In Wednesday’s (11/11) Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein writes that collaboration is “the name of the game for the Chicago Philharmonic’s 2015-16 season, which begins Sunday evening at Evanston’s Pick-Staiger Concert Hall. The season will include joint ventures with the troupes Visceral Dance Chicago and Cirque de la Symphony, along with such add-ons as thematic presentations in the auditorium foyer, in-concert educational components and a second season of off-site chamber music concerts…. The orchestra is governed directly by its players…. ‘With a structure similar to that of the Berlin Philharmonic, there’s an organic quality to this orchestra,’… says [Artistic Director Scott] Speck…. The Chicago Philharmonic has gone through several artistic identities since its original incarnation as the Orchestra of Illinois” in 1988. In 2012, “Paul R. Judy took over as board chairman of the orchestra’s corporate parent, the Chicago Philharmonic Society. Judy, a former board chairman (now a life trustee) of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, saw the opportunity to create a new business model.” Says Donna Milanovich, a flutist and the group’s full-time executive director, “Our audiences have become more diversified over the last four years, and we are attracting a broader range of ages.”
Posted November 12, 2015
