Access our very best investigative reporting, opinion and commentary.
Look for the icon to access members-only premium content.
George Lepauw lives his life according to a precept he picked up as a very young child studying piano with Aida Barenboim, mother of...
As his old friend Frank Sinatra might have put it, it was a very good year for Chicago singer Frank D'Rone.
For years, the "Battle of the Saxes" that played the Green Mill Jazz Club each New Year's Eve was less a contest than a lively exchange of...
You wouldn't be reading this if you weren't already familiar with Third Eye Blind. The band was a pop star in the '90s, and its career has...
Azita Youssefi's new album is actually old. "Year," which was released last month on her longtime home label, local indie Drag City, isn't...
Roy Hargrove, one of the great trumpeters of the under-50 generation, has made a tradition of closing each year with a residency at the Jazz...
No musical news story in 2012 drew greater media attention, inside and outside Chicago, than the strike that silenced the Chicago Symphony...
Pianist Ken Chaney wasn't as famous as many of his Chicago colleagues, but the high caliber of his playing, the originality of his...
The last time Riff Raff -- a Texas rapper now based in Los Angeles, but at home on the Internet -- performed in Chicago, he was booed off...
First the disappointing news: Jimmy Ellis, the veteran alto saxophonist who had been listed as guest soloist with drummer Isaiah Spencer's...
Like Bing Crosby and Andy Williams before her, Martina McBride understands what it takes to deliver a Christmas show. You have to have an...
Glitzy, overblown, fun, proudly cheesy: The Killers shared much in common with their Las Vegas hometown Friday at a sold-out UIC Pavilion....
Contrary to supposed Mayan prophesy, the world did not end on Friday. The end actually arrived at about 8:40 the previous evening, at...
As they do nearly every evening, bands played into the late hours Thursday at Empty Bottle. This time, however, the live performances...
Holiday concerts needn't necessarily involve traditional carols or religious references. Just ask Andrew Bird. Wednesday at the first of...
In the new Judd Apatow movie "This Is 40," Graham Parker plays a slightly past his prime British rocker, reunited with his old band and...
In times of national distress and reflection, performances of Handel's "Messiah" seem more necessary than ever.
No high school in America did more to shape the sound of jazz than a magnificent edifice at 49th Street and Wabash Avenue, on the South Side...
During Of Monsters and Men's performance at Riviera Theatre on Sunday, the first of two sold-out shows, the sextet only played a brief 75-...
"You know, to be honest, I hate Christmas," Sufjan Stevens remarked at his sold-out show at Metro on Saturday. Given the show was billed...
"Hard Music Hard Liquor" was Friday night's program for the holidays by Ensemble Dal Niente that brought works by nine contemporary and...
No doubt there's a certain spiritual appeal to "Be Still," the most recent recording of trumpeter Dave Douglas.
Pianist Cedar Walton always plays it straight – no flash, lots of substance.
Carrie Underwood isn't waiting for Hollywood to call. She's ready for a leading role now. Wednesday at a near-capacity United Center, the...
The Fox News Web headline Wednesday morning captured something in the air despite its utter wrongness:
Any president's second term offers another shot at fulfilling dreams that got away the first time around.
The Chicago Sinfonietta, long a national model for promoting diversity and inclusiveness in orchestral performance, is reaching out to...
The 24-year-old rapper Hoodie Allen is part of an offshoot of hip-hop that has been saddled with the tag "frat-rap," though the term...
My 10 selections are not the "best" recordings of 2012, only ones that represent some of the recordings that have given me particular...
Miguel Zenon and Laurent Coq: "Rayuela" (Sunnyside Records). Puerto...
From the bounty of boxed sets released during the past year, here are six classical albums sure to please gift givers and receivers alike:
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra does a thorough job bringing to local attention gifted young conductors who are creating a stir in the podium...
Guitarist Larry Coryell has performed with drummer Paul Wertico and bassist Larry Gray so often that when they reunited Thursday night at...
Public Enemy hasn't mellowed much with age. Wednesday at a near-capacity House of Blues, the reengaged rap ensemble stormed through a 70-...
In the 1980s, Tony Andriacchi was almost as famous in Chicago as his heroes Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra were around the world.
You've heard of pianist-conductors, violinist-conductors, even the occasional cellist-conductor. But how many conductors can you name who...
You usually don't hear jazz singers taking on James Brown's "Sex Machine" or Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze."
"Don Pasquale" isn't exactly the first show that springs to mind when you're looking for an opera to hook young children on opera. Look a...
As the world's most famous media personality in classical music, Gustavo Dudamel presides over events that share the atmosphere of rock...
In the mainstream hip-hop world, the 23-year-old Oakland rapper Kreayshawn is a punch line — a woman who got signed to a record deal...
"I don't wanna wait!" shouted Brittany Howard Saturday at a sold-out Riviera, her head titled toward the ceiling and body shivering with...
Tom Harrell always has been a singular voice on trumpet, a fervently lyrical player with an uncommonly sensitive ear as composer-arranger,...
"Hope I die before I get old." Pete Townshend will never escape those fantastically fatalistic words he wrote - and Roger Daltrey first sang...
Sporting a frizzy Afro, thick mutton chops and insurgent rhetoric, Boots Riley would've easily fit in
Though they both have separate thriving careers in the underground rap scene, Qwel & Maker are perhaps best loved as a team. Maker works...
In the third season of the New Orleans television drama "Treme," disc jockey/songwriter Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn) recruits Irma Thomas to...
Not many people take their 5-year-olds to the opera. Operas are long. Operas make you read English supertitles. Operas are nothing like...