A dynamic balance of intensity and optimism holds true throughout the season, which features such program titles as Next, Boundless, and Unapologetic.

In addition to the annual CSO residency, Ravinia will play host to a spate of guest ensembles, including Music of the Baroque, The Knights, the Lincoln Trio, Chanticleer, the Chicago Philharmonic, and the Chicago Sinfonietta.

Though there is a long way still to go, today’s stages are richer because these pioneering conductors are on them.

Chicago Sinfonietta’s CEO Blake-Anthony Johnson and principal oboist Ricardo Castañeda discussed how participating in classical music has shaped their lives and look back on past performance highlights.

We’re still soaring from our big day last week, when we welcomed some of Chicago’s leading artists to take part in a daylong celebration of WFMT and the music we’ve been presenting for the last 70 years!

How better to mark 70 years of WFMT than with a party!?

As we look back on WFMT’s 70th birthday, we sit down with George Preston and Oliver Camacho to discuss the commemorative celebration and their plans to kickstart the next 70 years of WFMT.

Many have their Juneteenth parades and celebrations all ready to go, but if you’re on the hunt for some plans, consider attending one of these six unique events.

The Chicago Sinfonietta has over 30 years of experience making classical music relevant, accessible, and reflective of Chicago’s diverse communities. This season, the orchestra is tackling diversity through the lens of joy.

Ravinia Festival is back for 2021 for its 85th concert season, offering up a signature blend of classical, jazz, folk, and rock music performances.

In arts and music, there’s an important — but sometimes overlooked — facet of diversity that needs to be addressed: not just of the people in the audience, but also of the people onstage.

“Tchaikovsky’s ‘Serenade for Strings’ while enjoying a nice pour-over, or anything by Mozart would be perfect,” says Sadie Woods, project manager of the Chicago Sinfonietta‘s Residents Orchestrate Project (ROP). Whether you enjoy Liszt and a latte, Grieg and a green tea, or Bartók and a black coffee, the Sinfonietta’s ROP Melodic Lounge live music series infuses symphonic sounds with aromatic coffeehouse …

WFMT has been lucky enough to share conversations and interviews with many of the 2020 Grammy-nominated artists. Here are all the features with the conductors, composers, and musicians who have been recognized by the Recording Academy.

The Chicago Sinfonietta’s longstanding mission of bringing communities and people together through the symphonic experience takes center stage this weekend with the Sinfonietta’s annual tribute concert to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., featuring orchestral settings of spirituals, folksongs, hip hop, and Mahler’s Ressurection Symphony.

The 2010s were a tumultuous decade, replete with astounding artistic highlights, superlative new voices, and watershed moments of reckoning. WFMT hosts and staff reflect on what the past decade brought for classical music, and what the new decade may have in store.

“Writing music, I believe, is a spiritual practice,” says composer Michael Abels. “Any three notes you can find are either terrible or brilliant depending on the context.” Abels makes his Sinfonietta conducting debut leading the orchestra in a live-to-picture performance of his own score for Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning film Get Out.

General director Ashley Magnus exclaims that “to ensure that opera stays relevant as a living art form, we must bring contemporary voices, as well as works of international prominence never before seen in Chicago to the stage.”

Renée Baker’s interest in Baldwin began when she first heard recordings of his voice. “The person that I’d only accessed from books became quite real once I was able to actually hear and listen to him speak.” She notes.

The eighty-fifth annual season opens June 12 and will run through August 17, with most performances taking place at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.

From the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to Lyric Opera of Chicago and much more, the Teen Arts Pass is making it easier for young people to have access to Chicago’s many great cultural institutions.

The Chicago Sinfonietta has been devoted to diversity and inclusion since it was founded by pioneering African-American conductor Paul Freeman, and that legacy continues to this day.

The Chicago Sinfonietta has made its Día de los Muertos concert a popular annual tradition, celebrating the music of Latin American composers and giving a New World twist to Old World classics like Mozart’s Requiem.

The Chicago Sinfonietta recently announced its 30th season line-up, as well as the launch of its Commissions by Women Composers Project, a season-long effort to close music’s gender equality gap by commissioning, performing, and recording, works by women composers.

Maestro Muti sat down with Sheila Jones, coordinator of the CSO’s African American Network, years ago to ask, “How do we bring the African American community into Symphony Center?”