Treemonisha (Photo: Dahlia Katz)
The Harris Theater has announced its performances for the 2024-2025 season. The lineup includes chamber performances, dance, family programming, and more.
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center reprises its annual residency with four performances: in November, the lauded ensemble shares a wind-forward selection of music spanning the centuries. And in December, the group returns for its annual holiday tour of the Brandenburg Concertos. In March, a staple of chamber repertoire is showcased as the ensemble shares Franz Schubert’s Trout Quintet. Finally, in April, a program built around Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence.
In October, dance, poetry, and music will combine for a reimagined take on Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals.
The Yo-Yo Ma-founded Silkroad Ensemble and its director, Rhiannon Giddens, will share a program that showcases the diversity of immigrant stories in November.
Kings Return
In December, mezzo superstar Joyce DiDonato shares the stage with vocal ensemble Kings Return and Craig Terry, artistic director of the Theater’s Beyond the Aria series, for a festive holiday performance.
In May 2025, the theater will host the US premiere of a fully staged reimagining of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, the opera that won the composer a Pulitzer nearly 50 years after his death. The production — which features creative contributions from Jessie Montgomery — features an all-Black cast and orchestra and is conducted by Jeri Lynne Johnson.
Other Season Announcements
A 60th anniversary tribute to modern dance titan Twyla Tharp will take place in April. The program will feature an award-winning work set to Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations and a new piece set to music of Philip Glass and performed live by Chicago staple Third Coast Percussion.
Twyla Tharp (Photo: Greg Gorma)
Philadelphia-based BalletX will visit in November to share a mixed-repertory program featuring a local premiere melding ballet and house music. Meanwhile in March, Minneapolis-based South Asian dance troupe Ragamala Dance Company will present a work called Children of Dharma in the Harris’s mainstage and family series.
The Theater’s Mix at Six series offers a welcoming after-work concert setting. This year’s entries will include Davóne Tines with the backing of acclaimed Chicago-based Black chamber ensemble D-Composed (September), and the all-woman music ensemble LADAMA (October). In February, Dee Alexander — a host with the WFMT Radio Network — will team up with Chicago tap dancer Jumaane Taylor (the duo will also reprise the concert in the Family series). March will see Chicago jazz artist Isaiah Collier rounding out the year’s Mix at Six concerts.
The family series will also include a multimedia piece called BUGS, that points its lens at insects, arachnids, and more and was conceived for neurodivergent audiences.
The venue will hold a rooftop performance in September, with more information to come. The Beyond the Aria series will return, with details yet to be announced for the slate of cabaret-style vocal performances.
For more information, visit harristheaterchicago.org
