MUTI conducts
VIVALDI & HANDEL WATER MUSIC
FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2022 APOSTOLIC CHURCH OF GOD
Maestro Riccardo Muti, the Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association are deeply grateful to
Sister Isabelle Brazier, Dr. Byron Brazier, and the Apostolic Church of God community for their partnership and for hosting tonight’s performance, which marks the CSO’s third appearance at the church since 2011.
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CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RICCARDO MUTI Zell Music Director Friday, January 28, 2022, at 7:00 Apostolic Church of God
Riccardo Muti Conductor Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson Flute Robert Chen Violin Stephanie Jeong Violin David Taylor Violin Yuan-Qing Yu Violin vivaldi Concerto in B Minor for Four Violins, Op. 3, No. 10 (RV 580) Allegro Largo Allegro
robert chen stephanie jeong david taylor yuan-qing yu
vivaldi Flute Concerto in G Minor (La Notte), Op. 10, No. 2 (RV 439) Largo Fantasmi: Presto Largo Presto Il sonno: Largo Allegro
stefán r agnar höskuldsson
handel
Water Music, Suite No. 1 in F Major
Overture: Largo—Allegro Adagio e staccato [No tempo indicated] Andante [No tempo indicated] Air Minuet Bourrée Hornpipe [No tempo indicated]
There will be no intermission.
This performance is generously sponsored by an anonymous donor. This performance receives generous support from the Shebik Community Engagement Programs Fund. This community concert is partially supported by a grant from The Recording Industry’s Music Performance Trust Fund. Bank of America is the Maestro Residency Presenter. United Airlines is the Official Airline of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. CSO.ORG 3
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association is grateful to
an anonymous donor for generously sponsoring this performance.
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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association is deeply grateful to
Megan and Steve Shebik for their endowment gift to the SEMPRE ALWAYS Campaign, which generously supports this performance.
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comments by phillip huscher antonio vivaldi
Born March 4, 1678, Venice Died July 28, 1741; Vienna, Austria
Concerto in B Minor for Four Violins, Op. 3, No. 10 (RV 580) The dates of composition and first performance are unknown. i nstr u mentatio n four solo violins, strings, continuo Mark Shuldiner plays harpsichord at this performance. ap proximate per f or ma nce time 11 minutes
fi r st cs o per fo r m a n c e s March 31, 1927, Orchestra Hall. Fritz Itte, Melvin Martinson, Victor Charbulak, and Samuel Dolnick as soloists, Frederick Stock conducting
m o st re c e n t c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s July 13, 1969, Ravinia Festival. Victor Aitay, Samuel Magad, Francis Akos, and Edgar Muenzer as soloists, Antonio Janigro conducting
July 9, 1966, Ravinia Festival. Los Romeros (guitarists Celedonio, Celin, Romero, and Angel Romero) as soloists, Henry Lewis conducting
April 3, 4, and 5, 1975, Orchestra Hall. Victor Aitay, Samuel Magad, Jacques Israelievitch, and Francis Akos as soloists, Carlo Maria Giulini conducting
Flute Concerto in G Minor (La Notte), Op. 10, No. 2 (RV 439) The dates of composition and first performance are unknown. i nstr u mentatio n solo flute, strings, continuo
a pprox i m at e per fo r m a n ce t i m e 10 minutes
T
he most original, popular, and influential Italian composer of his time, Vivaldi was very quickly forgotten. Within a hundred years of his death, he had achieved the ultimate fate of most composers—oblivion. After he was finally rediscovered in the early twentieth century, and eventually became one of the most performed of all composers again, he often was written off as excessively prolific and facile. Stravinsky famously dismissed his entire career as “the same concerto four hundred times,” an assessment that was not just unkind, but also unfair. We now know that he wrote more than five—not four—hundred concertos, in addition to operas (he once claimed ninety-four, no doubt with characteristic exaggeration; some twenty survive), cantatas, and trio sonatas. Vivaldi began his career as a violin virtuoso (he studied with his father, who played at the great Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice), but he also
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f i rst c s o p e rf o rm a n c e July 13, 1969, Ravinia Festival. Donald Peck as soloist, Antonio Janigro conducting
prepared for the priesthood and took holy orders at the age of twenty-five. (He soon became known as the “Red Priest,” after the color of his hair.) That same year, he accepted a job as music director, violin teacher, and composer at the Ospedale della Pietà, a Venetian orphanage for girls—a post he would keep for nearly the remainder of his life. (Today, the Metropole, a five-star luxury hotel, occupies part of the building that once housed the Ospedale, its fine antiques and Fortuny fabrics quite at odds with the monastic accommodations that the resident girls—as many as 4,000 in the early eighteenth century—knew as their only home.) Sited in a prime spot on the Riva degli Schiavoni, the broad seaside promenade that begins to the right of Saint Mark’s Square—as you face the piazza, arriving by water—the Pietà was one of four large Venetian institutions dedicated to the care of orphaned children
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and specializing in their musical upbringing. Unlike the others, the Pietà accepted all illegitimate infants who were left by their mothers at the entrance—provided the child was still small enough to fit in the scaffetta, the box placed by the door. Of the four Venetian institutions, the Pietà was the one with the most substantive music program; it became known as one of Europe’s most highly regarded centers of musical training, a conservatory in everything but name. Vivaldi’s relationship with the Pietà was tumultuous, resulting in a series of firings and rehirings, but, in the end, he worked there for more than thirty-five years. It was the place for which he wrote much of his output, and its young residents, carefully trained under his eye, were the musicians who first played and sang several of his best-known compositions. At the height of his career, Vivaldi was as highly regarded as any living composer, including J.S. Bach, who admired Vivaldi’s music, copied out several of his scores for performance, and arranged others for different instruments. Vivaldi’s apparent specialty was the concerto, which he composed in abundance and with unusual ease, even by his own standards. (Vivaldi claimed he could compose a concerto faster than a scribe could copy it.) Vivaldi is said to have established the conventional three-movement baroque concerto form; he didn’t invent it, but by constant use from one work to the next, and with endless variety in its handling, he certainly set in place the pattern others would follow for decades to come. He is also the first composer to make regular use of ritornello form—the use of a repeating “refrain,” in different but related keys, for all the instruments, alternating with freer, modulating passages that are dominated by the soloist.
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t was the publication in Amsterdam in 1711 of a collection of twelve concertos for one or more violins called L’estro armonico—Harmonic
Inspiration is the most common translation—that first spread Vivaldi’s name throughout Europe; it became the best-selling music title of the early eighteenth century. Bach admiringly copied and arranged six of these concertos for organ or harpsichord, turning the opening work on this program, Vivaldi’s B minor concerto for four violins, into a concerto for four harpsichords in A minor. Four of the concertos in L’estro armonico call for four solo violins; the B minor concerto is the best known. (It also includes passages for solo cello.) Composing for four identical solo instruments presents a number of challenges; later composers preferred fewer instruments of contrasting character: Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola; Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for violin, cello, and piano; Brahms’s Double Concerto for violin and cello. But Vivaldi is extraordinarily ingenious in the variety with which he handles his four violins; there is a celebrated section in the second movement, marked Larghetto, in which, measure after measure, they each arpeggiate the same chords at the same time in different ways. Much of the time, Vivaldi treats the concerto as a four-way conversation, with soloists exchanging musical phrases, tossing ideas back and forth, and sometimes all speaking at once. The architectural pattern is classic Vivaldi, with two dazzling, virtuosic outer movements surrounding slower music. But here the central slow movement is a unique design: a solemn, stately opening section eventually gives way to the rippling chords of the Larghetto. At the same time Vivaldi was standardizing the concerto format, he was always finding ways to bend his own rules.
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ore than two-thirds of Vivaldi’s five hundred-plus concertos are for solo instruments—violin (most plentifully, at more than 230 concertos!), bassoon, cello, oboe, and even mandolin (but no keyboards).
a b o v e : Antonio Vivaldi, anonymous oil portrait, ca. 1723
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Most of them are still relative rarities in the concert hall (even The Four Seasons, one of the most familiar works of classical music today, was almost unknown in 1947, when Louis Kaufman, a Portland-born violinist, made the first recording of these four violin concertos). Vivaldi composed more than a dozen concertos for solo flute. Six of them were published in Amsterdam, a capital of fine printing, in 1729 as his op. 10. The second one in the set, known as La Notte (Night), stands out: it is the only one in a minor key and the only one with six movements (alternately slow and fast). Although two of the other flute concertos—Il Gardellino (The Goldfinch) and La tempesta di mare (Storm at Sea)—are pictorial, in the manner we now know best from The Four Seasons, nothing outshines Vivaldi’s
imagination in depicting the demons and night fantasies in La Notte. Vivaldi sets the tone in his slow, anxious first movement, haunted by long flute trills over ominous rhythmic patterns. The second movement, Fantasmi (Ghosts) is frantic and tormented, but it quickly gives way to a somber slow aria that even more quickly turns to an agitated, quivering presto. But it is the static fifth movement, Il sonno (Sleep), that reveals Vivaldi’s understanding that with nothing more than a few well-chosen chords music can convey our deepest feelings. This movement recalls both the music and the sonnet on which it is based from Autumn in The Four Seasons: “Fired by Bacchus’s liquor, /Many end their enjoyment in slumber.” The final Allegro is music of breathless urgency.
a b o v e : The Basin of Saint Mark’s on Ascension Day, oil painting by Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal, 1697–1768), 1733–34, depicting the annual ceremony of Venice’s symbolic marriage to the sea
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george frideric handel
Born February 23, 1685; Halle, Saxony, Germany Died April 14, 1759; London, England
Water Music, Suite No. 1 in F Major Unlike his contemporaries Bach (born just nineteen days later), Vivaldi, and Telemann, Handel has never gone out of fashion. His oratorio Messiah has helped to keep his name alive, of course. But other pieces, such as the majestic aria “Ombra mai fu” from the opera Serse (better known to amateur pianists and greatest-hits record producers as Handel’s Largo), the lively set of pieces he wrote to accompany an evening of fireworks, and his engaging suites of Water Music, also have been widely performed, even in times when baroque music was neither well known nor appreciated. Handel was among the most popular composers of his day and, particularly after he visited London in 1710 and then moved there for good in 1712, he commanded a huge following and was in great demand both as a composer and performer— he excelled on organ and harpsichord—for the rest of his life. (After he became a British subject in 1727, he started spelling his name George Frideric Handel rather than the Georg Friederich Händel that appears on his birth certificate.) Raised in northern Germany, where he received a thorough musical education (and became a friend of Telemann), and later trained in the operatic business in Italy, Handel arrived in London an unusually cosmopolitan composer. Determined to make a name for himself with London’s opera-going public, he succeeded with his first attempt, Rinaldo, which not only included much dazzling music (some of it borrowed from works he had written in Italy), but real spectacle as well, including, in one aria, the release of a flock of sparrows that set the audience buzzing. It was with the Water Music that he made his earliest indelible impression on the London public at large—his first big splash, as it were—on July 17, 1717, some six years after the triumph of Rinaldo. “On Wednesday Evening, at about 8, the King took Water at Whitehall in an open Barge,” begins the Daily Courant report of the extravaganza accompanied by what we now know as Handel’s Water Music. King George I (it was his successor, King George II, who started the tradition of standing for the Hallelujah Chorus) and a large group of English nobility sailed
composed 1717 f i rst p e rf o rm a n c e July 17, 1717; London, England i n st ru m e n tat i o n two oboes, bassoon, two horns, strings, continuo a p p roxi m at e p e rf o rm a n c e t i m e 32 minutes f i rst c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s December 6 and 7, 1901, Auditorium Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting (selections) July 2, 1938, Ravinia Festival. Artur Rodzinski conducting (suite) m o st re c e n t c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s July 13, 2003, Ravinia Festival. Nicholas McGegan conducting (Suite no. 1) November 3, 4, 5, and 6, 2011, Orchestra Hall. Bernard Labadie conducting (complete) c s o re c o rd i n g 1946. Désiré Defauw conducting. RCA (suite arranged by Sir Hamilton Harty)
a bove: George Frideric Handel, portrait in oil by Bartholomew Dandridge (1691–ca. 1754). Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England
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up the Thames River that evening to Chelsea, where they were served supper. So many “Persons of Quality” attended, and there were so many boats “that the whole River in a manner was cover’d.” Apparently, the party didn’t break up until three in the morning (the king arrived home at St. James’s Palace at about four-thirty). Although royal barge processions were common under George I—to meet the ships of visiting dignitaries, or for special holiday cruises— none boasted background music as lavish as the score Handel provided in 1717. According to the Daily Courant, one of the river barges was reserved just for the musicians, “wherein were 50 instruments of all sorts who play’d . . . the finest Symphonies, compos’d express for this Occasion, by Mr. Hendel: which his Majesty liked so well, that he caus’d it to be plaid over three times in going and returning.” (Handel’s band evidently kept going until the king himself was safely back on land—more than eight hours of service, long before unions regulated such things.)
In 1734, Handel’s publisher, John Walsh, started selling suites of what he advertised as Celebrated Water Musick, the first important printed source (minus an adjective and the final “k”) of today’s muchloved Water Music. (Walsh had already published selected movements in other collections.) In 1743, the year of the first London performance of Messiah, he issued a transcription of the Water Music for solo harpsichord. But it wasn’t until 1788, nearly three decades after the composer’s death, that the complete Water Music was finally published in full score. It is likely that the tradition of grouping Handel’s vast assortment of musical numbers into three distinct suites began with that publication, not with the composer. The first of the suites is sometimes called a horn suite, because of the prominence of those instruments (introduced into an English orchestra for the first time in the Water Music); the second is identified by the use of trumpets; and the more intimate third is assumed to represent indoor music that accompanied the royal dinner. Each of the three suites begins with an obligatory grand overture and ends with jubilant music. In between comes a loose assortment of lovely slow movements and traditional dances, including the courtly minuet (an elegant dance in triple meter), the lively French bourrée (a folk dance in duple meter), and, in the first two suites, the quintessentially British hornpipe—one of Händel’s first efforts to become, simply, Handel. Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
a b o v e : Detail of an imaginative nineteenth-century rendering of the first performance of Handel’s Water Music, in 1717, by Belgian artist Edouard Jean Conrad Hamman (1819–1888), depicting Handel—middle, right arm extended—traveling on the royal barge with King George I (1660–1727) and courtiers while musicians play in the background on the Thames in London
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MUTI C O N D U CT S Beethoven Overture to Egmont Symphony No. 4
Still & Price Mother and Child
Symphony No. 3
MAY 5–7
Riccardo Muti
conductor
FLORENCE PRICE
CSO.ORG | 312-294-3000
SYMPHONY CENTER | 220 S. MICHIGAN AVE. Maestro Residency Presenter
Official Airline of the CSO
These concerts are generously sponsored by the Zell Family Foundation.
This program is supported in part by awards from:
Artists, prices and programs subject to change.
Muti Conducts Montgomery & Beethoven Pastoral APRIL 28 – MAY 3 Riccardo Muti conductor Alexander Hanna bass MONTGOMERY Hymn for Everyone cso commission, world premiere
BOTTESINI Double Bass Concerto No. 2 BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral)
CSO.ORG | 312-294-3000
SYMPHONY CENTER | 220 S. MICHIGAN AVE. Maestro Residency Presenter
Official Airline of the CSO
This program is supported in part by awards from:
Montgomery Hymn for Everyone, World Premiere, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through the Helen Zell Commissioning Program. These concerts are generously sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Dietrich M. Gross.
Artists, prices and programs subject to change.
profiles Riccardo Muti Conductor Riccardo Muti is one of the world’s preeminent conductors. In 2010, he became the tenth music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It was recently announced that he would extend his tenure through the 2022–23 season at the request of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. Muti’s leadership has been distinguished by the strength of his artistic partnership with the Orchestra; his dedication to performing great works of the past and present, including thirteen world premieres to date; the enthusiastic reception he and the CSO have received on national and international tours; and eight recordings on the CSO Resound label, with three Grammy awards among them. In addition, his contributions to the cultural life of Chicago— with performances throughout its many neighborhoods and at Orchestra Hall—have made a lasting impact on the city. Born in Naples, Riccardo Muti studied piano under Vincenzo Vitale at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella, graduating with distinction. He subsequently received a diploma in composition and conducting from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan under the guidance of Bruno Bettinelli and Antonino Votto. He first came to the attention of critics and the public in 1967, when he won the Guido Cantelli Conducting Competition, by unanimous vote of the jury, in Milan. In 1968, he became principal conductor of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, a position he held until 1980. In 1971, Muti was invited by Herbert von Karajan to conduct at the Salzburg Festival, the first of many occasions, which led to a celebration of fifty years of artistic collaboration with the Austrian festival in 2020. During the 1970s, Muti was chief conductor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra (1972–1982), succeeding Otto Klemperer. From 1980 to 1992, he inherited the position of music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra from Eugene Ormandy. P H OTO BY TO DD RO S E NB E RG
From 1986 to 2005, he was music director of Teatro alla Scala, and during that time, he directed major projects such as the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas and Wagner’s Ring cycle in addition to his exceptional contributions to the Verdi repertoire. His tenure as music director of Teatro alla Scala, the longest in its history, culminated in the triumphant reopening of the restored opera house on December 7, 2004, with Salieri’s Europa riconosciuta. Over the course of his extraordinary career, Riccardo Muti has conducted the most important orchestras in the world: from the Berlin Philharmonic to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and from the New York Philharmonic to the Orchestre National de France; as well as the Vienna Philharmonic, an orchestra to which he is linked by particularly close and important ties, and with which he has appeared at the Salzburg Festival since 1971. When Muti was invited to lead the Vienna Philharmonic’s 150th-anniversary concert, the orchestra presented him with the Golden Ring, a special sign of esteem and affection, awarded only to a few select conductors. In 2021, he conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the New Year’s Concert for the sixth time. Muti has received numerous international honors over the course of his career. He is Cavaliere di Gran Croce of the Italian Republic and a recipient of the German Verdienstkreuz. He received the decoration of Officer of the Legion of Honor from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He was made an honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. The Salzburg Mozarteum awarded him its silver medal for his contribution to Mozart’s music, and in Vienna, he was elected an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna Hofmusikkapelle, and Vienna State Opera. Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded him the Order of Friendship, and the State of Israel has honored him with the Wolf Prize in the arts. In October 2018, Muti received the prestigious Praemium Imperiale for Music of the Japan Arts Association in Tokyo. CSO.ORG 13
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In September 2010, Riccardo Muti became music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and was named 2010 Musician of the Year by Musical America. At the 53rd annual Grammy Awards ceremony in 2011, his live performance of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus was awarded Grammy awards for Best Classical Album and Best Choral Performance. In 2011, Muti was selected as the recipient of the coveted Birgit Nilsson Prize. In 2011, he received the Opera News Award in New York City and Spain’s prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts. That summer, he was named an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic and honorary director for life of the Rome Opera. In May 2012, he was awarded the highest papal honor: the Knight of the Grand Cross First Class of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by
Pope Benedict XVI. In 2016, he was honored by the Japanese government with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star. On August 15, 2021, Muti received the Great Golden Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria, the highest possible civilian honor from the Austrian government. Passionate about teaching young musicians, Muti founded the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra in 2004 and the Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy in 2015. Through Le vie dell’Amicizia (The Roads of Friendship), a project of the Ravenna Festival in Italy, he has conducted in many of the world’s most troubled areas in order to bring attention to civic and social issues. riccardomuti.com riccardomutioperacademy.com
Muti Tours and Teaches Across the Globe The longtime musical partnership of the Vienna Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti logged a new chapter with the orchestra’s recent tour of Asia and Egypt (November 3–21, 2021). “Expectations were high even before the performance,” read The Korea Times; “It was the most-anticipated and biggest performance in Korea by an overseas ensemble since the COVID-19 pandemic started.” Organized under strict safety and travel protocols, the tour included performances in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and in the Japanese cities of Nagoya, Himeji, and Osaka and in Seoul, Daejeon, and Busa, South Korea. The November 20 and 21 performances opened the concert hall in the new Administrative Capital’s City of Arts and Culture in Cairo, Egypt. During rehearsals for the tour in Vienna, Muti received the honor of an appointment as a Foreign Honorary Member of the Russian Academy of the Arts, an award bestowed by Dmitri Ljubinski, the Russian ambassador to Austria. From December 4 to December 15, Muti partnered for the first time with Fondazione Prada to present the seventh edition of the Italian Opera Academy, focusing on Verdi’s opera Nabucco, at the foundation’s headquarters in Milan, Italy. Commenting on the partnership with the Academy, legendary Italian fashion designer Miuccia Prada said, “Thanks to this collaboration with Riccardo Muti and his Academy, the foundation has become for eleven days a place of musical research and cultural study not only for the ten young talents who have worked closely with the Maestro, but for hundreds of enthusiasts and students who, by participating in the sessions, were able to grasp the importance and richness of his teachings.” For more, visit cso.org/experience.
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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to
Bank of America for its generous support as the Maestro Residency Presenter.
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Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson Flute f ir st cso performa nces November 29, 30, December 1, and 4, 2018, Orchestra Hall. Mozart’s Flute Concerto no. 2, Robert Chen leading from the violin
Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson is principal flute of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as a distinguished international soloist and chamber musician. He was appointed to the post in 2015 by Music Director Riccardo Muti. Prior to joining the CSO, he served as principal flute of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 2008 to 2016. A native of Iceland, Höskuldsson has been praised by the New York Times for his agility and warmth of expression. Höskuldsson has performed widely throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan under the skilled direction of Fabio Luisi, Valery Gergiev, Daniel Barenboim, Seiji Ozawa, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Riccardo Muti. He has frequently performed at Carnegie Hall with the MET Orchestra and Chamber Ensemble; in 2009, he was featured as a soloist in Pierre Boulez’s Mémoriale, . . . explosante-fixe . . . . Höskuldsson has collaborated in performances and recordings with such artists as pianists Evgeny Kissin, Alfred Brendel, and Yefim Bronfman; violinist Gil Shaham; and sopranos Diana Damrau and Anna Netrebko. As a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Höskuldsson received two Grammy awards in the Best Opera Recording category for Wagner’s Ring cycle and Thomas Ades’s The Tempest. His extensive solo performances include engagements with the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan; concertos with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra; recitals at the Galway International Flute Festival in Lucerne; and a live radio broadcast with BBC Radio 3’s In Tune program in London. He regularly performs as a concerto soloist with the Orchestra.
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Höskuldsson has been a faculty member with the Pacific Music Festival in Japan since 2010. He also has given master classes at the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and Mannes College of Music in New York; and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Royal Academy of Music in London. He currently is on the faculty of DePaul University School of Music. Höskuldsson attended the Reykjavík School of Music in Iceland, where he studied with Bernhard Wilkinson. Following his graduation, he attended the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, as a student of Peter Lloyd and Wissam Boustany. Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson has recorded for Castle Classics and the Naxos label’s American Classics Series. In 2015, he released his debut solo album, Solitude, on the Delos label. Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson holds the Erika and Dietrich M. Gross Principal Flute Chair.
Robert Chen Violin fi r st c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s June 25, 2000, Ravinia Festival. Saint-Saëns’s La muse et le poète with Yo-Yo Ma, Christoph Eschenbach conducting November 30, December 1, 2, and 3, 2000, Orchestra Hall. Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 4, Daniel Barenboim conducting m o st re c e n t c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s August 7, 2021, Ravinia Festival. Eryximachus (third movement) from Bernstein’s Serenade, Teddy Abrams conducting November 4, 5, and 6, 2021, Orchestra Hall. Bruch’s Violin Concerto no. 1, Marek Janowski conducting
Robert Chen has been concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1999. During that time, he has been featured as soloist with conductors including Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, PHOTOS BY TODD ROS EN BERG
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Bernard Haitink, Christoph Eschenbach, Charles Dutoit, Ton Koopman, Osmo Vänskä, Vasily Petrenko, Nicholas Kraemer, and James Conlon. He gave the CSO premiere of György Ligeti’s Violin Concerto, Elliott Carter’s Violin Concerto, and Witold Lutosławski’s Chain Two, as well as the world premiere of Augusta Read Thomas’s Astral Canticle. In addition to his duties as concertmaster, Chen enjoys a solo career that includes performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, NDR Orchestra of Hanover, Asia Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in collaborations with such conductors as Myung-Whun Chung, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Manfred Honeck, Pavel Kogan, and Andreas Delfs. An avid chamber musician, Chen has performed with Daniel Barenboim, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Yo-Yo Ma, Lang Lang, Christoph Eschenbach, Myung-Whun Chung, Emanuel Ax, Mitsuko Uchida, Lynn Harrell, and János Starker. Also a frequent participant at numerous music festivals including Aspen, Santa Fe, La Jolla, and Schloss Moritzburg in Germany, he has toured extensively with Musicians from Marlboro and is a founding member of the Johannes Quartet. Prior to joining the CSO, Chen won first prize in the Hanover International Violin Competition. As part of that prize, he recorded Tchaikovsky’s works for violin for the Berlin Klassics label. A native of Taiwan, Robert Chen began violin studies at the age of seven and continued with Robert Lipsett when he and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1979. While in Los Angeles, he participated in Jascha Heifetz’s master classes. Chen received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Dorothy DeLay and Masao Kawasaki. In his free time, he enjoys relaxing at home with his wife Laura and children Beatrice and Noah. Robert Chen holds the Louis C. Sudler Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor. P H OTO BY TO DD RO S E NB E RG
Stephanie Jeong Violin fi r st c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s October 26, 27, 28, and 29, 1999, Orchestra Hall. Allegro maestoso (first movement excerpt) from Paganini’s Violin Concerto no. 1, William Eddins conducting (Youth Concerts) March 5, 6, and 7, 2015, Orchestra Hall. Beethoven’s Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano (Triple) with Kenneth Olsen and Jonathan Biss, Riccardo Muti conducting m o st re c e n t c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s November 7, 9, and 12, 2019, Orchestra Hall. Brahms’s Concerto for Violin and Cello (Double) with Kenneth Olsen, Riccardo Muti conducting
Stephanie Jeong was appointed associate concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2011 by Music Director Riccardo Muti. Prior to joining the Orchestra, she was a member of the New York Philharmonic from 2010 to 2011. She is a top-prize winner and recipient of the Best Paganini Concerto Prize of the 2008 Paganini Violin Competition in Italy. Jeong made solo debuts at the age of twelve with the CSO and the Philadelphia Orchestra, respectively, as winner of the Feinberg Competition. Since joining the CSO, Jeong has appeared as soloist in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto alongside Assistant Principal Cello Kenneth Olsen and pianist Jonathan Biss in the 2014–15 season, and joined Pinchas Zukerman for the Orchestra’s performances of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in the following season. A native of East Rutherford, New Jersey, Stephanie Jeong began her studies in New York with Nicole DiCecco at the Suzuki Program Music School. At the age of three, she moved to Chicago, where she studied with Betty HaagKuhnke at the Betty Haag Academy of Music. In 1997, at nine, she became one of the youngest students ever accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Aaron Rosand. She received a master’s CSO.ORG 17
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degree from the Juilliard School as a student of Cho-Liang Lin and Ronald Copes. Stephanie Jeong holds the Cathy and Bill Osborn Chair.
David Taylor Violin f ir st cso performa nces January 24, 25, and 26, 1980, Orchestra Hall. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins with Francis Akos, Sir Georg Solti conducting most r ecent cso perfo r m a n ces January 17, 18, 19, and 22, 1991, Orchestra Hall. SaintSaëns’s Violin Concerto no. 3, Kenneth Jean conducting
David Taylor joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as assistant concertmaster in 1979. Born in Canton, Ohio, he first studied violin with his father at the age of four, and continued with Margaret Randall and Rafael Druian at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He later studied with Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School, where he received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He became a member of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1974 as a first violinist. With the Chicago Symphony, he has made numerous solo appearances, including performances with Sir Georg Solti. He also has served as acting concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony and concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Taylor served as concertmaster of the Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra, which disbanded in 2015. As a lover of chamber music, he often appears in recital and solo performances in the Chicagoland area, at the Ravinia Festival, and on WFMT-FM. He frequently performs with the Pressenda Trio with fellow CSO cellist Gary Stucka and pianist Andrea Swan. Taylor is also a soloist with the region’s local orchestras. He teaches privately at the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago and at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of
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Performing Arts. A coach of orchestral violinists, he has students in orchestras across the United States and Japan. David Taylor resides in downtown Chicago with his wife, violinist Michelle Wynton. He plays a J.B. Guadagnini violin, made in 1744. David Taylor holds the Ling Z. and Michael C. Markovitz Chair.
Yuan-Qing Yu Violin fi r st c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s February 14, 15, and 16, 2002, Orchestra Hall. Haydn’s Sinfonia concertante with Michael Henoch, William Buchman, and Stephen Balderston; Ingo Metzmacher conducting m o st re c e n t c s o p e rf o rm a n c e s May 22, 23, 24, 25, and 27, 2008. Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Harry Bicket conducting
An international award-winning violinist, Yuan-Qing Yu is praised for her virtuosic performances, her collaborative interdisciplinary projects, and her pursuit of bringing music to people with limited resources. A soloist, chamber musician, and teacher, Yu leads an active life in the United States and abroad. Locally, she can be seen and heard regularly on WFMT-FM’s Live programs, the CSO Chamber Music series, and the MusicNOW series at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance. She is a professor at Northwestern and Roosevelt universities, and frequently presents lectures and symposiums with professors from other fields. In 2011, she founded Civitas Ensemble (a 501c3 organization), and currently serves on its board and leads as its president. With her Civitas colleagues, she continues to perform outreach concerts at hospitals, schools, and senior-living facilities. Civitas’s collaborative projects with international artists are supported by generous donors and institutions, including the MacArthur PHOTOS BY TODD ROS EN BERG
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Foundation. Civitas Ensemble’s Grammy Award–nominated albums Alla Zingarese and Jin Yin, on the Cedille label, were in the top-10 on Billboard’s Classical Chart. An avid chamber musician, Yuan-Qing Yu has collaborated with Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman, Menahem Pressler, Lang Lang, and Yo-Yo Ma, among others. She has given numerous critically acclaimed performances with major orchestras in the United States, Asia, and Europe, including the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She spends part of the summer teaching at the Brevard Music Center Summer Festival in North Carolina.
Yu, a contemporary-music enthusiast, gave the Chicago premiere of Pierre Boulez’s Anthèmes 2 for solo violin and was invited by Boulez and Barenboim to perform the work in Berlin for Boulez’s eightieth-birthday-celebration concert in 2005. She is an advocate for living composers, having commissioned and premiered more than ten compositions. A native of Shanghai, China, Yuan-Qing Yu earned an artist’s certificate in violin and a master’s degree in music from Southern Methodist University. She was appointed assistant concertmaster of the CSO by Daniel Barenboim in 1995. In her spare time, she loves reading, learning, and traveling.
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chicago symphony orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the world’s leading orchestras, and in September 2010, renowned Italian conductor Riccardo Muti became its tenth music director. During his tenure, the Orchestra has deepened its engagement with the Chicago community, nurtured its legacy while supporting a new generation of musicians and composers, and collaborated with visionary artists. The history of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra began in 1889, when Theodore Thomas, then the leading conductor in America and a recognized music pioneer, was invited by Chicago businessman Charles Norman Fay to establish a symphony orchestra here. Thomas’s aim to build a permanent orchestra with performance capabilities of the highest quality was realized at the first concerts in October 1891 in the Auditorium Theatre. Thomas served as music director until his death in January 1905—just three weeks after the dedication of Orchestra Hall, the Orchestra’s permanent home designed by Daniel Burnham. Frederick Stock, recruited by Thomas to the viola section in 1895, became assistant conductor in 1899 and succeeded the Orchestra’s founder. His tenure lasted thirty-seven years, from 1905 to 1942—the longest of the Orchestra’s music directors. Dynamic and innovative, the Stock years saw the founding of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the first training orchestra in the United States affiliated with a major symphony orchestra, in 1919. Stock also established youth auditions, organized the first subscription concerts especially for children, and began a series of popular concerts. Three eminent conductors headed the Orchestra during the following decade: Désiré Defauw was music director from 1943 to 1947; Artur Rodzinski assumed the post in 1947–48; and Rafael Kubelík led the ensemble for three seasons from 1950 to 1953. The next ten years belonged to Fritz Reiner, whose recordings with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are still considered performance hallmarks. It was Reiner who invited Margaret Hillis to form the Chicago Symphony Chorus in 1957. For the five seasons from 1963 to 1968, Jean Martinon held the position of music director. Sir Georg Solti, the Orchestra’s eighth music director, served from 1969 until 1991. His arrival launched one of the most successful musical partnerships of our time, and the CSO made its first overseas tour to Europe in 1971 under his direction, along with numerous award-winning recordings. Solti then held
the title of music director laureate and returned to conduct the Orchestra for several weeks each season until his death in September 1997. Daniel Barenboim was named music director designate in January 1989, and he became the Orchestra’s ninth music director in September 1991, a position he held until June 2006. His tenure was distinguished by the opening of Symphony Center in 1997, highly praised operatic productions at Orchestra Hall, numerous appearances with the Orchestra in the dual role of pianist and conductor, twenty-one international tours, and the appointment of Duain Wolfe as the Chorus’s second director. Pierre Boulez’s long-standing relationship with the Orchestra led to his appointment as principal guest conductor in 1995. He was named Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus in 2006, a position he held until his death in January 2016. Only two others have served as principal guest conductors: Carlo Maria Giulini, who appeared in Chicago regularly in the late 1950s, was named to the post in 1969, serving until 1972; Claudio Abbado held the position from 1982 to 1985. From 2006 to 2010, Bernard Haitink was the Orchestra’s first principal conductor. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma served as the CSO’s Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant from 2010 to 2019. Hilary Hahn currently is the CSO’s Artist-in-Residence, a role that brings her to Chicago for multiple residencies each season. Jessie Montgomery is the current Mead Composerin-Residence. She follows ten highly regarded composers in this role, including John Corigliano and Shulamit Ran—both winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Music—and Missy Mazzoli, who completed her threeyear tenure in June 2021. In addition to composing works for the CSO, Montgomery curates the contemporary MusicNOW series. The Orchestra first performed at Ravinia Park in 1905 and appeared frequently through August 1931, after which the park was closed for most of the Great Depression. In August 1936, the Orchestra helped to inaugurate the first season of the Ravinia Festival, and it has been in residence nearly every summer since. Since 1916, recording has been a significant part of the Orchestra’s activities. Current releases on CSO Resound, the Orchestra’s independent recording label, include the Grammy Award–winning release of Verdi’s Requiem led by Riccardo Muti. Recordings by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have earned sixty-three Grammy awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
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Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director
Duain Wolfe Chorus Director and Conductor Jessie Montgomery Mead Composer-in-Residence Hilary Hahn Artist-in-Residence violins Robert Chen Concertmaster The Louis C. Sudler Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor Stephanie Jeong Associate Concertmaster The Cathy and Bill Osborn Chair David Taylor Assistant Concertmaster* The Ling Z. and Michael C. Markovitz Chair Yuan-Qing Yu Assistant Concertmaster* So Young Bae Cornelius Chiu Alison Dalton Gina DiBello § Kozue Funakoshi Russell Hershow Qing Hou Matous Michal Simon Michal Blair Milton ‡ Sando Shia Susan Synnestvedt Rong-Yan Tang Baird Dodge Principal Lei Hou Ni Mei Fox Fehling Hermine Gagné Rachel Goldstein Mihaela Ionescu Sylvia Kim Kilcullen Melanie Kupchynsky Wendy Koons Meir Aiko Noda Joyce Noh Nancy Park Ronald Satkiewicz Florence Schwartz viol as Li-Kuo Chang Acting Principal The Paul Hindemith Principal Viola Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor Catherine Brubaker Youming Chen Sunghee Choi Wei-Ting Kuo Danny Lai Weijing Michal §
Diane Mues Lawrence Neuman Max Raimi cellos John Sharp Principal The Eloise W. Martin Chair Kenneth Olsen Assistant Principal The Adele Gidwitz Chair Karen Basrak The Joseph A. and Cecile Renaud Gorno Chair Loren Brown Richard Hirschl Daniel Katz Katinka Kleijn David Sanders Gary Stucka Brant Taylor basses Alexander Hanna Principal The David and Mary Winton Green Principal Bass Chair Daniel Armstrong Robert Kassinger Mark Kraemer Stephen Lester Bradley Opland harp Lynne Turner flutes Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson Principal The Erika and Dietrich M. Gross Principal Flute Chair Emma Gerstein Jennifer Gunn piccolo Jennifer Gunn The Dora and John Aalbregtse Piccolo Chair oboes William Welter Principal The Nancy and Larry Fuller Principal Oboe Chair Michael Henoch Assistant Principal The Gilchrist Foundation Chair Lora Schaefer Scott Hostetler
english horn Scott Hostetler cl arinets Stephen Williamson Principal John Bruce Yeh Assistant Principal Gregory Smith e-fl at cl arinet John Bruce Yeh bassoons Keith Buncke Principal William Buchman Assistant Principal Dennis Michel Miles Maner contrabassoon Miles Maner horns David Cooper Principal Daniel Gingrich Associate Principal James Smelser David Griffin Oto Carrillo Susanna Gaunt trumpets Esteban Batallán Principal The Adolph Herseth Principal Trumpet Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor Mark Ridenour Assistant Principal John Hagstrom The Pritzker Military Museum & Library Chair Tage Larsen
tuba Gene Pokorny Principal The Arnold Jacobs Principal Tuba Chair, endowed by Christine Querfeld timpani David Herbert Principal The Clinton Family Fund Chair Vadim Karpinos Assistant Principal percussion Cynthia Yeh Principal Patricia Dash Vadim Karpinos James Ross librarians Peter Conover Principal Carole Keller Mark Swanson orchestra personnel John Deverman Director Anne MacQuarrie Manager, CSO Auditions and Orchestra Personnel stage technicians Christopher Lewis Stage Manager Blair Carlson Paul Christopher Ramon Echevarria Ryan Hartge Peter Landry Todd Snick
trombones Jay Friedman Principal The Lisa and Paul Wiggin Principal Trombone Chair Michael Mulcahy Charles Vernon bass trombone Charles Vernon
* Assistant concertmasters are listed by seniority. ‡ On sabbatical § On leave The Louise H. Benton Wagner Chair currently is unoccupied. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra string sections utilize revolving seating. Players behind the first desk (first two desks in the violins) change seats systematically every two weeks and are listed alphabetically. Section percussionists also are listed alphabetically.
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All-Access Chamber Series Curated and performed by members of the CSO, the All-Access Chamber Music series presents free concerts in Orchestra Hall and venues throughout the city.
Symphony Center Tuesday, April 19, 6:30 Tuesday, May 17, 6:30 Kehrein Center for the Arts Tuesday, March 22, 6:30 South Shore Cultural Center Sunday, May 1, 3:00 Beverly Arts Center Sunday, June 5, 3:00
Get your free tickets today!
These concerts are generously sponsored by an anonymous donor.
CSO.ORG/ALLACCESS | 312-294-3000