Photos: Andrew Nawrocki

Leila Bowie from The Statue of Venus sings "Pop-up Opera."

Heard an aria while you were strolling down Michigan Ave? The rich tones of a baritone while you were ordering breakfast? Don’t be surprised: Chicago Opera Theater is literally bringing opera to the people with its week long series of “Pop-up Opera” performances around the city. These brief ‘flash’ performances of popular opera favorites will be performed by COT Young Artists in unexpected public places throughout Chicago. Go to Chicagooperatheater.org/operaweek for hints on where and when “Pop-up Opera” will be that week, or hit up http://twitter.com/chicagoopera for frequent Twitter alerts. Keep your ears perked, as the stray voice of a soprano could also earn you some swag. Anyone who includes #popupopera in a tweet when they witness a “Pop-up Opera” performance during National Opera Week will automatically be entered in a contest. Prizes include subscriptions to Chicago Opera Theater, $50 gift cards from COT preferred restaurants and tickets to Kathleen Battle at the Harris Theater on Dec 18.

UPDATE: In addition to offering a pair of tickets to the Kathleen Battle performance as a prize for the COT “Pop-Up Opera” contest, the Harris is offering $5 off all tickets to the Battle performance booked during National Opera Week.

Chen would have been the clear star of the evening, had the 20-year-old piano prodigy Jeremy Jordan not taken the stage. With a wonderful synthesis of youthful swagger and a stoicism that exceeded his years, Jordan settled at the keys, swept his coat tails over the bench, and enjoyed a tense swell of silence for a few seconds before embarking on Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto No.1, Op.1, in F-sharp minor.” Currently a student at Julliard, Chicagoan Jordan first started playing with the Sinfonietta at age 17 and his ease under Freeman’s baton was evident throughout the performance.

The final highlight of the evening came in the form of erhu player Betti Xiang, who took her place on a stool, dressed in a golden gown and little drop earrings, which quivered with her every movement. The erhu, a tiny traditional Chinese fiddle with two strings, is hardly common to the Sinfonietta, yet it merged with Xiang’s masterful, stinging, sweet tones with vitality and enthusiasm.

West Meets East was an inspired program, offering a kaleidoscopic range of compositional approaches that set the Sinfonietta up for a strong start to the season.

I forced myself to ignore a quickly rising fever when I saw his tweet from earlier on in the day: “PARTY MINDSET: For the rest of the day treat everyone as though they were dying tomorrow. In other words, PARTY VERY HARD!”

OMG. I am 27,  am I getting too old to party?

This party, however, started with Bach’s “Prelude in C major/Ave Maria.” I had seen AWK on YouTube going solo on the piano. I had been impressed, but nothing prepared me for the night that ensued.

Andrew W.K. and the Calder Quartet gave us a sweet rendition of not only Bach, but an orgasmic Philip Glass and a playful John Cage in a course of two hours. Clapping didn’t have to wait for the end of the piece; head banging had never felt so painless; foot stomping had never been so welcome. A string quartet has rarely been so loose. The members could rarely hold themselves from smiling and rocking out, banging their heads to their own chords.

Audience engagement was encouraged. We were often reminded that we were not only there to see AWK on the piano or the quartet do its thing. They were also there for us, and because of us. Our presence mattered as much as theirs. AWK told us to recognize that we were part of a great experiment. During “Interface,” AWK stepped back, letting the Calder Quartet flash its veracity along with 8-bit music (yeah, the kind that reminds you of your Nintendo days).

AWK was animated during his solo. Pacing himself carefully, he slowly pushed his feet farther and farther away from the piano, as the increasing potency of the improv moved to its climax. He ended, not by pounding a last chord, but by grabbing the head of the piano and lifting it just a few inches from the ground. In his typical setting, this was the moment were a guitar might have been smashed. But this wasn’t rage, he held that piano like one holds a nut that is tough to crack.

“Play Hard” got more than 20 enthusiastic fans on stage. If we all could have fit, I am sure AWK and the Calder Quartet would have welcomed us. Nothing was inappropriate, nothing was static. For AWK turned his “I Love New York City,” into 100+ backup singers jumping to “I love you, CHI-CA-GO, I love you, CHI-CA-GO, I love you, CHI-CA-GO.”

After “Dance Party” came the closing and third movement of the feast. All five musicians put their instruments to the side and turned their heads down. It was John Cage’s 4′33″. Then, we all heard the conversations continue, additional song requests, nervous giggles, and rolling bottles under our chairs. Those present were either confused or knew—or thought they knew—the “point” of 4′33″. A kid tried to dive into the audience from the stage, and nobody caught him. It was hard to hold your laughter, and it was hard not to scream. Somehow, this did not feel awkward at all.

When the four minutes and thirty three seconds had passed, the musicians just walked behind the curtain and left our sight. We all slowly walked out. Andrew W.K. told us we would wake up today and be changed because of the experience we shared together (he is a paid motivational speaker, after all). He was right. I am an AWK convert now. And a big Calder Quartet fan, too.

Quartet Solo Series, the first release by the New York-based label Striking Mechanism, which specializes in improvised and experimental music, is a startling journey in sound. The CD features four pieces by four separate composers: Marina Peterson, Jonathan Chen, Phillip Schulze and Andrew Raffo Dewer. The highly experimental, minimalist works may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but Chen Peterson’s cello, which sounds like a boiling kettle being pushed around on dry ice, is oddly soothing.

On the flipside of this rhythmic looseness is Alarm Will Sound, with the outstanding a/rhythmia (Nonesuch). Here, Herculean rhythms combine with startling energy and mathematical precision in a successful attempt to jolt the listener out of their comfort zone. Featuring 14 pieces written by composers as diverse as György Ligeti, Autechre, Conlon Nancarrow and Benedict Mason, Alarm Will Sound’s interpretations are engrossing abstractions that shiver with tension before bolting in unexpected directions, skipping across the beats with seemingly inexhaustible vigor.

Finally, Hawaii-based composer John A. Carollo’s timely Transcendence in the Age of War (Navona) is a 70-minute collection of works written over the last decade and is worth checking out for the opening track, “Desiderio for String Orchestra” alone. Scored for violins, violas, cellos and contrabass and performed by the Moravian String Orchestra, it’s a stingingly poignant piece that, in the words of Carollo, “expresses remoteness of desire, its discovery and the ultimate satisfaction of experiencing human appetites.”

The Échange score with conductor's markings.

Judging by the number of wait-listers who hovered at the entrance to the MCA Stage Thursday night, the guerilla marketing tactics of International Contemporary Ensemble’s Street Team—including hipster-friendly “X” and “Xenakis” buttons—seemed to have paid off. Brainy Greek composer Iannis Xenakis is known for the sometimes impossible demands he makes on the musicians, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who came to see how ICE navigates his scores.

Steve Schick is a world-class percussionist and, at the MCA show, ICE’s conductor. Stepping into an eerie wash of scarlet light surrounding his rig, he opened the concert with “Psappha,” for solo percussion. As Schick coiled up between attacks, it occurred to me that “Psappha” is as much about the potency of silence as it is about sound—and that I held my breath during each of these suspensions.

By far, one of the most harmonically beautiful moments of the night was unveiled toward the end of “Akanthos,” with the retreat of the instruments into an atmospheric haze as vocalist Tony Arnold lofted a very pure tone toward us. She spent the majority of the piece wrangling with Xenakis’s vocal acrobatics, and it was a much-needed moment of serenity. If you see Tony Arnold’s name listed for a concert, buy a ticket immediately.

Other highlights included the never-disappointing Joshua Rubin, grinding multiphonics out of his bass clarinet in “Échange” and the sonic experience of “O-Mega,” in which ICE members lined the side walls of MCA Stage for a literal surround-sound effect.

ICE has been described as having one foot in Chicago and one in New York City. Let’s hope the one in our city stays firmly planted.

PHOTO: LIZ LAUREN

Based on the gothic novella by Henry James and composed to a libretto by Myfanwy Piper in 1970, Benjamin Britten’s Owen Wingrave was originally commissioned as a BBC television production, although Britten always intended for it to be performed onstage. It took a couple of years before his vision was satisfied; Britten’s close friend, conductor Steuart Bedford, worked on the first stage performance in London and now, finally, he makes his Chicago debut nearly 40 years later to conduct the opera at the Harris Theater.

Stage designer Peter Harrison ditches the modernist flair that often colors Chicago Opera Theater’s productions, favoring instead the Victorian costumes inspired by the original story. The stage is kept smart and simple; the shadows looming in the background allow the violets and reds of the ladies’ gowns to shriek, a touch that highlighted their roles as overbearing, irrational family members. The only cumbersome element of the set, a wide staircase that splits into three parts, is maneuvered by curious gray-haired creatures that look like withered, dusty mice dressed as butlers.

Rejecting the soldier’s life he has been primed for since birth and casting aside the fate determined by his ancestors, Owen Wingrave enters one of the most ferocious battlefields of all—the family argument. Matthew Worth, in the title role, portrays the young pacifist with all the necessary fortitude and stoic courage one expects from such a character, and his fine, bright baritone expresses the most poetic lines in what is otherwise a fairly dry and serious opera. Beautifully supported by Bedford and his orchestra, the four female roles shine in this small cast—most notably Rebecca Caine as Mrs. Coyle, whose dynamic range projected throughout the theater with vigorous emotion.

It’s a timely choice for COT to produce an opera about liberation from oppression, and it certainly got the audience talking. During the intermission I overheard the crowd discuss everything from Britten’s pacifist views in a contemporary context to the opera’s various possible readings: “It’s a metaphor for coming out of the closet!”

There’s very little action in Owen Wingrave, but Britten’s hostility toward war provides the backbone for much of his art. As Wingrave declares in Act 1: “Courage in peace, the kind that poets know, wins everything.” Tonight was no exception.

Owen Wingrave finishes its run from May 20–26 at the Harris Theater. See Listings for more details.

Of course, no water-centered program is going to escape a rendition of Debussy’s La Mer, which was directed by guest conductor William Eddins. Although every element of the orchestra was on top form, Eddins stole the show with his charismatic conducting, which was both expressive and powerfully moving. The buoyant personality of Debussy’s composition flourished thrillingly under his command, and he departed from the stage shaking his head in humble delight.

The final performance was the world premiere of Michael Abels’s Aquadia, which will be the soundtrack to the new Oceanarium show at the Shedd Aquarium. Having been left somewhat disgruntled by the ostentatious Disney-esque tunes used for the Shedd’s dolphin show, it was a relief to hear that Abels’s animated, crystalline rhythmic elegance gave the music dignified fluidity. Images from the aquarium were projected behind the orchestra throughout, and highlighted the compelling relationship between music and color, as electric pink jellyfish, spiky blowfish, and fetal-looking beluga whales were brought to life.

Paul Freeman

“We’ve actually been talking about a transition plan all the way back to 2005,” executive director Jim Hirsch told me by phone Thursday afternoon. He added that several committee members have been assembling names since last May, but would not disclose any potential successors. “As you know, over the last couple of years, maestro Freeman has been dealing with some health challenges that has made it fairly clear we needed to act on this.” Hirsch emphasized that the decision has been 100 percent mutual between Freeman and the organization.

Still, Freeman will remain active as music director for the next two years, and Hirsch says there will always be a role for the 73-year-old with the Sinfonietta as long as he desires. His conducting activity over the next two years, however, will be reduced.

The Sinfonietta plays this Sunday and Monday with Joffrey Ballet music director Leslie Dunner stepping in as guest conductor.

No word on whether there will be a reality-show talent search to discover the new leader, but I’m guessing no.