Rivers, boatmen, wanderers, and travelers are always on the go. In this encore presentation hosted by Bill McGlaughlin, we hear stories about journeys and the music they inspired, featuring music by Handel, Smetana, Duke Ellington, and may others. In some cases, the composer offered a specific title, and so music like Beethoven’s Les Adieux, Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, and Haydn’s …

From starting their own charities to writing operas together, discover some of classical music’s most prolific couples!

The season is the first programmed by 2023-appointed general director Lawrence Edelson and the first following the departure of Lidiya Yankovskaya as music director.

The festival, which is dedicated to presenting seldom-performed Italian opera titles, shares a two-program slate in June and July.

September is National Piano Month, so WFMT is sharing a supersized playlist – with one selection corresponding to each key on the keyboard.

You voted on your 10 favorite piano concertos and we aired them on WFMT along with 10 piano concertos that might be less familiar to you. Which of the concertos below are discoveries to you? Which of your favorites would you add to the list?

In the early 1990s, the famed composer and librettist Gian Carlo Menotti came to Chicago as the guest for a black-tie event for Chicago Opera Theater. Larry Johnson recounts a rare opportunity to spend time with a world-famous musician and composer.

Between 1952 and 1997, Studs Terkel invited some of the world’s best musicians to join him for his hour-long radio program on WFMT.

The summer festival’s 2018 season of concerts runs for 10 weeks from June 13 to August 18.

The opera house can be a scary place – and we’re not talking about all those crazy singers and their shenanigans backstage! Many operas contain ghastly ghouls, ghosts, goblins, witches, dragons, and all kinds of crazy creatures. Here are some of the most frightening pieces from the history of opera.

Whether you’re new to opera or consider yourself a connoisseur, there’s something for everyone to enjoy this fall in Chicago. Here are four operas we are excited to see in the coming months.

Chicago Opera Theater announced its 2017-18 season: three operas, including a world-premiere co-production with Opera Philadelphia, to be staged at the newly-renovated Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building.

“Music and worship started out together…” composer and conductor Victoria Bond explains. “In Jewish worship, prayers are not spoken, they are sung.”

Time for a musical deep dive!

Can you imagine a world without the music of Handel, Tchaikovsky, or Britten? These great composers of the past are just a few of many important musical figures who did not identify as heterosexual.