Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Carlos Kalmar will lead the 90th anniversary season of Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival this summer. Photo courtesy of Grant Park Music Festival.
In Tuesday’s (1/9) Chicago Sun-Times, Miriam Di Nunzio writes, “It will be a season of milestones at this summer’s Grant Park Music Festival—including the 90th anniversary of the beloved outdoor classical music festival. The 2024 schedule, announced Tuesday, will feature an eclectic array of works, world-renowned artists, composers and conductors and more, presented from June 12-Aug. 17 at Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion and other venues … The 10-week season marks the 25th and final one for the festival’s artistic director and principal conductor Carlos Kalmar, and the 20th anniversary of the opening of Millennium Park. Christopher Bell returns as the festival chorus director. Highlights of the season include: the opening-night concert featuring the Dvořák Cello Concerto (Carlos Kalmar, conductor); Igor Stravinsky’s ‘Petrushka’ (Ludovic Morlot, conductor); the Independence Day Salute (Christopher Bell, conductor); the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 (Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor); Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Scheherazade’ (Eric Jacobsen, conductor); Mozart Jupiter Symphony (Carlos Kalmar, conductor); and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (Carlos Kalmar, conductor). Four world premiere works commissioned by the festival are also among this year’s lineup. All were created by Chicago-based composers: Clarice Assad; James M. Stephenson; and Nathalie Joachim; plus a string quartet by Ahmed Al Abaca.”
