Riccardo Muti with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Muti concludes his tenure as the CSO’s music director at the end of this season but will lead several CSO concerts next season. Photo by Todd Rosenberg.
“Nearly 30 guest conductors from around the world, including some of the field’s biggest names like James Conlon, Susanna Mälkki, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Michael Tilson Thomas, will join the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2023-24,” writes Kyle MacMillan in Wednesday’s (2/15) Chicago Sun-Times. “This panorama of podium talent along with an array of top soloists, including trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, violinist Gil Shaham and pianist Yuja Wang, will be among the highlights… The larger-than-usual number of guest conductors in 2023-24 is necessitated by what will soon be an open music-director position. Riccardo Muti, who has typically led 10 weeks of subscription and special concerts, is stepping down in June 2023 after 13 years in the post. But even though he will no longer carry the title of Zell Music Director, Muti will still have a large presence in 2023-24. In addition to leading tours in the United States and Europe, he will take the Orchestra Hall podium for the CSO’s first three programs in September … Continuing its long history of presenting new music, the CSO will perform the premieres of four commissioned works” by Philip Glass, Christopher Theofanidis, Lowell Liebermann, and Jessie Montgomery, “in her third and final year as the orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence.”
