, but several other selections after -- that I eventually moved in closer to take a seat and stayed for an hour.  It was glorious.

This is a good "overture" from what's the come.  On the Fourth of July, I'll post more from those closer seats with more from the rehearsal and some great music for the holiday.  (Hopefully.  As I said, the Internet connection here on the road is incredibly slooooooooooooow.  And uploading video -- especially one wonderful selection that's nine minutes long! -- takes a long time.  This video below, only a couple minutes, took almost two hours to upload!)

But for now, this is a fine way to start...