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.

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.

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

It wouldn’t be New Year without the Vienna Philharmonic. But as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, what will come of the annual New Year’s Concert?

In a statement, CSOA president Jeff Alexander expressed, “As we look ahead and make plans for ensemble concerts for the fall, we are also eager for the day when Maestro Muti and the full orchestra can come together again to share music with local, national and international audiences.”

Featured in the eleven new programs is a wide array of music conducted by Muti, including selections by Bruckner, Berlioz, and Verdi. Additional programs are dedicated to performances conducted by Fritz Reiner, Pierre Boulez, and Bernard Haitink.

Riccardo Muti has sent a resounding message that live classical music has returned the Italian stage after the coronavirus lockdown.

Organizers are billing the open-air concert as Italy’s first live classical music performance since its coronavirus lockdown.

The joint series, which is curated by CSO music director Riccardo Muti, launched in April in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CSO’s season was set to continue through June 27 and include a two-week residency with music director Riccardo Muti. Per the statement, the CSO is working to reschedule canceled programs in future seasons.

This Sunday, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will host a Facebook premiere for a video recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 from its archives, in part because it is “widely recognized as one of music’s most powerful and inspiring works.”

Today, WFMT and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra announce the launch of an exciting new broadcast and streaming series: From the CSO’s Archives: Maestro’s Choice—For All Music Lovers in These Difficult Times.

Rather than depicting nobility or mythology, ‘verismo’ opera tells stories of everyday people, and ‘Cavalleria rusticana’ by Pietro Mascagni is a premiere example of the genre.

The CSO’s 130th season begins on September 17 with a free concert for Chicago at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.

Between February 2020 and June 2021, Lina González-Granados will have the opportunity to study and work with Maestro Muti, conduct the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and participate in cultural activities and outreach throughout the greater Chicago area.

Giordani had a heart attack at his home in Sicily.

Since his first CSO performances in June 2018, Batallán has served as guest principal trumpet many times. The Spanish-born trumpeter performed with the orchestra during its 2019 Florida tour as well as in Tokyo during the 2019 Asia tour.

Verdi’s Aida is the apotheosis of grant opera, but the true beauty of Verdi lies not only in its grandeur but also in its details.

Despite Maestro Muti’s tireless activity in the musical realm, he has not neglected the written word.

Andrew Patner, WFMT’s late critic-at-large and music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, passed away in 2015, but his characteristic wit and wisdom live on in his book, A Portrait in Four Movements: The Chicago Symphony under Barenboim, Boulez, Haitink, and Muti.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra strike has ended and a new, five-year contract through September 2023 has been ratified, the CSO musicians and management have confirmed.

The musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra publicly called for management to return to the table to resolve the labor dispute now in its seventh week, the longest in the orchestra’s history.

Little progress has been made in resolving the work stoppage at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, CSO management said Monday during a conference call. The strike has now endured for a week, since 11:59 p.m. on March 10. Since the strike began, various artists and public figures have appeared on the picket line to voice their support for the CSO musicians. …

Usually caught in a neither-nor position straddling the artistic and administrative halves of the organizations, music directors have historically stayed out of labor disputes in major orchestras.

Picketing began yesterday on the sidewalks outside the entrances to Symphony Center in the Loop, as the musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra marched off their first full day on strike.