M.L. Rantala, Hyde Park Herald March 15, 2012 Iestyn Davies is a young British countertenor who has just made his Lyric Opera debut in Handel’s “Rinaldo.” He and the acclaimed British conductor Harry Bicket took time off from their Lyric duties to make a trip to Hyde Park Friday night to perform with the period [...]

By M.L. RANTALA Classical Music Critic Baroque Band has cleverly put the umbrella of “Angels and Demons” over its 2010–11 season. Last Thursday’s concert in Hyde Park was titled “Charlie’s Angels — Music from the Court of Charles II.” The program cover even had three blacked-out musicians huddled together, a fun spoof of the graphic [...]

Baroque Band concluded their third season with a program appropriately entitled “Harpsichords Galore!” which featured Bach’s Concerto for Four Harpsichords in A Minor. The Hyde Park Union Church was stuffed with marvelous keyboards (one bearing the motto “Sine scientia ars nihil est”—without knowledge, art is nothing) as well as four fine keyboardists to play them. [...]

By M.L. RANTALA Think of Jason and you are likely to conjure up images of the Argonauts and the mighty ship Argo, the daring capture of the Golden Fleece, adventure on a epic scale with terrible moral lessons underlined in blood. You can forget all that with Chicago Opera Theater’s groovy production of “Jason” (“Giasone”) [...]