By Wynne Delacoma
Chicago Sun-Times original link

Eighth blackbird offers an eclectic mix at the Harris

Since opening in 2003, the Harris Theater for Music and Dance has proved itself an effective showcase for all kinds of classical music, from opera to Baroque.

But Joan Harris, who along with her late husband Irving Harris, was central to bringing this vitally needed, long-delayed venue from dream to reality, is absolutely right when she insists that the theater on the north edge of Millennium Park was made for new music. The latest proof was the concert Tuesday night by eighth blackbird, a hugely talented and endlessly inventive Chicago sextet that is offering a three-concert series of contemporary music at the Harris this season.

Founded in 1996, eighth blackbird has little interest in traditional concertizing. This is not a group willing to perform in formal dress while seated at black metal music stands. Its young members want to roam the stage, preferably bathed in atmospheric lighting against the backdrop of specially designed video or film installations. The Harris Theater is the ideal venue for their distinctive brand of music making.

The group's program Tuesday was a typically eclectic mix. It opened with "Musique de Tables'' by Belgian composer and filmmaker Thierry de Mey, a brief, frequently exhilarating piece for three musicians scraping, slapping, drumming and pounding away on tabletops outfitted with amplifying microphones. "Pocket Symphony,'' a sharply etched, luminously colored work composed by Frederic Rzewski in 2000 for the ensemble followed. In Martin Bresnick's "My Twentieth Century'' from 2002, the musicians took their places on a video screen reciting Tom Andrews' plain-spoken text about everyday truths from eating sweet apples to a brother's death. They performed Bresnick's score with an equally effective mix of resolute good cheer and quiet introspection.

The concert closed with "Mirrors,'' a new commission from Israeli composer Tamar Muskal that included a three-part video by Danny Rozin. Under the direction of Amitai Yaish, the musicians moved restlessly against a backdrop of gray, looming shadows that turned the wide Harris stage into a dim, low-ceilinged grotto. Muskal's music was propulsive, but at times the mix of video and music seemed self-consciously arty.

The Harris Theater's crystalline acoustics and superlative sightlines, however, allowed the concert to soar. Nothing onstage had to be oversold to make an impact. The ensemble returns to the Harris on Jan. 26 and May 29. If you want to see what happens when the right musicians find themselves in exactly the right theater, mark your calendars now.

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