Chicago Classical Review

The final program of the Grant Park Music Festival provided a worthy close to a successful 2026 season, nicely tying up the America 250 summer with a theme-adjacent Beethoven symphony. Friday night’s concert was enhanced by the estimable Grant Park Chorus who were at their considerable finest in two works.

The evening’s first half consisted of two contemporary works by a pair of leading American composers, both of whom were on hand to provide brief introductions to their music.

The evening led off with Julia Wolfe’s Liberty Bell, a Grant Park Festival co-commission for this America 250 year. Inspired by the massive historic bell housed in the composer’s native Philadelphia, Wolfe’s piece begins in arresting fashion with massive metallic chords, and asymmetric driving rhythms (echoing the pulsing riffs from 48 hours earlier). There is surging vitality in Wolfe’s piece, its jagged cacophony reflecting what the composer terms the “messy, boisterous, ongoing, interlocking struggle” of gaining liberty. 

The music slows down for tolling bell notes, which are increasingly spaced out, to rather forlorn effect. Suddenly a 1970s-esque pop-dance tune enters of astounding banality—one half-expected the Solid Gold dancers to sashay onstage. The metallic cacophony returns and the work ends effectively with tolling bell notes. But, like the fatal crack that silenced the actual Liberty Bell, Wolfe’s piece never quite recovers from that jarring and inexplicable lapse in taste and tone.

While there is a century’s worth of neglected American symphonies deserving resuscitation, even our best composers have often faltered in nationally minded choral works. While well-intentioned, such music has tended towards the stiffly ceremonial with rather rhetorical results. More recently, many composers seem to have gone to the opposite extreme—dwelling so much on the nation’s faults and foibles that their work seems more a condemnation of America than a celebration.

What a pleasure then to encounter Michael Daugherty’s Mount Rushmore, which closed the first half. The well-chosen texts fete the public and personal qualities of the four presidents carved into the South Dakota mountain monument with lively and effective music that is varied, engaging and ultimately uplifting without turning into a cardboard panegyric.

“George Washington” opens with a stirring brass fanfare. The ode to the heroic first president centers on a free fantasia on the contemporary Revolutionary War ode “Chester,” the fast music alternating with a slower, more flowing theme. 

“Thomas Jefferson,” the work’s slow movement, begins with a violin solo—fitting since it was Jefferson’s own instrument. The choral words draw on an Italian song written for him by a paramour as well as words from his own letters (“Music is the passion of my soul”). A contrasting section is fast and determined, setting single words from the Declaration of Independence (“Tyranny, Liberty, Slavery, Necessity, Justice”) in a forceful, declamatory style.

“Theodore Roosevelt” is, aptly, a rugged scherzo, with the jaunty, swaggering main theme (“There is delight in the hardy life of the open”) apt for the hunter-outdoorsman president. Words from TR’s 1910 dedication at the Grand Canyon sound a cautionary environmental note “Keep it for your children. Leave it as it is” and a final emphatic and admonitory “Leave it!”

The final movement, “Abraham Lincoln” sets the complete Gettysburg Address. (In addition to being admirably concise, Lincoln was the finest pure writer among all of our presidents, with a precision and economy of words even in the most elevated sentiments.) Daugherty wisely sets the stirring text in a mostly straightforward fashion. There is agitated music for mention of the Civil War and battles, but a rising, warmly majestic melody dominates the movement. The chorus, large orchestra and organ rise to a resplendent final iteration of that heartening theme before a quiet and elevated coda.

Mount Rushmore is a well-crafted and communicative choral symphony that manages to celebrate the best aspirations of the nation without descending to kitsch or going over the top. Daugherty’s vocal writing is skillful and impressive throughout.

Under the direction of Christopher Bell, the Grant Park Chorus delivered powerful, eloquent singing across all sections, with Guerrero leading the Grant Park Orchestra in playing of equal commitment. Daugherty’s work and this rich and communicative performance deserved greater applause than they received Friday night.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 closed the evening and the festival season. Schiller’s textual ode of universal brotherhood formed a graceful nexus with the elevated sentiments of the Daugherty settings.

For all its popularity, Beethoven’s final symphony is notoriously difficult to pull off. The excitement of the choral final section invariably elicits frenzied applause yet the preceding movements can often fall short and a consistent vocal quartet is a rarity.

Happily, Giancarlo Guerrero and the Grant Park forces got most of the important things right in this Beethoven finale. 

The opening of the symphony was lacking in mystery—largely because some rude and oblivious patrons continued to stand, yadda-yadda-ing in the left-center aisle as Guerrero was about to give the downbeat.

The first movement soon got on track and Guerrero directed the GPO musicians in an incisive account of the dramatic opening movement. The scherzo went with tight rhythmic snap, Guerrero seemingly channeling Leonard Bernstein in his elastic podium Terpsichory. The conductor led an attentive and focused Adagio, yet here the tempo seemed fractionally brisk, not allowing enough space to explore the otherworldly potential of the slow movement.

As always, everything led to Beethoven’s vast choral finale. The cello section effectively characterized the quotation and rejection of the preceding movements’ themes before alighting on the indelible yet folksy melody that would provide the scaffolding for Beethoven’s uplifting message. The string playing here was ideal—initially hesitant then with flowing sweetness as the theme passed from section to section, growing in ardency.

The finale benefited by a mostly excellent quartet of soloists. Jongwon Han showed a strong and commanding bass-baritone in his solo, delivered in a collegial, spirited style that eschewed the usual high-mass recitation. John Matthew Myers’ heldentenor resounded in his jaunty yet demanding solo in the Turkish-flavored middle section.

Soprano Karen Slack soared at the high end throughout with resplendent top notes in the quartet’s final moments. Unfortunately, Imara Miles was the weak link Friday night, with the young mezzo-soprano virtually inaudible throughout most of her solo passages.

The singing of the Grant Park Chorus has gone from strength to strength all summer and Christopher Bell’s ensemble was at its considerable peak in Beethoven’s finale. The choral singing was magnificent, all sections singing with remarkable power, cohesion and expressive force. One could go years without hearing this tortuous choral assignment rendered with such power, precision and dedication.

The program will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Saturday. gpmf.org

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