A screen grab from the virtual concert performed by the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, marking the 100th anniversary of its inaugural concert. Photo courtesy Chicago Symphony Orchestra

“On March 29, 1920, Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Frederick Stock stood onstage in Orchestra Hall to conduct the inaugural concert of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago,” writes Howard Reich in Tuesday’s (3/31) Chicago Tribune. “Exactly 100 years later, on Sunday evening, the Civic—which still flourishes as the CSO’s training orchestra—played its anniversary concert. Online. … The Civic’s long-planned centennial performance had to be canceled…. In a 40-minute, prerecorded concert that streamed on Facebook and YouTube, Civic principal conductor Ken-David Masur led 62 musicians in excerpts of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Each musician appeared in a small rectangle on a screen platform designed by engineer Christopher Bill. This was followed by the audio-only world premieres of seven compositions commissioned a few days ago for the high-tech occasion” by Josh Fink, Nathalie Joachim, Ted Moore, Peter Shin, Liza Sobel, Martha Tiesenga, and LJ White. “To see these young artists—each in his or her own home, most wearing Civic Orchestra of Chicago shirts—was to appreciate anew what the music means to these individuals…. All the while, a flood of emojis floated up from the screen’s bottom, as hearts and thumbs-ups and other signifiers were posted by listeners out there in cyberspace.”

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s YouTube page includes the Civic Orchestra anniversary concert. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is posting music videos by individual orchestra members at CSO from Home.