Wednesdays at 6:30 pm
The Grant Park Music Festival is back, and so are WFMT’s live broadcasts!
WFMT is bringing you the very best that the Grant Park Music Festival has to offer this summer, giving you a front-row ticket to the Chicago summertime institution. With live broadcasts featuring scintillating solo performances, rousing choral opuses, and beloved orchestral landmarks, WFMT is your ticket to a whole summer’s worth of great music.
Mozart Paris Symphony
The Festival offers a diverse and captivating program featuring Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, Valerie Coleman’s Phenomenal Women performed by the dazzling Imani Winds, and Mozart’s charming “Paris” Symphony.
Beethoven Symphony No. 6
Osmo Vänskä, former Minnesota Orchestra music director, leads the Festival premiere of Henry Dorn’s Transitions, and violinist Paul Huang performs Bruch’s delightful Scottish Fantasy. The program concludes with Beethoven’s beloved Pastoral Symphony.
Debussy La Mer
Nicole Paiement conducts Debussy’s La Mer and Smetana’s beloved The Moldau, along with a new work by Mark Adamo titled Last Year, a cello concerto inspired by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, featuring the Festival’s 2025 Artist-in-Residence, Inbal Segev as soloist.
Elgar Enigma Variations
Courtney Lewis conducts Johann Strauss’ sparkling overture to Die Fledermaus and Anna Clyne’s captivating Dance, featuring cellist Inbal Segev. The program concludes with Elgar’s Enigma Variations, a beloved series of musical portraits.
Ravel Boléro
Pianist Maxim Lando joins the Grant Park Orchestra for Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain and Liszt’s Rhapsody Espagnole. The evening also includes Rossini’s charming overture to The Barber of Seville and Ravel’s exhilarating Boléro. Lee Mills conducts.
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4
Scottish virtuoso Steven Osborne joins the Grant Park Orchestra for Beethoven’s deeply expressive Piano Concerto No. 4, led by acclaimed American conductor Joseph Young. The program also features Howard Hanson’s passionate Symphony No. 2, The Romantic.
Joshua Bell and Tchaikovsky Romeo & Juliet
One Night Only! Joshua Bell and the Grant Park Orchestra play Édouard Lalo’s fiery Symphonie Espagnole in a program with Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, and Franz von Suppe’s Poet and Peasant Overture. Giancarlo Guerrero conducts.
Carmina Burana
Experience the grandeur of Carmina Burana, featuring the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus, three world-class soloists, and Uniting Voices children’s chorus. Giancarlo Guerrero conducts this season finale which also includes Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture, and Alan Hovhaness’ Symphony No. 2, Mysterious Mountain.
