September 2015 in review

Books read (3):

• Building Stories by Chris Ware
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel

Live performances (9):

• On the Town at the Lyric Theatre (9/1/15)
• Matilda at the Shubert Theatre (9/15/15)
• The King and I at the Vivian Beaumont (9/16/15)
• Renée Fleming & the Emerson String Quartet at Sub-Culture (9/16/15)
• The Gil Evans Project plays Miles Ahead and Porgy & Bess at the Jazz Standard (9/17/15)
• BRILLIANT: The Songs of the Brill Building Composers at the Duplex (9/18/15)
• Spring Awakening at the Brooks Atkinson (9/24/15)

Other miscellany:

• Went back to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, to work at the Ellnora Guitar Festival
• Started up music assistant work for the next reading of I Am, I Will, I Do, in early October

Ellnora 2015

I worked at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts for over four years, as a stage manager/production assistant and events coordinator. While there I had the fortune to be a part of 2 Ellnora Guitar Festivals, a 3-day biennial affair that features about 30 performances in 6 of the building's venues. While I no longer work there, I was asked to come back this year to work the festival, because it is such a large affair.

Click through for the Ellnora 2015 gallery

Coming back was a sort of homecoming for me. I loved working at Krannert, and some days I spent so much time there that it was a second home, and I missed the building and the people who worked there, who have been like a second family. It's such a unique venue, particularly in the Midwest: 5 stages, including a 2100 seat concert hall that the Chicago Symphony used to record in, and continues to gets raves from artists all around the world; 250-300 events a year, ranging from top-notch professionals to burgeoning student ensembles and productions; a unique (and labyrinthine) architecture that fills a city block.

Ellnora 2015 is a great way to show off the building and its capabilities. This year there were 29 performances over the three days, and they included artists such as Sharon Isbin, the Punch Brothers, Bucky & John Pizzarelli, Los Lobos, John Scofield, and a 13-guitar performance of Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint. After the opening night party, I was in Foellinger Great Hall most of the weekend, helping out other venues and PAs when I had the time. It was a great pleasure to work with the artists who played there.

Ellnora brings the Krannert and Champaign-Urbana communities together, so of course we take moments to document it in photography during some of our brief moments of downtime. I gathered a few pictures in the gallery here (some were previously posted on Twitter and Instagram [#KrannertLyfe]).

This year's Ellnora was a huge success, and I'm looking forward to 2017's festival!

August 2015 in review

Books read (8):

• Amazing Grace (33 1/3) by Aaron Cohen
• Urgent, Unheard Stories by Roxane Gay
• Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
• We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach
• American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
• The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns
• March, Book 1 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
• March, Book 2 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

Live performances (9):

• Cold Mountain at the Santa Fe Opera (8/5/15)
• Santa Fe Desert Chorale at Cathedral Basilica, Santa Fe (8/6/15)
• Significant Other at Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center (8/14/15)
• Threesome at 59E59 (8/21/15)
• Mamma Mia! at the Broadhurst Theatre (8/22/15)
• John at the Signature Theatre (8/23/15)
• Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theatre (8/24/15)
• Jonathan Cuevas Cello Duet Recital (8/25/15)
• Allison Burns and Lulu Picart cabaret at the Metropolitan Room (8/31/15)

Movies seen (1):

• The Wrecking Crew (8/16/15)

July 2015 in review

Books read (5):

• The Museum of Literary Souls by John Connolly
• The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March (art by Art Spiegelman)
• Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby

Live performances (4):

• Little Shop of Horrors at New York City Center (7/2/15)
• The Wild Party at New York City Center (7/17/15)
• It Shoulda Been You at the Brooks Atkinson (7/19/15)
• George Abud at 54 Below (7/24/15)

Movies seen (1):

• Cold Mountain (7/25/15)

June 2015 in review

Books read (6):

• The Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins
• Denton Little's Deathdate by Lance Rubin
• Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Sountrack (33 1/3 series) by Andrew Schartmann
• I'm Special: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves by Ryan O'Connell
• Empire State: A Love Story (or Not) by Jason Shiga
• Intimacy Idiot by Isaac Oliver

Live performances (12):

• It's Only a Play at the Jacobs Theatre (6/2/15)
• Maria Schneider Orchestra at Birdland (6/4/15)
• Preludes at Claire Tow Theatre (6/5/15)
• Fun Home at Circle In the Square (6/9/15) (Post-Tonys performance!)
• Fun Home at Circle In the Square (6/10/15)
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the Barrymore Theatre (6/11/15)
• On the Twentieth Century at the American Airlines Theatre (6/12/15)
• The King & I at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre (6/13/15)
• An American in Paris at the Palace Theatre (6/14/15)
• Tori Kelly at the Best Buy Theatre (6/23/15)
• Shows For Days at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre (6/27/15)
• Hand to God at the Booth Theatre (6/28/15)

Other miscellany:

• Music directed The Melody Lingers On at 54 Below (6/20/15)
• Attending special announcement from Jazz at Lincoln Center for Blue Engine Records at Jazz at Lincoln Center (6/30/15)