As Chicago continues its emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic, residents can look forward to a relatively normal summer.

Ahead of the season premiere of the 2021 Grant Park Music Festival, WFMT met up with chorus director Christopher Bell, who reflects on returning to live music, previews the opening Independence Day Salute, and talks about a summer of great music to come.

Bruce Springsteen reprises his Broadway show for a summer run, another sign of live entertainment’s rebirth after a 15-month pause because of COVID-19.

Johnson, the incoming director of the Chicago Phil, reflects that he “can’t stress enough how important it is to champion those voices that haven’t been heard.”

From Carmen to Claus, learn what is in store for the next season of Chicago Opera Theater.

Riccardo Muti will return to Chicago this September to launch the 2021-22 CSO season, his first stint conducting the CSO in Symphony Center since February 2020.

Following a historic 18-month gap, the NY Phil will present a shortened schedule in a season shifted from Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall while the orchestra’s home is remodeled.

In conjunction with Chicago’s ongoing reopening, the Grant Park Music Festival will offer full-capacity seating for its entire 2021 season.

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.

Music of the Baroque today announced its plans for a 2021-22 season, the venerable Chicago area ensemble’s 51st.

With the Grant Park Music Festival’s long-awaited return to live programming in sight, WFMT is thrilled to resume the annual series of live radio broadcasts from the Pritzker Pavilion.

Milan’s famed Teatro alla Scala has announced a 2021-22 season of 13 operas, seven ballets and numerous concerts as Italy’s most important theater looks toward a gradual removal of pandemic restrictions.

After a long year away, live music is returning to the Chicago area. So watch this space, where we’ll collect all the new season announcements that you won’t want to miss!

This year’s Kennedy Center Honors may be a slimmed-down affair as the nation emerges from the coronavirus pandemic — but honoree Dick Van Dyke still says it’s “the capper on my career.”

“I had to think about the Roaring Twenties and music like Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, and so on, that Ida B. Wells [would have been] hearing.”

A Verdi and bel canto expert, Lyric’s new music director Enrique Mazzola will open the season with Verdi’s Macbeth and Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love, while also conducting contemporary opera Proving Up by Missy Mazzoli later in the season.

From The Nutcracker to Don Quixote be the first to learn about what the Joffrey Ballet’s next season has in store!

Locked out stagehands of the Metropolitan Opera protested the company amid a crowd of about 1,000 that rallied outside Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, criticizing the company for constructing sets for three of next season’s new productions at nonunion shops.

Conductor Riccardo Muti has once again reopened the Italian musical season in his adopted hometown of Ravenna after another — and if all goes well perhaps final — round of pandemic closures.

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

The Grant Park Music Festival today announced its return to live music in a 2021 season, the festival’s first live performances since August 2019.

The CSO will return in May and June for a slate of performances, the orchestra’s first since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

The production is called “Twilight: Gods” and comes a year after Lyric Opera’s production of the complete Ring cycle was scuttled by the pandemic.

The plan is now to reopen the auditorium in the fall of 2022, about 1-1/2 years ahead of the original schedule.

The CSO’s music director made a remote return to the Windy City on Wednesday to lead an online masterclass with fellows from Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative.