We created the CLOSE ENCOUNTERS series as a way to draw you further inside the music...something beyond you sitting politely with your hands folded in your lap. We've been astounded by the response to this interactive (and...shhhhh...don't tell anyone...FUN!) concert format, and the fact that it was launched with some, at times, seriously heady music (Schoenberg), we know it's a keeper.

Schoenberg's second quartet, fiercely delivered by world-class soprano Kiera Duffy, was complimented by a custom batch from Chicago brewery Illuminated Brew Works, inspired by an early 1900's recipe from Schoenberg's Vienna. The third found all of us in the great room of the Prairie-style Lang House, capping off our evening with a private tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Emil Bach House. And our season closer provided you with canvases, paints, and instruction in German Expressionism...with a nightcap of us performing three of your paintings as graphic scores.

It's been an amazing ride, and YOU KNOW that we are going to outdo ourselves next season.

Thank you for making this season so memorable, and we hope you'll be generous in your support of our 2018/19 season, THE WORLD AROUND US!

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