The Great Chicago Fire began on October 8, 1871. Here’s some music that takes inspiration from flames.

Not only are these composers’ musical works an inspiration, but their words are, too! Here are some of the most beautiful insights you’ll read all day.

Meet the incredible pets who inspired some of our favorite music!

“I thought that this was a piece that needed good tunes. And also, because it’s a concerto, you have to have some fast music in there. There are parts where I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s let it rip.'”

The season begins on June 15 with artistic director and principal conductor Carlos Kalmar leading music of Mozart, Wagner, and Price.

The ensemble’s return to live performance features four programs which all will be conducted by artistic director and principal conductor Scott Speck.

We all love Sousa, Gershwin, and Copland. But what about the new(er) entrants to the canon of American classical composers? This Independence Day, we’ve compiled a playlist of just some of the vanguard voices redefining what American classical music sounds like.

With many of the major annual fireworks displays on hold this year because of COVID-19, WFMT is bringing you the fire with a curated playlist of pyrotechnic music.

The opera is a fictionalized account inspired by the theft of seven artworks from a museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

“Music’s biggest night” is right around the corner, and the classical music community has a lot to look forward to at the 2020 Grammys.

In the gap between a languid summer and a long winter, there’s just enough room left for fall. It’s a season for transformation, comfort, reflection, and growth. In other words, it’s the perfect time to grab some cider, take in that brilliant fall foliage, and enjoy this playlist created for you by WFMT staff and hosts!

Over the span of just 9 months, Philadelphia Orchestra went from being one of the least representative orchestras of women composers to being the most.

It will mark Muti’s tenth-anniversary season as music director as well as the 250th birthday of Beethoven. Muti conducts all of Beethoven’s symphonies over the course of the season, culminating in the triumphant Symphony No. 9 in June 2020.

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.

Missy Mazzoli is a composer who is inspired by “weird stories,” and that’s a good thing. Her fascination with “humans who support, undermine, and love each other” has paved the way for opportunities in nearly every realm of the music industry. She is one of two women composers commissioned to write an opera for the Metropolitan Opera in New York …

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 musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and I extend our condolences to the families of the victims of today’s tragedy.”

As you fire up the grill, we have the perfect soundtrack for you: some of our favorite American works, from classics like Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue to modern masterpieces like John Adams’ City Noir.

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.

If you’re looking to expand your own repertoire, why not explore the music of living composers? Check out these 10 composers changing contemporary classical music today who also all happen to be women.

Riccardo Muti will conduct ten weeks of subscription programs at Symphony Center and lead the orchestra on two U.S. tours, to the West Coast in October and to the East Coast in February 2018.

During March, Women’s History Month, we draw special attention to the music of women composers past and present on WFMT. Here are 10 living composers who are changing music today, along with 10 albums featuring their music you might want to add to your library.

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.