Fourth of July Celebration in Millennium Park July 4, 2009

Celebrate the 4th of July with a picnic on Millennium Park's Great Lawn, followed by the Grant Park Music Festival's first-ever Independence Day concert in Millennium Park at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion.  Inspired by cartoons of John T. McCutcheon that were created in 1904, the picnic features members of the theater company, Collaboraction, portraying the fictional citizens of McCutcheon's "Bird Center".  Boxed lunches (provided by Marcello's for $6.95) are based on Bird Center picnic fare depicted in McCutcheon's cartoon, Fourth of July Fete.  Adding to the festivities are readings of the Declaration of Independence and other patriotic speeches, and performances of ragtime, country music and turn-of-the-century waltzes by the Northside Southpaws, a Chicago mandolin/guitar duo.

The Grant Park Music Festival will strike up the band immediately following the picnic, with their first ever Independence Day concert in Millennium Park.  Expected to be an annual tradition, the Grant Park Orchestra will perform traditional and patriotic favorites under the baton of Christopher Bell.  This joyous program includes rousing renditions of Francis Scott Key's Star Spangled Banner, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and John Philip Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever.  Chicago tap dance master Lane Alexander makes a special guest appearance in three selections from Morton Gould's Concerto for Tap Dancer and Orchestra, a work on which Alexander is considered one of the foremost experts.

Millennium Park's regularly sch...

Official Website: http://www.millenniumpark.org/parkevents/event.aspx?id=939