Sundays at 6:00 pm
Hear live performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra every week
The Chicago Symphony presents a full range of orchestral works under the seasoned baton of music director emeritus for life Riccardo Muti. The top-tier soloists and guest conductors complete the series with artists like Yo-Yo Ma, Hilary Hahn, and Daniil Trifonov; as well as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mitsuko Uchida, and Bernard Haitink. The two-hour Chicago Symphony Orchestra broadcasts include dynamic and innovative commentary which takes the listener behind the scenes and into the music.
News: Meet the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's New Music Director
CSO Names Klaus Mäkelä as Music Director
Keegan Morris | April 2, 2024
Harding Conducts The Planets
October 25, 2026, 6:00 pm
This week, Daniel Harding leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Schumann’s Overture to Manfred, Brahms’ Schicksalslied and Holst’s The Planets, featuring the Chicago Symphony Chorus prepared by guest director Jenny Wong. Closing the broadcast, Sir Georg Solti conducts Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms.
Tchaikovsky Winter Dreams & Avdeeva
November 17, 2024
This week, guest conductor Tugan Sokhiev leads Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony, Winter Dreams. The program opens with Panufnik’s Heroic Overture, followed by Chopin’s First Piano Concerto in E Minor, featuring Yulianna Avdeeva.
Muti Conducts Beethoven
November 10, 2024
Music Director Emeritus for Life Riccardo Muti conducts three of Beethoven’s works, beginning with his Coriolan Overture and followed by his eighth and fifth symphonies. Plus, the CSO brass performs Barber’s Mutations from Bach, selections from Bach’s The Art of Fugue and Michael Tilson Thomas’s Street Song.
Muti, Herbert & Pines of Rome
November 3, 2024
Music Director Emeritus for Life Riccardo Muti conducts Kraft’s Timpani Concerto featuring the CSO’s Principal Timpani David Herbert. The program opens with Mozart’s Divertimento in F Major and closes with Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No. 1 and Pines of Rome.
Hrůša Conducts Mahler 9
October 27, 2024
This week, Jakub Hrůša conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. The broadcast opens with Shaw’s Boris Kerner, performed by Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s second flutist Emma Gerstein and assistant principal cellist Kenneth Olsen, and Hailstork’s Arabesques, also performed by Emma Gerstein with principal percussionist Cynthia Yeh.
Opera without Words
October 20, 2024
Five CSO music directors—Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Muti, Fritz Reiner, Artur Rodziński, and Sir Georg Solti—lead orchestral excerpts from operas by Beethoven, Copland, Mascagni, Rossini, and Strauss. The program closes with several selections from Wagner’s Ring cycle.
Afkham & Gluzman
October 13, 2024
David Afkham returns to the CSO podium to lead Debussy’s La mer and Ravel’s La valse. Opening the program is Ravel’s Menuet antique. Next, Vadim Gluzman joins in Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Plus, Bernard Haitink conducts Webern’s Im Sommerwind.
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis
October 6, 2024
This week, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis collaborate with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra! Giancarlo Guerrero conducts Adams’s The Chairman Dances, Shostakovich’s Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, Prokofiev’s Selections from Romeo and Juliet, and Marsalis’s “All American Pep” from Swing Symphony. In between, we hear Ellington’s “Big Fat Alice’s Blues”, “Amad”, and “The Mooch”.
Solti Conducts Del Tredici
September 29, 2024
This week, Sir Georg Solti conducts Final Alice by David Del Tredici. The broadcast opens with Berlioz’s Overture to Les Francs-juges, continues with Dohnányi’s Variations on a Nursery Song, and Weber’s Overture to Oberon.
de Ridder & Barnatan
September 22, 2024
André de Ridder leads the CSO in a suite from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, along with Rhapsody in Blue and Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major with Inon Barnatan. Next, seventh music director Jean Martinon conducts selections from Bizet’s L’arlésienne and second music director Frederick Stock’s arrangement of Paganini’s “Moto Perpetuo”.
Mäkelä Conducts Shostakovich 10
September 15, 2024
Sol Gabetta, whose “enthusiastic music-making and animated style are completely infectious” (Classical Voice), makes her CSO debut in Shostakovich’s captivating Cello Concerto No. 1 — a riveting journey through themes of defiance, sorrow, and triumph. Electrifying conductor Klaus Mäkelä frames the program with Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, a searing portrait of the composer’s tormented life in Stalinist Russia, and the U.S. ...
Guerrero & Binelli
September 8, 2024
Giancarlo Guerrero leads Piazzolla’s Aconcagua Concerto for Bandoneón and Orchestra with Daniel Binelli, followed by Beethoven’s First Symphony. The broadcast closes with Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony under the baton of eighth music director Sir Georg Solti.
Ozawa Conducts Beethoven and Bartók
September 1, 2024
We remember Seiji Ozawa, who served as the first music director at Ravinia from 1964 until 1968 and as principal conductor for the Festival’s 1969 season. This broadcast features works by Borodin and Schoenberg, along with Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
Celebrating Margaret Hillis
August 25, 2024
This broadcast celebrates Margaret Hillis, founder and first director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, featuring three Grammy Award-winning recordings. Bartók’s Cantata profana led by Pierre Boulez is the centerpiece, bookended by an excerpt from Brahms’ German Requiem and Verdi’s monumental Requiem, both under the baton of eighth music director Sir Georg Solti.
Mäkelä Conducts López Bellido & Mahler 5
August 18, 2024
Klaus Mäkelä returns to the CSO podium to lead Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. The program includes Sibelius’ The Swan of Tuonela, and a premiere performance of Aino by López Bellido, which the CSO’s co-commissioned. The opening of the broadcast is Corigliano’s Tournaments Overture under Sir Georg Solti’s baton.
Guests in the House
August 11, 2024
Leopold Stokowski begins this parade of guest conductors with Khachaturian’s Third Symphony followed by John Williams conducting his Suite from Memoirs of a Geisha featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Neeme Järvi is next with Kodály’s Dances of Galánta, and Pierre Monteux concludes the broadcast with Franck’s Symphony in D minor.
Jurowski & Helmchen
August 4, 2024
“It’s merciless, it’s brutal, but it’s all so extremely human and humane,” says Vladimir Jurowski, describing Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony. Composed at the height of WWII, the score honors the ordinary people who faced adversity away from the front lines. Jurowski conducts this immensely powerful work. Also, German pianist Martin Helmchen joins us for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in ...
Muti, Montgomery & Rachmaninoff
July 28, 2024
Composer Jessie Montgomery wrote Transfigure to Grace after reflecting on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to America. Riccardo Muti conducts its world premiere, plus music by Rachmaninoff and Wagner.
Alsop & Vondráček
July 21, 2024
“The way Elgar represents the people that are important in his life is really charming and delightful, and very moving,” says conductor Marin Alsop, on Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations, a series of portraits of friends and family members. Alsop conducts this piece, along with music by Barber and Rachmaninoff.
Composers’ Early Successes
July 14, 2024
Most of the music on this program was written by teenagers: Mendelssohn was seventeen years old when he composed his Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Rachmaninoff completed his First Piano Concerto and Strauss his First Horn Concerto at age eighteen, and nineteen-year-old Shostakovich submitted his First Symphony as a graduation exercise from the Petrograd Conservatory. The Overture to Rienzi ...
Contemporary American Composers
July 7, 2024
We celebrate the CSO’s most recent Grammy Award–winning recording, Contemporary American Composers, released on CSO Resound. The broadcast features Glass’ Eleventh Symphony, plus world premiere recordings by Jessie Montgomery and Max Raimi. The broadcast opens with another legendary Grammy winner: Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra under the baton of Fritz Reiner.