Ten years after the end of its thirty-year reign, the Chicago women’s art collective Artemisia Gallery presented its legacy of artworks by sixty female members at the Bridgeport Art Center in the exhibition “Artemisia after 40.” Continue reading
Author: Noah Kahrs
A Journey in Jazz
The DuSable honors a founder
The Chicago Modern Orchestra Project performs “Suite of DuSable: A Vision of Faith.” COURTESY ALVIN CARTER-BEY
The DuSable Museum, in Washington Park, celebrates its namesake frequently, but celebrated him particularly loudly last Friday night. Continue reading
Return of the Student
Jazz musician Marquis Hill plays for the hometown crowd
Trumpeter Marquis Hill, originally from Chatham, returned to the South Side two weeks ago for a show at the House of Bing in South Shore, and also played at WHPK’s annual Black History Month concert last Saturday at the University of Chicago’s International House. Continue reading
Under the Green Line
Calumet & Garfield
The intersection of Garfield and Calumet has long been dominated by the Green Line. Most recently, the Red Line closure brought massive traffic to the station between buses replacing the Red Line and the lure of free entry at Garfield, daily ridership at the station jumped from thirteen hundred to thirteen thousand. A previously vacant lot at the northwest corner of Garfield and Calumet has taken center stages as a bus terminal for the rail replacement service. Continue reading
Revolutionary Revival
For one night, Troubled Island returned to life
Contralto Gwendolyn Brown as Azelia and baritone Kirk Walker as Jean-Jacques Dessalines. D. HAMPTON PHOTOGRAPHY
Langston Hughes was brought up hearing stories about the Haitian Revolution from his grandmother, and he had long been drafting a play about the revolution when the opportunity for an opera arose. This is “Troubled Island,” composed by William Grant Still and written by Hughes and Verna Arvey. Until Maestro Leslie Dunner led a performance at the South Shore Cultural Center on Saturday, the show had not been seen in its full form since 1949. That was enough to attract Lesly Condé, consul general of Haiti. “The story of Haiti is rich in stories that could inspire many a poet, playwright, or composer,” he told the audience in an introduction to the performance. Continue reading