Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

ELLNORA: A Story of Floating Weeds with live music by Alex de Grassi

Friday, September 11, 2009, at 8:30pm | Amphitheatre

ELLNORA | The Guitar Festival | “When you see [Yasujiro Ozu’s] films, you feel in the arms of a serenely confident and caring master. In his stories about people who live far away, you recognize, in one way or another, everyone you know.”
—Roger Ebert

“Floating weeds” are itinerant actors in Japan, and in this 1934 silent film by Yasujiro Ozu, an aging leading man takes his failing troupe back to his hometown for what turns out to be a series of altogether different performances. Komajuro secretly visits his old lover, whose son has never been told that Uncle Komajuro is actually his father. Enraged and jealous, Komajuro’s current lover pays an attractive young actress in the company to seduce the son. When they fall in love, Komajuro loses everything: his burgeoning relationship with his son, his pride, his relevance as a professional, and his expectations about family.

Through his pianist father and his jazz-loving mother, Alex de Grassi’s family led him to classical works and jazz. His Grammy-nominated steel-string style has been showcased at such notable venues as the Montreux Jazz Festival, Carnegie Hall, Wolftrap, and, naturally, our 2007 guitar festival, where our audiences embraced de Grassi’s heavenly fretboard work, intricate arrangements, exquisite touch, and thick canvas of sounds. Tom Wheeler lamented in Guitar Player magazine that his technique is “the kind that shoves fellow pickers to the cliff of decision: should I practice like a madman or chuck it altogether?” His narrative fluidity on the strings perfectly escorts Ozu’s contemplative visual style on an exploration of family, love, togetherness—the things we all care about the most.

Go to the official ELLNORA web site
Corporate Power Train Engine:
Eastland Suites Hotel and Conference Center
Scanics

Corporate Power Train Sponsors:
WCIA 3
JSM Development

Patron Sponsor:
Anonymous

Corporate Gold Sponsor:
One Main Development

Patron Co-sponsors:
Frances and Marc Ansel
Jean Huddleston, Kelly Foster, and Paul Foster
A. Mark Neuman
Mary and George Perlstein
Carol and Ed Scharlau

Corporate Silver Sponsors:
Chief/Bauer Heating & Air Conditioning
Dean’s Graphic Division
Hendrick House
The Blind Man Hunter Douglas Gallery

Corporate Bronze Sponsors:
Bacca Cigar Company
Barham Benefit Group
Fluid Events LLC
Precision Graphics
Jeffrey Van Buren, Senior Vice President-Investments of Wells Fargo Advisors LLC, and Valerie Van Buren

Regional Grant:
Arts Midwest

Additional Support: Fluid Events, LLC