“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 with the Sinfonietta’s annual tribute concert to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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.

CMPI will support promising young musicians from underrepresented backgrounds and low-income households in order to diversify the next generation of musicians.

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?”