Preview: A Look at the Live Music Of North Shore Chamber Music Fest

Enjoy the beauty of live music-making (even if you aren’t there in person) with a star-studded chamber music sampler of works new and old.

Watch WFMT’s Latest Classical Conversations With Jessie Montgomery

“Whenever people buy a ticket to a concert, they’re committing to a shared experience…” composer, violinist, and educator Jessie Montgomery reflects.

CSO Announces Next Mead Composer-in-Residence

Riccardo Muti has appointed Jessie Montgomery as the Mead Composer-in-Residence. Montgomery will succeed the CSO’s current composer-in-residence, Missy Mazzoli, in July of this year.

2021 Grammys: Classical Music Nominees and Winners

It’s been a strange, difficult year for the music world, which is all the more reason to celebrate musical excellence.

Playlist: 12 Black Film & TV Composers You Should Know

From Duke Ellington to Tamar-kali, these 12 composers have shaped what movies and TV sound like.

In Their Own Words: Quotes From Artists and Friends of WFMT Who Died in 2020

2020 was a year of great loss for all; the music world was no exception. As we reflect on the year gone by, WFMT salutes the contributions of artists and friends who died this past year.

An Opera Without Precedent: Supreme Court Comic Opera Scalia/Ginsburg

Even though Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg disagreed on many things, what united them was humor and a love for opera. Composer, librettist, and former attorney Derrick Wang reveals how he created an opera about these two influential figures.

Lyric Cancels 2020-21 season

Among the canceled 2021 productions are Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro; and Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, as well as a concert tribute to music director Sir Andrew Davis, who concludes his 20-year tenure at the end of this season.

China classical music festival to feature Wuhan musicians

China’s first classical music festival since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic is featuring musicians and music from the former epicenter of Wuhan.

In the Age of the Visual Album, What Can Opera Learn from Beyoncé?

The virtual sphere won’t replace the live stage, but it can add a second, more accessible one, with great room for creative growth and the viral potential of easily shareable, iconic images.

The Thrill of Seeing: Scoring The Earliest Movies

In 1939, New York’s Museum of Modern Art acquired a treasure trove: 36 reels of 68mm nitrate prints and negatives made in cinema’s first years.

Watch Third Coast Percussion Perform Mesmeric Music by Devonté Hynes

The Grammy-winning ensemble performed music by Devonté Hynes from their new album, Fields.

Refuge from Silence: COT, Refugee Orchestra Return to Live Stage

A collaborative performance with Chicago Opera Theater, the Refugee Orchestra Project, and conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya seeks to express the importance of refugee populations in American music and around the world.

Thursday: Third Coast Percussion Plays Music of Devonté Hynes in WFMT Livestream

Join us on WFMT’s Facebook Page Thursday at 7:30 pm for a free livestream with Third Coast Percussion, Devonté Hynes, and a video featuring choreography by Rena Butler.

Shaw, Sagan, and Searching: ‘The Listeners’

“For centuries, millennia, we humans have looked at the stars and wondered about our place in the universe and what’s beyond. That’s what I wanted to dig into,” reflects musician-composer-producer Caroline Shaw on her latest work, The Listeners.

There Were Penguins in the Opera House

Corky Siegel – the internationally acclaimed harmonica virtuoso, pianist, singer, composer, and musical alchemist whose signature blend of blues and classical has captivated audiences for over fifty years – wants to invite you into his living room.

Voguing Meets Classical in Stunning New Music Video

Music and motion come together beautifully in a new video featuring dancers Jason Rodriguez and José Lapaz Rodriguez and set to music by pianist and composer Chad Lawson.

Playlist: Celebrating the New American Canon

We all love Sousa, Gershwin, and Copland. But what about the vanguard voices redefining what American classical music sounds like?

July 2020: Classical Livestream Planner

Even though in-person concerts have been suspended, many talented artists and ensembles are committed to sharing stunning music through the internet. Here’s a guide to some upcoming classical livestreams you should add to your calendar!

Standing On The Corner: Classical, Jazz, Hip-Hop & All Else

Though firmly avant-garde, Standing On The Corner’s talents have earned them notoriety among mainstream acts. Now, the “post-genre” ensemble’s distinctive musical palette has grown to include classical music.

Playlist: Keepin’ it unreal with pioneering composer and artist Moondog

Of the thousands of people who passed Moondog as he stood, dressed as a Viking, on his customary Manhattan street corner, few realized that they were walking by one of the great minds of 20th-century music.

Earth Day 2020: Stacy Garrop’s ‘Terra Nostra’

This past February, Stephen Alltop led the Northwestern University Symphony, the Alice Millar Chapel Choir, the Evanston Children’s Choir, and soloists in Terra Nostra – Our Earth – by the acclaimed Chicago-based composer Stacy Garrop. This large-scale celebration of our planet, and the relationship between humankind and the natural world, uses poetry by Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Walt Whitman, and …

Inside Chicago Composer Stacy Garrop’s Rousing Eco-Oratorio ‘Terra Nostra’

WFMT observes the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day with a fitting broadcast: Chicago composer Stacy Garrop’s oratorio Terra Nostra, which celebrates our planet and explores the relationship between humankind and the natural world.

Take In the Gleaming Tones of Multi-Instrumentalist & Composer Ólafur Arnalds

This prismatic NPR Tiny Desk Concert will challenge your view of what making music means in the digital age.

Edgar Allan Poe, Leonard Slatkin, Vincent Price Team Up for an Orchestral Take on ‘The Raven’

As an outsized figure in literature and poetry, Poe has inspired composers like Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Philip Glass, and composer-conductor Leonard Slatkin, who set Poe’s “The Raven” to music in 1971.