The Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art in Oak Brook always features lots to look at. Once a month, there’s also something special to hear during the museum’s Community Music Programs.
Upcoming programs feature New Vintage Strings, presenting “A Century of Songs: Hits Through the Decades” on Jan. 11; Downtown Charlie Brown on Feb. 1; and David Polk on March 22.
The events all are at 2 p.m. and cost $20 per person or $5 for museum members. Reservations are required at lizzadromuseum.org/calendar.
Lizzadro Executive Director Kyle Brill said they started the Community Music Programs “in the late stages of COVID when there weren’t a lot of music venues that were opening up because we had a nice intimate space where we could do a music performance.”
“It’s a way for the museum to support arts that isn’t in our wheelhouse,” Brill said. He said the series also gives people who might not otherwise visit the museum a chance to see what it has to offer.
That turned out to be a wonderful benefit for the museum. Brill reported that over half of the people attending the concerts have never visited the museum before.
“Oftentimes, they will join as a member to save the money initially,” museum educator Sara Kurth said. “But then they keep coming back to the museum.”
Brill observed that because they schedule a variety of music, “we’re tapping into different local crowds. Oftentimes, artists will bring their own local followers with them. That’s where we see the most first-time visitors.”
There are also performers who enjoy the events so much that they return to perform again.
“We have some artists who are returning every year,” Kurth said. “We get sellout performances for those individuals because of their popularity and the stories they tell.”
Double bassist Jeremy Beyer founded New Vintage Strings in 2018, along with his wife violinist Emily Beyer, Violinist Maura Brown and violist Allison Zabelin. The group sometimes performs as a trio or a duet, but they will be a quartet on Jan. 11 at Lizzadro. Other string players sometimes substitute for a founding member.
Beyer said the four founding members decided to call their group New Vintage Strings because, “We like modern music. We like the classics. We can play a wide variety of genres in a new way.”
In further describing the group’s style, Beyer noted, “We like to put a jazzy or classical spin on pop songs and classic rock songs that everybody knows and loves.”
The New Vintage Strings frequently performs at breweries and restaurants in the Fox Valley area, including Elgin, St. Charles, and Geneva. That’s convenient for three of the members. Beyer and his wife live in St. Charles, Brown lives in South Elgin, and Zabelin is from Highland Park.
For the Lizzadro performance, “Our program is going to feature popular songs from the past one hundred years,” Beyer said. “Our goal is to play a song or two from each decade from the 1920s to today—all instrumental, either jazzy or classical rock.”
Selections will include “Summertime,” “Stand by Me,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Kashmir,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and others. “Something for everyone,” Beyer declared.
This will be the third year in a row for Downtown Charlie Brown to perform in the Community Music Program. Brown will be handling keyboard and vocals while Harry Binford will again be on acoustic guitar. They will play the blues — a music form born in the Mississippi Delta, and share stories about such legends as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Son House.
“I love to get a chance to tell the stories and the history of the blues. I’ll also bring some artifacts with me,” Brown said before a performance last year.
He said he prefers performing at the museum as compared to noisier venues.
“The music is upfront,” he explained, “because that’s what the people came for.”
This will also be a repeat performance at Lizzadro for Chicago-born saxophonist David Polk, who will be accompanied by pianist Leandro Lopez Varady. Polk is known for the David Polk Project, a five-piece group, but the Lizzadro performance will be a duo.
Polk has been writing original music since 1979 and has released four CDs. He has been the solo tenor saxophonist with Orchestra 33 for over 30 years and has simultaneously pursued a solo career for nearly that long.
For his most recent recording, Polk played his interpretations of eight ballads from “the Great American Songbook.”
“They were recorded live from the beginning to the end,” he said. “My improvisations and my melodies were all one take.”
Polk said he plans to do half original music and half covers at Lizzadro during the hour-long performance.
It seems obvious that Polk will enjoy the performance as much as the audience will.
“I’m fortunate to be able to play music and pay my bills,” Polk said. “All through my whole life it was just playing the saxophone and teaching the saxophone. I’m fortunate to live the life of music.”
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.