Stephen Burns

2018 in Music Photos

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A year of big performances, big venues, big voices, and big ovations. Here’s a look at my favorite music photos from 2018. Applause to all!

All photos © copyright 2018 by Elliot Mandel. All rights reserved.

Supermoon and Symphonies: Early Highlights of 2018

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If there's a way to sum up the start of 2018, it's that I photographed some pretty awesome and beautiful things. The year started off with a Supermoon in sub-zero temps. After the feeling returned to my fingers, I drove out to the Mississippi River to watch the bald eagles before concert season picked up again. I spent a dress rehearsal with the Lake Forest Symphony; covered the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra's final concert before its China tour; and shot the Chicago Philharmonic (with two pianos!). The Northwestern University Jazz Orchestra - with Victor Goines and Don Vappie - blew out the best Mardi Gras tunes north of New Orleans. I shot my first concert for the Harris Theater on the stage of the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, and watched in amazement while pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard performed Ligeti and Beethoven before a rapt audience at the University of Chicago. Fulcrum Point New Music Project closed March with a rollicking performance of music by Wynton Marsalis. Now, on to spring! 

All photos © copyright 2018 by Elliot Mandel. All rights reserved.

American Howl with Fulcrum Point

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Scenes from a hard-hitting concert with Fulcrum Point at the Poetry Foundation.  Kevin Coval's between-the-eyes eloquence in his own work matched the tone Allen Ginsburg's "Howl," set to music by George Flynn. The otherwise intimate setting could barely contain the force of Jerome Kitzke's "Mad Coyote Madly Sings."  Pictured are Stephen Burns (trumpet/conductor), Kevin Coval (poet/narrator), Wagner Campos (clarinet), Jeremy Ruthrauff (sax), Kuang-Hao Huang (piano), Doug Perkins (percussion), Rika Seko (violin), Sophie Webber (cello), Collins Trier (bass), Juliet Petrus, Joelle Lamarre, and Brad Jungwirth (vocals).  

Photos © Copyright 2015 by Elliot Mandel. All rights reserved. 

THE NEWS

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Easily one of the most memorable, high-energy performances I've shot this year.  Back in April, Fulcrum Point presented JacobTV's THE NEWS at Thalia Hall.  The nonstop "pop opera" is an 80-minute satire of mass media that is a poignant, comical, wacky, trippy, and altogether brilliant mash-up of rhythm, language, melodic fragments, and unreal vocals from Loire and Nora Fisher. Fulcrum Point's 9-piece band included Stephen Burns, Jim Gailloreto, Matt Wifler, Jeremy Ruthrauff, Andy Baker, Karl Montzka, Steve Roberts, Ian Ding, and Larry Kohut. 

Photos © Copyright 2015 by Elliot Mandel. All rights reserved.

 

Contempo celebrates 50 years

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The University of Chicago's Contempo series is celebrating its 50th year of contemporary classical music this season, and featuring its two ensembles-in-residence: eighth blackbird and the Pacifica Quartet.  Joining them on January 24 was soprano Sharon Harms, trumpeter Stephen Burns, conductor David Fulmer, and a host of players from Chicago's new music community.  It's always fun to photograph these expressive musicians, and I'm looking forward to more in March. 

Fulcrum Point's Concert for Peace

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For its 16th annual Concert for Peace, Fulcrum Point New Music Project showed off some serious chops.  The first set went from Somei Satoh's meditative "Hikari (Light)" to Louis Andriessen's taut and racing "Hout (Wood)."  The second set filled the South Shore Cultural Center with Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver.  A little yoga on a windswept lakefront ended the afternoon.  Looking forward to working with Fulcrum Point again on its November 1 concert, featuring Indian classical music alongside Messaien and Mingus.