In Thursday’s (4/11) Chicago Sun-Times, Andrew Patner writes, “Spring brought the return to Chicago of a sprightly Riccardo Muti, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s eminent and popular music director. Unable to join the CSO administration in February for the 2013-14 season announcement, Muti, 71, led a press conference Wednesday morning in rooms atop the historic Orchestra Hall building. News items per se were few but interesting, nonetheless. Muti will lead the CSO on Sept. 18 in its first appearance in Cicero: Morton East High School and its landmark 2,500-seat Chobl Auditorium will be the venue for the annual free community concert. In January, Muti will lead his fifth CSO tour, with standard repertoire and an unusual two-week itinerary: four concerts in Las Palmas and Tenerife for the orchestra’s debut at the Canary Islands Music Festival, followed by single return appearances in the industrial city of Essen, Germany, and in Luxembourg. The CSO Resound label will issue CD and SACD recordings and a digital download in September of the highly regarded 2011 concert performances of Verdi’s ‘Otello,’ led by Muti at Orchestra Hall. … On Oct. 10, the exact 200th anniversary of the Italian composer’s birth, the CSO will offer its first-ever worldwide live video and audio stream with a one-time Chicago performance of the Verdi Requiem.”
Posted April 11, 2013
