CSO releases program details for Muti’s opening weeks

Wed Jun 16, 2021 at 10:00 am

By Lawrence A. Johnson

Riccardo Muti will conduct music of Beethoven, Brahms and Tchaikovsky this fall to open the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 2021-22 season. Photo: Todd Rosenberg

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra released details of Riccardo Muti’s three-week, season-opening residency Wednesday morning.

“I am delighted to rejoin my Chicago Symphony Orchestra family once again to share the sound of this great Orchestra with audiences in Chicago,” said Muti in a statement released by the orchestra. “As it has for many years, the spiritual food of culture will bring us together, but this time with a special poignancy after being so long apart.” 

The season will open September 23-25 with two works by composers of color: Florence Price’s Andante moderato (from her String Quartet in G major) and the Overture to the comic opera L’Amant anonyme by Joseph Bologne. The program will conclude with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica.” 

Leonidas Kavakos returns September 30-October 2 to perform Brahms’ Violin Concerto, a program that also features Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

Muti’s residency closes October 7-9 with These Worlds in Us by outgoing CSO Mead composer in residence Missy Mazzoli, Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 “Pathetique.”

While those three weeks will be Muti’s only fall 2020 appearances in Chicago, the orchestra also released a few tantalizing tidbits of Muti’s other 2021-22 CSO concerts.

The season will close next June with Muti leading concert performances of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera. World premieres of Orpheus Undone by Mazzoli (rescheduled from last season) and a new work by incoming composer-in-residence Jessie Montgomery are slated as well. Also on tap on Muti-led programs are Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3 (also rescheduled) and Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 11.

The rest of the fall 2021 season will be announced July 13. cso.org; 312-294-3000.

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