Mäkelä doubles his weeks as CSO serves up a lively mix in 2025-26
Like a mountain one approaches while driving, we are getting closer to the Klaus Mäkelä era even as it still seems to loom in the far-off distance.
Yet, while he will not take the reins of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra until the fall of 2027, the music director designate will double his time in town for the 2025-26 season.
Mäkelä will conduct four weeks of local concerts next season as well as taking the CSO on its first tour under his baton. The Finnish conductor will make his first appearance of the season in the fall leading an all-Berlioz program with the Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy with viola soloist Antoine Tamestit (October 16-18).
Characteristically, Mäkelä will add some topspin to a standard program in December (Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Yunchan Lim) with a pair of contemporary works inspired by Beethoven: Unsuk Chin’s subito con forza and Con brio by Jörg Widmann (December 18-20).
Mäkelä returns in February for a program of dueling heroes with Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and Sibelius’ epic, four-part Lemminkäinen, in his first CSO program conducting a large-scale work by his country’s greatest composer (February 19-21, 2026)
In his final appearance of the season in March, Mäkelä leads a program of Milhaud’s Le Bœuf sur le toit, Gershwin’s An American in Paris, and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (March 5-6).
In February, Mäkelä will lead his first CSO tour with four stops: Ann Arbor, Carnegie Hall, Washington DC and Boston.
Riccardo Muti, the CSO’s “music director emeritus for life,” will also lead four weeks next season. In the fall, Muti conducts Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler and Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony (October 30-November 1), followed by Brahms’ Symphony No. 4, Stravinsky’s Divertimento and Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with guitar soloist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas (November 6-8).
In March, Muti leads a program of Italian opera excerpts with soprano Lidia Fridman and tenor Francesco Meli (March 19-21), as well as Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 3 (“Polish”) with Nino Rota’s film scores for The Leopard and The Godfather, the latter in a suite compiled by Muti (March 26-29).
As has become custom in January, Muti leads the CSO on a seven-city U.S. tour, this time to California and Arizona.
Joyce DiDonato will be the CSO artist in residence next season, making three appearances, including singing Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs.
Local podium favorites Esa-Pekka Salonen, Manfred Honeck and Jakub Hrůša will all return next season.
Salonen leads two weeks with Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Daniil Trifonov (Jan. 29-Feb 1). His second week (February 5-7) brings Debussy’s Images and La Mer framing Gabriella Smith’s environmentally minded Lost Coast with cellist Gabriel Cabezas.
Honeck conducts a program containing Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Haydn’s Symphony No. 93 (November 20-23).
Hrůša leads two weeks of programs, the first with Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 (“Spring”), selections from Smetana’s The Bartered Bride and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Leif Ove Andsnes (March 12-14). In April, the Czech conductor brings a “final things” program (April 9-12) with Janacek’s Overture to From the House of the Dead, Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead and soprano Corinne Winters in Strauss’s Four Last Songs and Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde.
Conductor-violinist Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider leads two weeks of programs, opening the season with Elgar’s Symphony No. 2 and Mozart’s Sinfonia concentrate with himself and principal violist Teng Li as soloists, as well as the Symphony Ball September 20 in which DiDonato sings Strauss songs and the Habanera from Carmen. Szeps-Znaider returns May 28-31 for Strauss’s Suite from Der Rosenkavalier. Ravel’s La valse and Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 with Martin Helmchen as soloist.
Other returning conductors will be Paavo Järvi, Gianandrea Noseda, Jaap van Zweden, Karina Canellakis, Edward Gardner, Juraj Valčuha, James Gaffigan, Philippe Jordan, Mikko Franck, Petr Popelka and Marin Alsop. Debuting conductors are Stefan Asbury, Daniela Candillari, Joshua Weilerstein and Pekka Kuusisto, who made a memorable CSO solo bow in 2022 with Bryce Dessner’s Violin Concerto.
Evgeny Kissin, who has concentrated largely on solo recitals in Chicago, returns to the CSO roster with a vengeance, tackling three Russian piano concertos in one program by Scriabin, Rimsky-Korsakov. and Prokofiev (No. 1). Andrey Boreyko conducts.
Other soloists are pianists Alice Sara Ott and Conrad Tao, violinists Augustin Hadelich, Robert Chen, James Ehnes, and Himari, piccoloist Jennifer Gunn, and accordionist Ksenija Sidorova.
The season will conclude with a three-week festival (June 4-21) of American music marking the nation’s 250th birthday year. Marin Alsop conducts a program with two CSO co-commissions: John Adams’ The Rock You Stand On and Wynton Marsalis’s Liberty (Symphony No. 5) alongside Copland’s Appalachian Spring. James Gaffigan leads a light program of Gershwin’s Overture to Girl Crazy, Kurt Weill’s Lady in the Dark Symphonic Nocturne and Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 (“The Age of Anxiety”) with piano soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
Debuting conductor Joshua Weilerstein closes the festival and the season with Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, Ives’ Three Places in New England, Ellington’s Harlem and shorter works by Jessie Montgomery and Bohuslav Martinů.
The Symphony Center Presents and Piano Series were also announced Wednesday. CSO subscriptions are now on sale. cso.org.
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8 Responses to “Mäkelä doubles his weeks as CSO serves up a lively mix in 2025-26”
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Posted Mar 05, 2025 at 12:58 pm by stickles
Very impressed by the roster of visiting conductors. Happy to see Noseda again after so many years of absence!
Posted Mar 05, 2025 at 2:26 pm by Aileen
Love to see such an interesting mix of programming in 25/26!
Posted Mar 05, 2025 at 11:46 pm by Jennifer
CSO just raised my subscription price by 76%. Insane!
Posted Mar 07, 2025 at 10:05 am by George Young
So, where do you see “Mäkelä leads a program of Milhaud’s Le Bœuf sur le toit, Gershwin’s An American in Paris, and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (March 5-6).”?
This doesn’t appear anywhere in the CSO’s subscription brochures, online or in the CSO website’s calendar.
Posted Mar 07, 2025 at 10:50 am by Eve
No Mahler or Shostakovich? This season seems quite bland, very dissapointed. This past season had so many lesser known works but the upcoming one seems like nothing but safe crowd pleasers.
Posted Mar 08, 2025 at 1:30 pm by Lawrence A. Johnson
That’s because those are non-subscription concerts.
Posted Mar 08, 2025 at 2:11 pm by Lawrence A. Johnson
I don’t know how anyone can honestly say that the 2025-26 season is bland or less adventurous than the CSO’s current season, which I’ve criticized pretty harshly. https://chicagoclassicalreview.com/2024/02/cso-hits-the-snooze-button-for-transitional-2024-25-season/
On next season’s schedule are the world premiere of “Song of the Reappeared” by Matthew Aucoin plus John Adams’ “The Rock You Stand On” and Wynton Marsalis’s “Liberty” (Symphony No. 5), all CSO commissions or co-commissions.
Also on tap are such rarities as a Thea Musgrave piccolo concerto, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Piano Concerto, Fritz Kreisler’s Violin Concerto, Rautavvaara’s “The Fiddlers,” Sibelius’s “Lemminkäinen,” Peter Lieberson’s “Neruda Songs,” Gabriella Smith’s “Lost Coast,” works by Unsuk Chin and Jörg Widmann, Ives’ “Three Places in New England,” Ellington’s “Harlem,” and Erkki-Sven Tüür’s “Prophecy” with accordion soloist Ksenija Sidorova.
I agree about the lack of Mahler next season but with three Mahler symphonies in four weeks this spring, it’s hard to complain too much. Mahler, Shostakovich, and Sibelius are all key in Klaus Mäkelä’s repertory, and it’s fair to expect that we’ll be hearing plenty from all three composers in the coming seasons.
Posted Mar 10, 2025 at 3:17 pm by Mike T.
No Mahler? No problem. I commend the CSO for giving Gustav the year off. He needs it. I am looking forward to the M7 next month, though.
Next June’s 3-week American fest looks very interesting. I hope it comes off, unlike this June’s Berlioz Faust.