“The Chicago Symphony Orchestra will make some history in the 2019-20 season, starting with a complete cycle of Beethoven Symphonies, to be conducted and recorded by music director Riccardo Muti,” writes Howard Reich in Wednesday’s (1/30) Chicago Tribune. “The occasion is next year’s 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth, which will be celebrated globally…. Muti next season also will conduct the CSO’s first performances Symphony No. 3 by Florence Price and ‘Mother and Child’ by William Grant Still, two African-American composers unjustly underplayed during their lifetimes and after…. CSO vice president for artistic planning Cristina Rocca notes … ‘some ‘threads’ across the season: American composers of the 20th and 21st century (Missy Mazzoli, John Adams, Jennifer Higdon, Mason Bates, James Lee III, Samuel Barber….) … living composers such as Avner Dorman, Nicolas Bacri and Bernard Rands.’ … [Muti will] lead … a concert performance of Mascagni’s ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’ [and] conduct the CSO in the annual, free ‘Concert for Chicago,’ this time at Lane Tech College Prep High School…. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association’s contemporary music series presents [the] world premiere of a work by Courtney Bryan, commissioned by the CSO for the Quince Ensemble and CSO musicians.”
Posted January 30, 2019
