CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Music at Allerton Park, performed in a restored Dutch hay barn, is a fall tradition. This year’s Allerton Barn Music Festival will feature a tribute to Dizzy Gillespie and a production of the contemporary Broadway musical “[title of show].”
The festival is Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at the Allerton Music Barn, 588 Allerton Road, Monticello, Illinois. It’s a collaboration between Allerton Park and the University of Illinois School of Music, and it traditionally showcases the U. of I.’s jazz faculty and the Lyric Theatre.
The jazz faculty will present “A Dizzy Gillespie Centenary Tribute” at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the barn. The music of Gillespie was chosen because of the 100th anniversary of his birth, and also because of his impact on jazz and developing a new genre called bebop music, said Chip McNeill, a music professor and chair of the jazz performance program.
“He was one of the people who ushered in the bebop era, along with Charlie Parker,” McNeill said. “It was the antithesis of the big-band era, and a reaction to the big-band/swing era and music as purely entertainment, a danceable commodity. Bebop was music for musicians.
“Gillespie understood entertainment value and how to present bebop to an audience. He still made it entertaining and fun and new, even though it was challenging for the musicians.”
The eight jazz faculty who will perform a 90-minute concert at the music festival will play a number of Gillespie compositions, along with some by Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and others.
The Jupiter String Quartet performs at the 2016 Allerton Music Barn Festival.
McNeill said the music barn festival grew out of a summer concert featuring the jazz faculty that was eventually moved to the Allerton Music Barn. The concert is a way to generate support for the jazz program and allow more people to hear them play.
The Lyric Theatre’s production of “[title of show]” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
Director Sarah Wigley, a voice professor and the musical theater coordinator for the Lyric Theatre program, wanted a contemporary show that would appeal to students and one that would feel intimate being performed in the barn. The show features a cast of four people, and the audience will be seated in the round. Wigley said it is unlike anything the Lyric Theatre has presented at the Allerton Music Barn Festival.
The musical – which premiered on Broadway in 2009 – is about the creative process of developing the show that the audience is attending. It follows its own progress from conception of the idea to making it to Broadway.
“It’s very funny and geared toward an audience that is a little more student-oriented,” Wigley said. “It samples different styles of musical theater. If you happen to be a lover of musical theater, this is not a show to miss, because there are some inside jokes about different shows, the writers of shows and the theater community.”
The production is also an example of collaboration across the U. of I. campus, Wigley said. Of the four cast members, two are from the School of Music, studying voice and composition. One of the others is a master’s student in nutritional science, and the fourth is a communication major.
“The cast has such great chemistry. On the first day, nobody knew each other, and it’s this great collaboration,” she said.
This year marks a return to the Allerton Music Barn Festival’s three-day schedule. The festival was on hiatus in 2015 due to budget concerns and was brought back on a smaller scale in 2016.
Tickets can be purchased at krannertcenter.com or by calling the box office at 217-333-6280.
Editor’s note: Information about the Allerton Music Barn Festival is available online at http://allerton.illinois.edu/event/music-barn-festival-2/.
And, yes, the title of the Broadway musical is “[title of show].”
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