Critic’s Choice
The middle of June always marks an overlapping baton handoff in Chicago, musically speaking. Riccardo Muti returns to lead the final two weeks of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra season while Carlos Kalmar opens the summer concert series at the Grant Park Music Festival.
The lakefront festival will kick off its ten-week season with two programs that demonstrate its artful blend of familiar repertory with contemporary and American music. Kalmar leads the Grant Park Orchestra 6:30 p.m. Wednesday night in Samuel Barber’s Essay No. 2 for orchestra, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos, with Andrew Van Oeyen and Fabio Bidini as soloists.
The first weekend Grant Park program of the summer will bring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, Aaron Jay Kernis’s Whisper, Echo, A Cry and Michael Torke’s epic Book of Proverbs featuring soprano Alisa Jordheim, baritone Tyler Duncan, and the Grant Park Chorus. Performances are 6:30 p.m. Friday and 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Pritzker Pavilion. grantparkmusicfestival.com; 312-742-7640
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Muti and the CSO will close out their 125th anniversary season with music by three Austro-German cornerstone composers. Beginning Thursday night, Riccardo Muti leads the orchestra in Brahms’ Serenade No. 1 and Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with soloist Julia Fischer. The CSO will wrap June 23-26 with music of Bruckner–the Symphony No. 9 and Te Deum (soloists are soprano Erin Wall, mezzo-soprano Okka von der Damerau, tenor Steve Davislim, and bass Christof Fischesser). cso.org 312-294-3000.
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