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Maestro’s Milestones
a presentation of highlight s from riccardo mu ti’s tenure in honor of his tenth se a s on a s music director of the chicago symphony orchestr a
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10 NO. 1: COMP O S E R CYCLE S AND RE TROS PECTIV ES
While this season he honored the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven by conducting many of his symphonies, Riccardo Muti has also brought special attention to the work of several composers throughout his tenure as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s tenth music director. Listening to the works of these composers in a concentrated way and with the benefit of Muti’s exceptional interpretations from the podium has led to a deeper understanding and appreciation of both familiar and lesser-known music. As CSO Trombone Michael Mulcahy said of Maestro Muti, “When he comes on stage, the room changes because you know this is a serious event, you know something important is going to happen.” 2 CSO.ORG
a series of highlight s from riccardo mu ti’s tenure in honor of his tenth se a s on a s music director of the chicago symphony orchestr a the music of verdi: “For more than forty years, Riccardo Muti has been the king of Verdi conductors, the one who most makes you feel you are hearing the composer’s operas for the very first time,” read The New York Times following performances of Falstaff (April 2016). Audiences have had the pleasure of hearing Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus perform many works by Verdi, including his Requiem (January 2009, October 2013, and November 2018), Aida (June 2019), and all three of his operas based on Shakespeare’s plays, beginning with Otello (April 2011), followed by Macbeth (September and October 2013), and Falstaff. Muti’s interpretations have revealed the infinite nuances of Verdi’s scores and their ability to express the complex emotions and motivations of his characters.
During his first season as music director, Muti and the Orchestra and Chorus presented Otello at Carnegie Hall on April 15, 2011, following three earlier performances at Orchestra Hall. Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of Verdi’s birth in 2013, CSO Resound released a recording of the Otello performances.
The CSO’s music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to Bank of America for its generous support as the Maestro Residency Presenter. ALL PHOTOS BY TODD ROS EN BERG U N L ES S OTHERW I S E N OTED
the music of schubert: “When you hear the music of Schubert, you go home enriched,” said Muti in anticipation of his presentation of Schubert’s Mass in A-flat major and eight symphonies during the 2013–14 season—the first complete cycle in a single season in the Orchestra’s history of Schubert’s seven completed symphonies and the Unfinished Symphony no. 8. “This is music of abundant satisfaction,” said Scholar-in-Residence and Program Annotator Phillip Huscher. “It coaxes players to listen to one another as if they were playing chamber music and to sing with their instruments; it gives audiences a rare sense of inner pleasure, of well-being. Behind the polished veneer of the scores, you sense that Schubert, as one of his friends once said, was reaching for the stars.”
the symphonies of br ahms: In May 2017, Riccardo Muti conducted Brahms’s four symphonies in two sets of concerts. As John von Rhein wrote in the Chicago Tribune, “It takes a conductor of experience, not to mention the wisdom . . . to bring something insightful to this well-worn corpus of masterpieces. . . . Those insights are there in the Brahms symphony cycle Riccardo Muti is concluding with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.” So convincing were those performances, that Muti selected the symphonies of Brahms to represent the Orchestra on tour nationally and internationally in subsequent seasons.
Muti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and soloists Rosa Feola (soprano), Michaela Selinger (mezzo-soprano), Antonio Poli (tenor), and Riccardo Zanellato (bass) in Schubert’s Mass no. 5 in A-flat major on February 6, 2014, as part of the season-long celebration of Schubert.
tchaikovsk y and scriabin: As a main theme of the CSO’s 2014–15 programming, Muti explored the music of two Russian giants with a common heritage but distinctive styles. Journalist Peter Lefevre wrote of the Tchaikovsky/ Scriabin theme, “They contain an encyclopedic overview of their native country, pointing toward history but also the future. Simple folk songs and Orthodox hymns at one end, apocalyptic chaos at the other, in the middle the ballets, operas and waltzes that continue to inspire and enchant the world over.”
Muti and the CSO perform Brahms’s Symphony no. 2 at Lane Tech College Prep High School, November 15, 2017. As part of his vision to expand the impact of the CSO throughout the city, Muti has conducted the Orchestra in an annual community concert since 2010.
A centerpiece of the CSO’s complete traversal of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies began with a free community concert on September 19, 2014, in Millennium Park featuring Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 4, along with The Tempest and Suite from The Sleeping Beauty.
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the music of bruckner: The CSO has a distinguished history of performing the works of Anton Bruckner since the Orchestra’s first music director, Theodore Thomas, conducted the Fourth Symphony in 1897. Muti has continued this tradition, conducting six of his nine symphonies as well as the Te Deum since his appointment. “Nobility, lyrical feeling, and dramatic thrust are keys to Muti’s approach to the Bruckner symphonies,” said the Chicago Tribune.
italian composers of the nineteenth and t wentieth centuries: One of the great benefits of having an Italian music director is that he is no more than one or two degrees of separation from great Italian composers himself. A living disciple of Arturo Toscanini through his own teacher, Antonino Votto, Muti has conducted many symphonic and operatic works by Italian composers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Cherubini, Rossini, Verdi, Boito, Catalani, Martucci, Puccini, Mascagni, Giordano, Respighi, and others.
“Muti delivers on promise, leads thrilling Cherubini Requiem with CSO, Chorus” read the headline in the Chicago Tribune following the March 17, 2012, performance.
James R. Oestreich of The New York Times named Muti’s CSO Resound release of Bruckner’s Symphony no. 9 one of the best classical music recordings of 2017.
the music of prokofiev: Muti has championed the diverse music of Sergei Prokofiev. In 2007, he chose the Third Symphony for his first performances with the Orchestra since his 1975 Orchestra Hall debut and conducted it again in June 2018. “The first time was very good. I felt the power of the orchestra and the precision of the orchestra. This time,” he said, with obvious satisfaction, referring to the 2018 performance, “I was much more impressed by the subtlety of the orchestra. The power was still there . . . but the orchestra was singing, even in the most brutal music that the symphony requires.” Muti undertook performances of two of Prokofiev’s monumental scores for the films of Sergei Eisenstein: Alexander Nevsky in January 2015 and Ivan the Terrible in February 2017. Seen here is Muti conducting the Orchestra and Chorus with actor Gérard Depardieu performing the title role in Ivan the Terrible.
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AVAILABLE ON CSO RESOUND
A VIRTUOSIC SHOWCASE OF 19TH-CENTURY ITALIAN MUSIC IN ALL ITS PASSION, JOY AND HEARTBREAK Includes selections from Verdi’s Nabucco, Macbeth and I vespri siciliani, intermezzos by Puccini and Mascagni and Boito’s Prologue to Mefistofele. Recorded live in Orchestra Hall, June 2017.
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Bernard Rands’s Danza petrificada received its world premiere on May 5, 2011. Muti and the Orchestra took the work on tour to Europe, to cities including Lucerne, Salzburg, Luxembourg, Paris, and Vienna, the following summer.
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NO. 2: WORLD PRE MIE RE S
Introducing new music to CSO audiences has been an important part of Riccardo Muti’s artistic legacy as music director. With the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, he has conducted thirteen world premieres to date by CSO Mead Composers-in-Residence and distinguished American and international composers. Having studied composition himself for ten years, Muti has the utmost respect for composers: “I approach music of the classical period—baroque, modern, romantic, contemporary—always in the same way, with the same seriousness,” he says. “The moment of truth comes when what the composer has sought is coming to life in the performance.” Many of these commissions have been concertos featuring members of the Orchestra, reflecting Muti’s great confidence in their abilities as soloists. Most recently he conducted the world premiere of Nicolas Barci’s Ophelia’s Tears, a CSO commission, in February 2020, featuring CSO Bass Clarinet J. Lawrie Bloom.
Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Jennifer Higdon recalled Muti’s concise advice to her when she received her commission for the CSO’s low brass section: “ ‘Write these guys a good concerto.’ I said, ‘Yes, sir!’ ” Muti conducted the premiere of Higdon’s Low Brass Concerto on February 1, 2018, and then took the work on tour, performing it in New York at Carnegie Hall; in Naples and West Palm Beach, Florida; and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
On January 30, 2014, Riccardo Muti conducted Giovanni Sollima’s Antidotum Tarantulae XXI, Concerto for Two Cellos and Orchestra, with the then Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Yo-Yo Ma and the composer as soloists. The idea for the commission came from both Muti and Ma. Muti was already familiar with Sollima’s music, having commissioned and premiered two earlier works by the composer: Tempeste e ritratti at the Teatro alla Scala in 2001, and Passiuni at the Ravenna Festival in 2008.
CSO Viola Max Raimi’s score, composed at the request of Riccardo Muti, was specifically written for his colleagues in the Orchestra. Raimi was acutely aware, as he was composing the pages of his Three Lisel Mueller Settings, of creating music for the people who sit around him day after day in rehearsal and in concerts. Each movement featured a different colleague, including Principal Clarinet Stephen Williamson, Principal Bassoon Keith Bunke, and Principal Bass Alexander Hanna. Muti conducted the premiere with the CSO and mezzo-soprano soloist Elizabeth DeShong on March 22, 2018.
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Two CSO Resound releases feature CSO-commissioned works by Mead Composers-inResidence Anna Clyne and Mason Bates conducted by Muti and performed live by the CSO. The first includes Bates’s Alternative Energy and Clyne’s Night Ferry. The second recording is of Bates’s Anthology of Fantastic Zoology, which was dedicated to Muti at the conclusion of the composer’s residency.
mead composers-in-residence
In October 2009, Riccardo Muti, then music director designate, outlined several initiatives for his tenure. One of them was to appoint CSO Mead Composersin-Residence who would act as advocates within the Chicago community to further the understanding and appreciation of all music. He named Mason Bates and Anna Clyne to two-year terms beginning in 2010, which were later extended through the 2014–15 season. In 2015, he appointed Samuel Adams and Elizabeth Ogonek to three-year residencies. During their time with the CSO, each of the composers had multiple works conducted by Muti, including CSO commissions, bringing these emerging composers to international attention. In 2018, Muti appointed Missy Mazzoli, whose CSO-commissioned work Orpheus Undone will receive its world premiere with Muti and the Orchestra at a future date.
Samuel Adams shakes the hand of Riccardo Muti following the February 10, 2018, performance of his CSO-commissioned work, many words of love, at Carnegie Hall. Muti and Principal Bass Alexander Hanna congratulate Elizabeth Ogonek backstage following the October 11, 2017, performance of her CSOcommissioned work, All These Lighted Things, at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City. Muti has often chosen to feature CSO-commissioned works on tour to reinforce the Orchestra’s commitment to contemporary music and living composers. In addition to writing her CSO commission, Missy Mazzoli curated the CSO’s MusicNOW series for two seasons. She is seen here performing her arrangement of music by Meredith Monk, entitled Passage, What Does It Mean?, with CSO musicians at the May 20, 2019, MusicNOW concert. 8 CSO.ORG
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10 Concertmaster Robert Chen performed Hindemith’s Violin Concerto with Muti and the CSO on October 11, 2013.
Muti conducted Principal Cello John Sharp in Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor on March 26, 2014.
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NO. 3: CONCE RTO S W ITH ORCHE STR A ME MB E RS
Riccardo Muti has an exceptional bond with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In an interview with Scholarin-Residence and Program Annotator Phillip Huscher last season, Muti noted that when he returned to conduct the CSO in 2007, “the way they responded to my musical ideas and the sense of family that we immediately created together pushed me to accept this very prestigious commitment.” One way of showing his great respect for their talents has been to invite members of the Orchestra to perform concertos at Orchestra Hall and on tour. Moreover, as was noted earlier, many of these concertos have been CSO commissions. Here are some highlights from the nearly twenty works featuring CSO members as soloists that Muti has conducted during his tenure.
Principal Clarinet Stephen Williamson performed Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A major on the CSO’s West Coast Tour and is pictured here at Zellerbach Hall at University of California, Berkeley, on October 14, 2017.
Jennifer Gunn performed the CSO premiere of Ken Benshoof ’s Concerto in Three Movements for Piccolo and Orchestra and Vivaldi’s Piccolo Concerto in C major, RV 444, with Muti and the CSO on June 13, 2019. On the same program, Charles Vernon gave the world-premiere performance of James Stephenson’s Bass Trombone Concerto.
Muti conducted Associate Concertmaster Stephanie Jeong and Assistant Principal Cello Kenneth Olsen in Brahms’s Double Concerto, pictured here on November 7, 2019.
Muti congratulated Principal Harp Sarah Bullen after her performance of Debussy’s Sacred and Profane Dances on April 19, 2018. Riccardo Muti joined CSO soloists backstage following the premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s Low Brass Concerto on February 1, 2018. (From left) Principal Tuba Gene Pokorny, Riccardo Muti, Trombone Michael Mulcahy, Bass Trombone Charles Vernon, and Principal Trombone Jay Friedman
P H OTOS BY TO DD RO S E NB E RG, ANN E RYAN (P H OTO AT C ENTER LEFT)
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10 NO. 4 : N ATIONAL AND INTE RN ATIONAL TO U RS
Riccardo Muti has embraced the Chicago Symphony’s touring legacy and reinforced the Orchestra’s reputation as a cultural ambassador on more than ten tours including several domestic tours, such as those to the East and West coasts, multiple visits to Carnegie Hall, among other national venues; eight European tours; and two tours to Asia. Before assuming the role of music director, Muti returned to lead the CSO in September 2007 in a month-long residency that included subscription concerts and a triumphant seven-city, nine-concert European tour that featured the Orchestra’s first appearances in Italy in over twenty-five years. The renewed artistic partnership, one that began with Muti’s CSO podium debut at the Ravinia Festival in 1973, led to the appointment of Muti as the CSO’s tenth music director. Here is a selection of photographs and press quotes that reflect the incredible impact Muti and the Orchestra have made during their travels together. Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, September 28, 2007
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Muti made his first Carnegie Hall appearances as music director of the CSO between April 15–17, 2011, with three different programs. The April 15 performance of Otello with the Orchestra and Chorus was a compete sell-out.
“ It was a privilege . . . to hear [Otello] performed in concert by this superb orchestra. The nuances of the playing came through vividly: the quartet of plush solo cellos during the love duet, the beautiful interplay of woodwinds in the mournful orchestral opening of act 4, and much more.” —The New York Times
From August 22 to September 7, 2011, Muti and the CSO traveled on their first European tour together since his appointment as music director. The tour included performances at the Salzburg, Lucerne, and Dresden music festivals and in Luxembourg at the Philharmonie, in Paris at the Salle Pleyel, and in Vienna at the Musikverein. Seen here is the August 26 concert at the Salzburg Grosses Festspielhaus.
“ The audience response: foot-stomping on the wooden floor and, with Muti and the orchestra’s third bow, a standing ovation. ‘It wasn’t the usual reaction of the audience,’ [Jan] Vogler [director of the Dresden Music Festival] said. ‘It’s usually a conservative and quiet audience. I think they were really in heaven.’ ” —Chicago Tribune February 14–19, 2012, the CSO returned to California for the first time in twenty-five years for concerts in San Francisco, Costa Mesa, Palm Desert, and San Diego. The February 2012 tour included the West Coast premieres of pieces by CSO Mead Composers-in-Residence Mason Bates and Anna Clyne. Here Muti and Clyne take a bow at Davies Hall on February 15 following a performance of Night Ferry.
“ Through both concerts, Muti’s marvelously hands-on, total and constant involvement with every element of the music, every member of the orchestra amazed and delighted.” —San Francisco Classical Voice The April 2012 European tour with Maestro Muti marked the CSO’s first appearances in Russia (Moscow and Saint Petersburg) in more than two decades and included debuts in Naples, Brescia, and Ravenna, Italy. Seen here is a standing ovation for Muti and the CSO following their performance in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on April 18.
“ The audience of nearly five thousand in the Pala de Andrè [Ravenna] was in paradise. One has the impression that the orchestra’s power and gradation of sound are limitless, to which Muti has added clarity and transparency of sound.” —Il Giornale
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10 Engaging with the public beyond the stage has always been a priority for Muti and the Orchestra. Here Muti shakes the hand of a young man in Tokyo at a CD signing during his first tour to Asia with the CSO, which included ten sold-out concerts in Taipei, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, and Seoul in the winter of 2016.
“ Such mastery!” —Asahi Shimbun
On the Fall 2014 European Tour, Muti conducted the CSO’s debuts in Warsaw, Poland, and Geneva, Switzerland, in addition to performances in Luxembourg, Paris, and a week-long residency at the Musikverein in Vienna, which included two performances of Verdi’s Requiem and two additional orchestral programs. Seen here is the standing ovation following the October 20 debut in Warsaw.
“ To say that this concert by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its charismatic leader will find a place in our history books would be an understatement . . .” —Tribune de Genève
On their fifth international tour together, Muti conducted the CSO’s debut in Spain’s Canary Islands—in Las Palmas (seen here, January 10, 2014), the capital of Gran Canaria, and in Santa Cruz de Tenerife—opening the thirtieth Canary Islands Music Festival.
“ . . . and what concerts! Impressive, moving, radiant. . . . I’m at a loss for words. The combination of Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is something close to miraculous.” —El País
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The Fall 2015 National Tour also included concerts at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Carolina Performing Arts Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and the Kauffman Center (seen here, October 27) in Kansas City, Missouri.
“ Muti is a true genius of the podium.” —The Kansas City Star
“A superb live performance of this haunting work . . . uniting it all is Mr. Muti’s conceptual vision, precision and compassion. This is a Babi Yar to cherish.” wall street journal
“A probing performance of a work Muti rightly termed ‘a masterpiece.’” chicago tribune
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In addition to concerts in Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing, and Osaka, Muti led the CSO, soloists, and the Tokyo Opera Singers chorus in two performances of Verdi’s Requiem during a residency at the Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo on January 31 (seen here) and February 2, following a performance of Brahms’s symphonies nos. 1 and 2 on January 30. Verdi’s Requiem was a dramatic conclusion to Muti’s second tour to Asia with the CSO in 2019.
“ The CSO showcased its wide range of expression under the baton of Riccardo Muti. In sensitive movements, there were colors and nuances, and in tutti, glorious sounds filled the hall.” —Nikkei
In February 2018, following concerts in New York and Washington, D.C., Muti and the CSO traveled to Florida. Seen here, Muti conducts at Hayes Hall in Naples, Florida, on February 12. The success of these concerts led to the foundation of an annual residency for the Orchestra with Artis—Naples.
“ This ensemble commands strength in every instrumental department, and Muti has welded the players into a corporate unit that can turn on a dime.” —South Florida Classical Review
Riccardo Muti embraces CSO Concertmaster Robert Chen and shares a laugh with the Orchestra during the first rehearsal of their second tour to Asia on January 19, 2019.
“ It seems that after nearly ten years in the group, Muti and the orchestra have now established a kind of tacit understanding, and he has fully integrated his decades of artistic ideas into the deep tradition of the group.” —Wenhui Daily News Riccardo Muti conducted his 350th performance with the CSO on February 7, 2018, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the first stop of the 2018 East Coast Tour.
“ [An] evening that offered a taste of what a really great orchestra sounds like.” —Washington Post
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NO. 5: COMM U NIT Y E NGAGE ME NT
Riccardo Muti has been a lifelong and passionate champion of music’s ability to transcend cultural divides, enact social change, and transform people’s lives. As he made plans to assume the post of music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra beginning with the 2010–11 season, Muti formally announced his intention to expand the Orchestra’s presence well beyond Orchestra Hall. “While making great music is at the heart of what we do,” said Muti, “preserving the legacy of symphonic music and providing opportunities for all to have access to the art form are of equal importance.” Over the past ten seasons, Muti has developed programs with the Negaunee Music Institute, the expansive education and community engagement wing of the CSOA. Under his visionary leadership, NMI has deepened the Orchestra’s engagement with communities across the city and abroad while nurturing a new generation of musicians and patrons. In Muti’s words, “In a challenging world, culture is one of the few things we have in our hands to save it.”
Riccardo Muti engages the viola and cello sections during a Civic Orchestra open rehearsal on September 25, 2017.
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concerts for chicago and communit y concerts Riccardo Muti initiated the tradition of beginning the season with a large-scale free concert during his first season as music director. The first Concert for Chicago, on September 19, 2010, introduced Maestro Muti to the city with great fanfare—declared as “Riccardo Muti Day in Chicago” by then Mayor Richard M. Daley, the same day that the Chicago City Council passed a resolution launching Festa Muti, a monthlong festival celebrating his first residency as music director. Riccardo Muti and the CSO share a core belief that music has the power to transform lives and bring people closer together; it is a language that unites us. The tradition of community concerts demonstrates an ongoing commitment to and appreciation for the city of Chicago. Venues have ranged from Millennium Park in the heart of downtown to throughout the greater Chicago area.
On September 19, 2010, Riccardo Muti officially began his tenure as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s tenth music director leading a free concert in Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion before a crowd of more than 25,000 people, starting an annual tradition for the people of Chicago.
The 2011–12 season began with a free community concert at the Apostolic Church of God in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago. A highly attentive crowd of almost 6,000 people—ranging in age from toddler to senior citizen—enjoyed works by Verdi, Ibert, and Tchaikovsky. Muti and the CSO returned to Apostolic Church of God on October 13, 2016, when Muti opened the concert with an invitation to sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often referred to as the Black National Anthem, performed with the CSO, Chatham Choral Ensemble, and guest vocalists.
“ Let us be a family. . . . We feel your presence here tonight.” —Riccardo Muti On September 18, 2013, Riccardo Muti conducted the CSO; soloists; and a choir made up of members of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, Morton East Choir, and other groups representative of the city and suburbs in selections from Verdi’s La forza del destino and Nabucco, in addition to Brahms’s Second Symphony, at Morton East High School in Cicero.
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t o p r i g h t: On September 18, 2015, Riccardo Muti opened the Orchestra’s 125th anniversary season with a special weekend of performances, including a Concert for Chicago for an audience of more than 5,000, who, despite a tornado warning, braved the inclement weather to support Muti and the CSO and to hear Mahler’s First Symphony. at r i g h t: Pouring rain couldn’t keep concertgoers from the September 21, 2012, Concert for Chicago, when Muti and the Orchestra returned to Millennium Park to perform Orff’s Carmina Burana with soloists Rosa Feola, Antonio Giovannini, and Audun Iversen, along with the Chicago Symphony Chorus and the Chicago Children’s Choir.
Lane Tech College Prep High School on Chicago’s North Side shares in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s legacy, as many of its alumni have gone on to become members of the Orchestra. Riccardo Muti conducted community concerts there on November 15, 2017, and September 24, 2019.
“ Many of you are young and the generation of the future, and the music that we heard tonight is a message of love and beauty. . . . Remember, all of you, only Beauty, with a capital B, can come to save the world.” —Riccardo Muti
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engaging incarcer ated youth through music Each season since 2010, Muti has visited a Chicago-area juvenile justice facility to present an interactive recital for incarcerated youth. Maestro Muti’s prison visits have inspired a portfolio of musical projects for the Negaunee Music Institute in partnership with specialists in the field. Since launching these special performances, Muti has visited the Illinois Youth Center in Warrenville, a facility that houses teenage females; the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center on Chicago’s West Side, a facility that holds pre-adjudicated teenage males and females; and the Illinois Youth Center in Chicago, a facility for teenage males. For each visit, Maestro Muti brings with him special guests, including CSO musicians and soloists.
Riccardo Muti and Chicago Symphony Chorus members Elizabeth Gray (seen here) and Sarah Ponder performed opera arias for young women incarcerated at the Illinois Youth Center (IYC) in Warrenville on September 27, 2010. Maestro Muti has returned there many times, and in September 2015, an Evanston-based Juvenile Justice Initiative honored him for his time, efforts, and commitment to young inmates.
Pictured here are CSO Trumpets Mark Ridenour and Tage Larsen, Horn David Griffin, Trombone Michael Mulcahy, and Principal Tuba Gene Pokorny at the Illinois Youth Center–Chicago on September 28, 2014. After the brass quintet finished, Muti and the musicians fielded questions from the audience, which sparked an impromptu rap performance by four of the youth. The evening concluded with a reception that provided time to speak one-on-one with the performers.
After the September 25, 2016, Illinois Youth Center-Chicago recital, bass-baritone Eric Owens, who appeared with Muti, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and CSO musicians, told WFMT-FM: “I always carry experiences like this with me. There’s nothing like music to spread love. Music can fill us with hope and vision. I am always happy to be a part of Maestro Muti’s mission to bring music to where the people are.”
“Every time I’ve brought music to the juvenile detention centers or to churches in communities that don’t come to the concert hall, I’ve seen that people receive music with great attention, with great enthusiasm, and with great participation. . . . Sometimes this crowd of people . . . responds to your performance with much more intensity and understanding than the so-called sophisticated audience,” said Muti. Here Muti shakes the hand of CSO Principal Bass Alexander Hanna on September 24, 2017, performance at the Warrenville Youth Center.
Joined by CSO Piccolo/Flute Jennifer Gunn, Bass Trombone Charles Vernon, and Principal Tuba Gene Pokorny, Maestro Muti presented an informal recital for young men and women at a juvenile justice center on the islet of Nisida, Italy, on January 19, 2020. During his CSO tenure, Muti has made it his mission to bring music to correctional facilities. The program was presented by the Negaunee Music Institute, assisted by the administrative staff of the Teatro di San Carlo. While on tour, musicians of the CSO pair performances in the great concert halls of the world with activities that bring chamber music and master classes into school, hospital, university, and social-service organization settings with the support of the Negaunee Music Institute.
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open rehearsals Riccardo Muti has developed a robust program of open rehearsals with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Several times each season, the CSO welcomes guests free of charge to observe the rehearsal process. This is a unique opportunity for students, seniors, and veterans to get a behind-thescenes view of the musicians at work as they prepare for their concerts. With Muti’s encouragement, the number of free CSO open rehearsals has increased with the addition of a series of community open rehearsals, coordinated by the League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In addition to open rehearsals with the CSO in Chicago and on tour, Muti often conducts rehearsals with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and other youth orchestras. He is passionate about teaching young musicians, having founded the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra in 2004 and the Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy in 2015. “ In effect, he is that generous professor, teaching the orchestra another language, another style, in painstaking detail.” — The New York Times
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Riccardo Muti repeatedly has led open rehearsals at the Chicago Youth in Music Festival, an annual celebration of young classical musicians founded in 2010 and presented in collaboration with Greater Chicago’s top community music schools and youth orchestras and Chicago Public Schools.
“ Music that doesn’t come from the heart doesn’t reach the heart.” —Riccardo Muti This program is sponsored in part by Allstate Insurance Company, the Youth Education Program Sponsor.
During the European Tour 2017, Muti and the CSO presented an open rehearsal for more than 300 teenage music students from partner schools of the Musikverein’s Amadeus School Project in addition to two sold-out concerts in Vienna.
Riccardo Muti led an open rehearsal on November 15, 2017, with the Orchestra. They were joined by pianist Kirill Gerstein, who performed Brahms’s First Piano Concerto and Strauss’s Suite from Le bourgeois gentilhomme.
Riccardo Muti workshopped Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony with the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra during the CSO’s West Coast Tour during the fall of 2017. He told them that music is “food for the soul.”
On September 23, 2019, Riccardo Muti led a special community rehearsal with students and faculty of the Chicago West Community Music Center and soprano JeSelle Jakes. Established two decades ago by Howard and Darlene Sandifer, the Chicago West Community Music Center at 100 North Central Park Avenue, reaches more than 250 students a year from the city’s West Side and suburbs. The center is affiliated with the CSO’s African American Network, which seeks to strengthen ties between the CSO and Chicago’s African American community.
special appear ances Riccardo Muti has been invited by institutions throughout the Chicago area as one of its favorite honorary citizens.
Riccardo Muti was the keynote speaker at the commencement ceremonies for Northwestern University’s graduation on June 20, 2014, at NU’s Ryan Field in Evanston. “Each of you will have a personal experience that is unique—that will enable you to express your voice in a world where only dialogue is the hope of the future,” said Muti to the graduates.
In recognition of the shared 125th anniversary of the University of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a sponsored public discussion between Riccardo Muti and Phillip Huscher took place on September 21, 2015, at the Logan Center for the Arts on the University of Chicago campus. University President Robert J. Zimmer introduced the guests, and Maestro Muti acknowledged renowned musicologist Philip Gossett, who was in attendance and who spearheaded the critical editions of the entire operatic oeuvres of Verdi and Rossini.
2019–20 SEASON 23
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10 Ahead of the start of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 2019–20 season, Riccardo Muti returned to another Windy City institution: historic Wrigley Field, where he threw out the first pitch of the September 17 game between the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds. Muti also threw the first pitch on June 13, 2012.
Riccardo Muti was presented with the W.I.S.H. Award for Distinguished Service to Music Education at the June 22 , 2019, gala celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Chicago West Community Center. This event preceded his September 2019 open rehearsal with students of the CWCC, pictured here.
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