PLEIN AIR CONCERT SERIES: Chanson française with Nathalie Colas and Isabelle Olivier

Our Plein Air Concerts return to our jewel-box courtyard! Enjoy an hour of music with your friends while sipping rosé wine in an intimate setting. We cover the range from jazz to chansons françaises, and bossa nova to tap dancing and we go international with performers from France, Argentina, Venezuela and of course… Chicago!

Tonight’s program / Ce soir! 

The Strasbourg-born soprano Nathalie Colas, member of the Third Coast Baroque ensemble, returns with composer Isabelle Olivier at the harp, fresh from her Villa Albertine residency in DC, in a program mixing la chanson française at its best and new compositions for harp!

Door opens at 6:00 p.m. Live music starts at 6:30 p.m. Please enter via 810 N. Dearborn. Each table of four includes one bottle of Rosé de Provence and salted nuts. Reserve early! Seating is limited in our intimate courtyard. Weather permitting otherwise event moves indoors in our salon.

More about Nathalie Colas:

Hailed for her “floating, silky" “luminous soprano” and deemed “a standout in acting and voice” as well as “hypnotic (Chicago Classical Review), Soprano Nathalie Colas is a versatile and curious musician, artist, producer and music advocate.

She is a current soloist and founder of Third Coast Baroque, Liederstube, and new music ensemble Fonema Consort. She has sung with Haymarket Opera, the St Louis Bach Society and Aestas Consort in recent seasons. Nathalie is an active chorister singing with the Chicago Symphony Chorus, the Grant Park Chorus, and Music of the Baroque.

As a concert soloist, Nathalie was recently heard in Mahler 4th Symphony with the Symphony of Oak Park & River Forest, in Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Valparaiso, and in the title role of Rita by G. Donizetti in Switzerland. An avid recitalist, Nathalie studied art song with the late German baritone Udo Reinemann and regularly performs such repertoire (Symphony Center, Pianoforte Foundation, Chicago Arts Club, Driehaus Museum).

Ms. Colas is a passionate educator who teaches voice at Triton College and Concordia University Chicago. A graduate of DePaul University School of Music and of the Brussels Royal Conservatory, she completed her opera training at the Swiss Opera Studio/Hochschule der Kunst Bern, Switzerland. Nathalie was born and raised in Strasbourg, France

More about Isabelle Olivier:

Isabelle Olivier is a jazzwoman, harpist, and recording artist offering a fresh and distinctive style to the international artistic world with her surprising and unique instrument. A composer working in several genres, such as jazz, Celtic and contemporary music, she also composed the soundtracks for films by Agnes Varda and Abdellatif Kechiche.

Eight years ago, Isabelle Olivier came to Chicago to develop a Franco-American project. The jazz opera Don’t worry, be happy is an adaptation of the novel Le Baron Perché by Italo Calvino bringing together American singers and French musicians. In 2017, the Art Institute of Chicago asked her to compose a one hour-long show linked with the exhibition Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist (July 2017).

Isabelle Olivier won the Prix de la Villa Le Nôtre of Versailles in 2015 and was the first composer to benefit from a residency at the Potager du Roi. She is currently the worldwide ambassador of the new electro-acoustic harp Salvi ‘Rainbow.’

She was lucky enough to work with outstanding artists such as Peter Erskine, Didier Lockwood, Ernie Adams, Mitch Haupers, Paul Wertico, enabling her to build a wonderful artistic path as a musician, and to realize the potential of orchestral alchemy and interdisciplinary encounters.

Since 2018, she is a composer associated with the Théâtre de Guyancourt: this residency is supported by the French Ministry of Culture and the SACEM. She has created seven shows and is going to continue her creative and diffusion work, as well as her cultural actions there for two years.

Isabelle 11th CD, “Smile”, recorded at Piano Forte in Chicago, just came out in 2022.  

Save the date! More Plein Air Concerts coming up!

September 19 : Greta Pope returns! Register here

October 3: Jazz and Tap Dancing with Chicago Human Rhythm Project. Register here