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Grant Park Music Festival and Music in Chicago's “Front Yard”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2020

KATHERINE BRUCHER
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Abstract

Chicago's Grant Park Music Festival, a free classical music series, provides a case study for exploring how music festivals contribute to the musical life of cities. Each summer, the Grant Park Music Festival Orchestra and Choir perform dozens of free performances at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park and in residential neighborhoods. In 1935, James C. Petrillo, head of the Chicago local of the American Federation of Musicians, initiated the festival, then called Grant Park Concerts, to employ musicians during the Great Depression with funds from the federal Works Progress Administration. Changes in the city's cultural policies, its demographics, financial support, and expectations for how the festival serves the community have impacted how it programs its season and seeks audiences. Based on archival research, this article focuses on how the festival as a civic institution creates a listening public invested in particular narratives of Chicago as a dynamic city through programming music in public spaces. Looking at Grant Park Music Festival from contemporary and historical angles provides insight into how changes in aesthetic and social values, funding for the arts, and urban planning shape the way a festival engages with the city.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 14 , Special Issue 1: Music Festivals , February 2020 , pp. 10 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2020

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References

References

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Chicago Federation of Musicians Scrapbook. 1935. American Federation of Musicians. Chicago Chapter Files. Music Information Center. Chicago Public Library, Chicago.Google Scholar
Chicago Park District Records. Photographs. Special Collections. Chicago Public Library, Chicago.Google Scholar
Barry, Edward. “Philharmonic Orchestra Wins Old Acclaim.” Chicago Tribune. July 12, 1936.Google Scholar
Biles, Roger. “Machine Politics.” Encyclopedia of Chicago. Edited by Reiff, Janice L., Keating, Ann Durkin, and Grossman, James R.. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/774.html.Google Scholar
Brown, V. K. “Report of the Recreation Division.” Second Annual Report Chicago Park District for Year Ending December 31, 1936, 173–196. Chicago: Chicago Park District, 1937.Google Scholar
Clague, Mark, “The Industrial Evolution of the Arts: Chicago's Auditorium Building (1889–) as Cultural Machine.” Opera Quarterly 22, nos. 3–4 (Summer–Autumn 2006): 477–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Terry Nichols. “Introduction: Taking Entertainment Seriously.” In The City as an Entertainment Machine. Edited by Clark, Terry Nichols, 1–13. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011.Google Scholar
Currid, Elizabeth. “Bohemia as Subculture; ‘Bohemia’ as Industry.” Journal of Planning Literature 3, no. 4 (May 2009): 368–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drake, St. Clair, and Cayton, Horace. The Black Metropolis. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co, 1945. Reprinted with a forward by Mary Patillo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Dyett, Neota McCurdy. “In the Realm of Music.” Chicago Defender. July 13, 1935.Google Scholar
Fisher, Colin. Urban Green: Nature, Recreation, and Working Class in Industrial Chicago. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books, 2002.Google Scholar
Gough, Peter. Sounds of the New Deal. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devries, Herman. “Grant Park Concerts Show Public More Music-Wise.” Chicago Evening American. July 14, 1936.Google Scholar
Dunham, Robert J. “Chicago, Know Your Parks—and their cost to you.” Chicago—Know Your Parks: A Series of Radio Addresses Delivered by R. J. Dunham, President, Chicago Park District. Chicago: Chicago Park District, May 1937.Google Scholar
Grant Park Concerts Society. Grant Park Music Festival, A 60-Year Record, 1935–1994. Chicago: Grant Park Concerts Society, 1995.Google Scholar
Green, Paul. “Kelly-Nash Machine.” Encyclopedia of Chicago. Edited by Reiff, Janice L., Keating, Ann Durkin, and Grossman, James R.. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/686.html.Google Scholar
Halter, Clark. “A History of Local 208 and the Struggle for Racial Equality in the American Federation of Musicians.” Black Music Research Journal 8, no. 2 (Autumn 1988): 207–22.Google Scholar
Levine, Lawrence. Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Macaluso, Tony, Bachrach, Julia S., and Samors, Neal. Sounds of Chicago's Lakefront. Chicago: Chicago's Books Press, 2009.Google Scholar
“Mayor Edward J. Kelly.” Intermezzo 16, no. 191 (April 1939): 1.Google Scholar
“Mayor Kelly's Contribution to Modern Recreation.” First Annual Report of the Park District for the period May 1, 1934 to December 31, 1935, 8–10. Chicago: Chicago Park District, 1936.Google Scholar
Molotch, Harvey. “The City as Grown Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place.” American Journal of Sociology 82, no. 2 (September 1976): 309–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, Edward. “50,000 Hear Symphony in Park Concert: Series Disproves Notions about Music.” Chicago Tribune. July 5, 1935.Google Scholar
Moore, Edward. “Fine Program Launches Park Concert Series.” Chicago Tribune. July 2, 1935.Google Scholar
Mundy, James A. “Marian Anderson.” Chicago Defender. February 10, 1940.Google Scholar
“New Possibilities of Sound Systems Shown in Outstanding Installations.” Pick-Ups, November 1940. https://www.americanradiohistory.com/index.htm.Google Scholar
Petrillo, James C. “Re-elect Mayor Kelly.” Intermezzo 16, no. 191 (March 1939): 1.Google Scholar
Petrillo, James C. “Concerts in Grant Park.” Intermezzo 13, no. 147 (July 1935): 3.Google Scholar
“Plan 2 Months of Nightly Park Concerts Here: Symphony Orchestras and Bands Will Play.” Chicago Daily Tribune. June 3, 1935.Google Scholar
Reardon, Patrick T. “Burnham Quote: Well, It May Be.” Chicago Tribune. January 1, 1992. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-01-01/news/9201010041_1_sentences-chicago-architects.Google Scholar
“Report of the President, Chicago, May 12, 1936.” First Annual Report of the Park District for the period May 1, 1934 to December 31, 1935. Chicago: Chicago Park District, 1936.Google Scholar
Sandburg, Carl. “Chicago.” Poetry 3, no. 6 (March 1914): 191–92. Reprinted in Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12840/chicago.Google Scholar
Santella, Anna-Lise P. “Taking the Stage: The Woman's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago at the Grant Park Festival and the Remaking of the Modern Orchestra.” Lecture delivered at Smith College, Northampton, MA, February 6, 2009.Google Scholar
Seman, Michael. “What if Hewlett and Packard had started a band instead?: An Examination of a Music Scene as Economic Cluster.” Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts 4, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 33–49.Google Scholar
Seman, Michael. “How a Music Scene Functioned as a Tool for Urban Redevelopment: A Case Study of Omaha's Slowdown Project.” City, Culture, and Society 1, no. 4 (December 2010): 207–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Nick. American Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA; When FDR Put the Nation to Work. New York: Bantam Books, 2008.Google Scholar
Travis, Dempsey J. “Bronzeville.” Encyclopedia of Chicago. Edited by Reiff, Janice L., Keating, Ann Durkin, and Grossman, James R.. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/171.html.Google Scholar
Vaillant, Derek. Sounds of Reform. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2003.Google Scholar
Wynn, Jonathan. Music/City: American Festivals and Placemaking in Austin, Nashville, and Newport. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar