Klaus Mäkelä at the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Anthony Vazquez/Chicago Sun-Times.
In Thursday’s (2/26) WBEZ (Chicago), Hannah Edgar writes, “Klaus Mäkelä won’t officially assume the reins of the Chicago Symphony until next fall, but the phenom conductor is already busy, leading concerts, overseeing auditions and taking the ensemble on tour, as he does this week to Carnegie Hall. But when Mäkelä, 30, visits Chicago … he spends precious free moments across the street, at the Art Institute of Chicago…. As Mäkelä eases into his role at the CSO, he’s stepping into one of the most visible cultural perches in the city and in classical music at large. He appears to bring to his new job in Chicago a curiosity about the arts that goes beyond his own medium of music. He has compared his favorite recordings to works by Raphael and Botticelli and is an amateur photographer … His concerts of Hector Berlioz’s ‘Harold in Italy’ last fall were almost theatrical, as he encouraged soloist Antoine Tamestit to rove around the stage as both actor and musician. Not coincidentally, the home base of the other top orchestra he leads in 2027, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw, faces the Rijksmuseum … Mäkelä’s route at the Art Institute winds to a close at Chagall’s [“American Windows”], with their blue panels celebrating music, painting, literature, architecture, theater and dance.”
