Music

The Illinois Symphony Orchestra began its 2019-2020 season with “Beautiful and Bold” at the UIS Performing Arts Center on Saturday, Oct. 19. After a rousing rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner,” the concert proper got underway with Wagner’s “Forest Murmurs” (drawn from the opera Siegfried, part of the Ring of the Nibelungen cycle). Typical of […]

Music is in a constant state of flux. Bands form, perform, break up, get back together and eventually call it quits. Venues become established, switch hands, change names and get torn down. Genres increase and decrease in popularity, and they sometimes end up as dead as disco. Over nearly four decades, as popular music moved […]

If you think there’s nothing to do in Decatur, I assume you’ve yet to visit The Devon Lakeshore Amphitheater. Tucked away within the winding hills and plateaus that make up Nelson Park on the city’s east  side is brand new music venue that has reeled in thousands of attendees and a variety of performers during […]

Country music star Reba McEntire graced the stage at the Illinois State Fair on its last day to a sold-out audience.  The summer breeze that could be felt in the grandstand was non-existent on the full capacity track area. RCA recording artist Rachel Wammack, born in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, opened the show at 8 p.m.  […]

Shinedown returned to Springfield on Saturday evening, playing the Illinois State Fair Grandstand after their last visit in May 2013 when the band performed at the BOS Center. The band, based out of Jacksonville, Florida, was founded in 2001, although lead singer Brent Smith and drummer Barry Kerch are the only original members remaining. Opening […]

Snoop Dogg announced his arrived in Springfield on Friday morning by posting a video on Instagram of an older black female wearing a muumuu, walking along Adams Street downtown. “My mama used to walk around the living room like that, time to clean up when she come out with this shit on,” said Snoop in […]

Megadeth was originally scheduled to perform at the Illinois State Fair Grandstand for Friday, Aug. 9. However, not long after the announcement was made public, lead singer and band founder Dave Mustaine was diagnosed with throat cancer and immediately canceled the tour for health reasons. A replacement tour was soon found to fill the date. […]

When the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s gained momentum, music and song were at the forefront of the action. To honor the holiday known as Juneteeth, celebrated on June 19 to commemorate an official end of slavery in Texas in 1865, and accepted by the African-American community as a national date for […]

The Illinois Symphony Orchestra closed out its 2018-2019 season with “Nature’s Beauty,” a soaring and varied concert at Sangamon Auditorium on Saturday, May 4. ISO executive director Trevor Orthmann, in his opening remarks, accurately described the program as encompassing both “some of the most beautiful and most bombastic” music. The evening’s music started with the […]

Area jazz and Cajun cuisine fans can get a taste for New Orleans at “Mardi Gras in May.” New Orleans jazz performers and local musicians come together for a musical gumbo May 10 for the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence annual fundraiser featuring The Charmaine Neville Band with local talent Frank Parker, Chilli Bryant and […]

The Illinois Symphony Orchestra began its 26th season on Saturday, Oct. 20, with a lopsided program at Sangamon Auditorium. The concert, billed as a “Bicentennial Celebration” for the state of Illinois, included a salute to the female gender, followed by a somber tribute to Abraham Lincoln before concluding with a spirited performance of one of […]