Articles tagged with: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Muti, CSO and singers echo private Schubert with belated first glimpse of Mass in A-flat
Review: It is hard to know which to admire more about Schubert’s Mass No. 5 in A-flat, its consummate lyricism and elegance of construction or its honest spirituality, so open-hearted and direct. In both form and content, this luminous Mass shone in a performance Thursday night by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Riccardo Muti at Orchestra Hall. ★★★★★
Muti, CSO extend his directorship to 2019-20; next season accents French, Russian music
Report: Riccardo Muti has agreed to a five-year extension of his contract as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through the 2019-20 season, the orchestra announced Monday. Word of the new pact, concluded only Monday morning, came unexpectedly at a press conference to announce the CSO’s season plans for 2014-15, the final year on Muti’s current agreement. The 72-year-old Italian maestro expressed delight at the extension, noting with a wry grin that at its conclusion he will not yet be 80. “The older I get, the more homesick I feel,” he said, “but these musicians and the city of Chicago have made me feel like this is my second home.”
Chicago Symphony on Tour: It’s a red-carpet welcome and rave reviews in Spain’s Canarias
Report: The sail-like hall on the shore of Tenerife, one of Spain’s Canary Islands off the African coast, was home for two concerts by the touring Chicago Symphony Orchestra this week. The famous archipelago is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its winter music festival, where music director Riccardo Muti and the CSO were headliners. Now, they’re off to Germany.
Chicago Symphony on Tour: Flight snafu resolved, musicians open series in Canary Islands
Report: Music director Riccardo Muti and the CSO are set to give four performances in the Canary Islands Jan. 10-14. Spain’s idyllic archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa offers architecturally striking concert halls. But the touring musicians were no less subject to travel woes in Chicago’s frigid winter than the rest of us, missing their Madrid connection.
Bernard Rands work inspired by Beckett poetry renews composer’s time-honored link to CSO
Interview: For many, “…where the murmurs die…” will constitute a first Rands encounter. Indeed, this intimate marvel from 1993 is the perfect piece for it, whether one hears it shimmer in the live acoustical space of Orchestra Hall or through a pair of earphones.
CSO president Deborah F. Rutter lands top post at Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Arts
Report: Deborah F. Rutter, president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, has been named president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., effective Sept. 1, 2014.
Denève, Chicago Symphony master madness, catch magic of Berlioz’ fantastic dreamscape
Review: It was the nightmare you thought you could only wish for, conductor Stéphane Denève’s hallucinogenic, careening, brilliant turn through Berlioz’ “Symphonie fantastique” with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Dec. 5 at Orchestra Hall. ★★★★★
Mahlerite Michael Tilson Thomas brings newly sharpened Ninth to Chicago Symphony podium
Interview: Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas is what G.B. Shaw might have called the perfect Mahlerite. Not only his baton but his heart as well beats to the subtle impulses of yearning, angst and mockery that permeate and shape Gustav Mahler’s epic creations. Newly refocused on the subject, this Mahler maestro leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in four performances of the Ninth Symphony Nov. 21-24 at Orchestra Hall.
Bernard Haitink, master builder of Bruckner, leads Chicago Symphony in glorious Fourth
Review: Upon thoughtful examination, the outwardly splendid edifice that is Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony reveals a no less magnificent interior. Articulating the one aspect without losing sight of the other might even define the work’s core interpretive challenge. Inside and out, front to back, conductor Bernard Haitink led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a performance of consummate completeness Thursday night at Orchestra Hall. ★★★★★
Pianist Kirill Gerstein lavishes virtuosity and wit on a glittering Prokofiev concerto with the CSO
Review: This weekend’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra program is a curiously mixed affair. At intermission, I was exhilarated at having witnessed Kirill Gerstein’s virtuosic and sly performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2. On the other hand, by the time conductor Semyon Bychkov had made it to the end of a solidly fashioned performance of William Walton’s sturdily made Symphony No. 1, I was wondering why, some 80 years along, are American orchestras still dusting this off?
Chicago Symphony sets sales and gift records, inaugurates gallery honoring its donors
Report: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association set records in fiscal 2013 with $23.2 million in ticket sales and $29.8 million in contributed income. The 2013 fiscal tally, presented Oct. 23 at the Association’s annual meeting, also showed a slight operating deficit of 0.2 percent, or $169,000 on expenses totaling $73.8 million. The CSOA reported a healthy 44 percent of fiscal 2013 revenue was earned, through ticket sales and other sources.
Composers’ imaginative new worlds of sound infuse MusicNOW concert with energy, flair
Review: This just in from Chicago Symphony’s new music series: Benedict Mason’s multimedia “Delta River” with odd-lot Far East film, Donnacha Dennehy’s “Stainless Staining” for pianos of special resonance, and Anders Hillborg’s “Vaporized Tivoli,” which hints at a circus gone bad. ★★★★
In conductor Susanna Mälkki’s return to CSO, her place with the world’s elite is confirmed
Review: In her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in 2011, the Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki was impressive. In her return, Oct. 19 at Orchestra Hall, she looked like the woman who could crack the exclusive men’s club of music directors with the world’s top orchestras. ★★★★★
Riccardo Muti and stellar CSO cast honor Verdi bicentennial with a majestic view of Requiem
Review: It’s hardly surprising that anyone familiar with Verdi’s operas would associate his Requiem with that imposing body of music-dramas. The musical language of the one informs the rhetoric of the other. But the difference between Verdi’s stage works and great spiritual drama of the Requiem was the distinguishing feature of conductor Riccardo Muti’s account with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Oct. 10, the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
Relive Chicago Symphony’s Verdi Requiem: Chicago On the Aisle offers clickable concert
UPDATE: Get your finest audio headphones ready: A video on demand is now available here of the CSO’s first-ever simulcast — Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem with Riccardo Muti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, soprano Tatiana Serjan, mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona, tenor Mario Zeffiri and bass Ildar Abdrazakov.
Russian soprano’s venomous Lady Macbeth sets tone in Chicago Symphony’s Verdi thriller
Review: Tatiana Serjan is a flat-out thrilling soprano who exudes the temperament of a lioness. She is a Lady Macbeth in her early prime. There isn’t a better place to be this week than Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, where the Russian-born Serjan sings in Verdi’s “Macbeth” under ideal conditions — in concert with other emerging opera stars and the superb forces of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Riccardo Muti. ★★★★★
Muti finally presiding, CSO delivers Brahms Second Symphony the Asia tour didn’t get
Review: Ah, so that was the Brahms Second Symphony the Chicago Symphony Orchestra had planned to share with audiences in Asia last winter — on the tour music director Riccardo Muti had to skip because of emergency surgery. With stand-in conductors Osmo Vänskä and Lorin Maazel, the CSO had delivered authoritative, even commanding performances of the Brahms Second on that troubled tour. But to put it plainly, those efforts bore no relation to the exquisite account the CSO summoned Thursday night in its season opener at Orchestra Hall with Muti once again on the podium.
Riccardo Muti turns spotlight on CSO Chorus with lustrous account of Verdi ‘Sacred Pieces’
Review: Riccardo Muti, winding up his third season as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra this weekend, led the orchestra and Chicago Symphony Chorus on a spiritual voyage Thursday night, from luminous Mozart and rapturous Vivaldi to a transcendental peak in Verdi’s glorious “Four Sacred Pieces.” Performances continue through Sunday. ★★★★★
Muti and Chicago Symphony embrace spirit, time-stretching cosmos of ‘Divine’ Scriabin
Review: There’s a hypnotic enchantment about Alexander Scriabin’s sprawling, sensual “Divine Poem,” and its magic worked at full pitch in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s luxurious performance with music director Riccardo Muti Friday afternoon at Orchestra Hall. ★★★★
Van Zweden, Chicago Symphony bring heat with torrid Bartók concerto, Mozart and Bates
Review: On the last day of May, full summer beckoning, Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a performance of fresh abundance, showcasing the virtuosity of the CSO musicians themselves in Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, and also turning the spotlight on two youthful artists of distinction — composer Mason Bates and pianist David Fray. ★★★★
Davis’ ‘The Chicago River’ is a natural tributary of Chicago Symphony’s diverse Rivers Festival
Review: Each year in the late spring, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra embarks upon themed programs that seem to be as much about reaching deep into the community, and becoming energized by the community in turn, as they do about any particular theme itself. This year’s festival, called “Rivers,” features the world premiere of “The Chicago River” by Orbert Davis. Inspired by late-19th and early-20th century photographs of the elaborately engineered reversal of the river’s flow, it underscores the notion that a cultural landscape is indeed much like a river — alive, ever present and ever changing.
CSO Rivers Festival explores the enchantment of waterways, their impact on human history
Preview: Literally and metaphorically, rivers seem to flow in every direction across our lives; indeed, across life. It’s not hard to see how the Chicago Symphony Orchestra might have hit on the concept of its Rivers Festival, a multifaceted month-long exploration and tribute that opens musically May 9 at Orchestra Hall.
Day in Rhineland: Muti, Chicago Symphony translate Schumann Third into vivid travelogue
Review: Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat isn’t known as the “Rhenish” for nothing. I felt very much like Schumann’s Rhine-journeying companion Thursday night, listening to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s radiant performance of the Third Symphony conducted by music director Riccardo Muti. ★★★★
With Muti back at helm, Chicago Symphony applies classic touch to Mozart, Beethoven
Review: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mozart-Beethoven concert Thursday night with music director Riccardo Muti felt like one long “aha!” moment. Here was the full measure of finesse, composure and pliancy the orchestra had expected to put on display for audiences in Southeast Asia with Muti at the helm, but in his absence never entirely achieved. ★★★★★
Youths at detention center set lives to music with aid of CSO musicians, praise from Muti
Report: The first time Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti visited the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, in September 2012, it was to offer a concert to more than 100 youths awaiting trial for serious crimes. For his return visit on April 14, the music was provided by juveniles with help from CSO musicians, and it was Muti who took a turn in the audience.
Adolph Herseth dies at 91; honored trumpeter was Chicago Symphony principal five decades
Burnished glory of Chicago brass
Opera stage resounds in Bach’s Mass as Muti brings personal authenticity to CSO account
Review: The decidedly Italianate, essentially operatic treatment of Bach’s Mass in B Minor offered this weekend by conductor Riccardo Muti and forces of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra may have little to do with the elusive question of Baroque performance practice, but it has everything to do with spiritual authenticity, conceptual integrity and musical wisdom. ★★★★★
Riccardo Muti, fit and jovial, pitches CSO’s agenda from Verdi to Canary Islands tour
Report: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra announced a bundle of developments at a press conference Wednesday morning, but the best news may have been the vigorous appearance and high spirits of music director Riccardo Muti.
Berlin Aisle: Deutsches Symphonie’s Sibelius, with Osmo Vänskä, sheds light on a treasure
Review: This is the story of a small world and a hidden gem. The jewel in question is the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, a beautifully balanced, virtuosic Berlin ensemble with a youthful look that plays in the shadow of the Berlin Philharmonic. Yet, with two such orchestras sharing the splendid Philharmonie concert hall, this city is simply twice blessed.
Conductor Oramo, bringing Nielsen to CSO, sees master builder’s hand in 5th Symphony
Preview: When Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo steps in front of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for concerts April 4-6, he will put the spotlight on Danish composer Carl Nielsen, a figure that has waxed and waned in the hearts of audiences and conductors alike over the last half century.
