Chicago Classical Review

01/09/2025

Critic's Choice for the 2025-26 season is posted. Click over to discover CCR's most promising picks on Chicago's music scene for the upcoming season.

Music of the Baroque opens an otherwise formulaic 2025-26 season with Gluck’s intimate Orfeo ed Euridice. Music director Jane Glover leads two concert performances of Gluck’s 1762 work, the earliest opera in the regular repertory with Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen and Heidi Stober as the ill-fated lovers...

16/08/2025

The Grant Park Chorus heated things up with an exhilarating performance of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" Friday night, alongside music of Rimsky-Korsakov and Alan Hovhaness, on this final weekend of the Grant Park Music Festival season.

One repeat on Saturday.

Qualities that also suited the occasion for Carl Orff’s l***y Carmina Burana, the main work on this final program of the 2025 Grant Park Music Festival.

14/08/2025

Giancarlo Guerrero led the Grant Park Orchestra in stellar Saint-Saëns and a vivid premiere Wednesday night.

Sir Thomas Beecham is reported to have deemed Camille Saint-Saëns “the greatest writer of second-rate music that ever lived” (a bon mot also attributed to the witty composer himself).

09/08/2025

Giancarlo Guerrero led the Grant Park Orchestra in a potent and rewarding program Friday night, including Jennifer Higdon's "The Singing Rooms" with Jennifer Koh as soloist.

One repeat on Saturday.

As the Grant Park Music Festival heads into its final week of concerts for the season, one thing at least seems abundantly clear.

07/08/2025

Soloist Joshua Bell, Giancarlo Guerrero and the Grant Park Orchestra served up a summer music highlight with Wednesday night's concert at the lakefront festival.

“Seldom Performed Works Written for Pablo de Sarasate” may not seem like the most auspicious (or pithy) subject for a mini-festival. But such items have, in fact, provided consistent highlights this summer with the Grant Park Orchestra. Last month Paul Huang gave a superlative account of Bruch.....

02/08/2025

The Grant Park Orchestra went deep Friday night--literally and figuratively--escaping Lollapalooza and repairing to the Harris Theater for a rich and rewarding program centered on last things.

One repeat on Saturday. Don't let the Lolla hordes dissuade you. Traffic was extraordinarily light Friday, much more so than usual.

Give credit to Giancarlo Guerrero for seizing the opportunity that Lollapalooza inadvertently bestows on the Grant Park Music Festival every first weekend in August.

31/07/2025

An impassioned revival of a neglected Howard Hanson symphony Wednesday night with Joseph Young conducting the Grant Park Orchestra.

https://chicagoclassicalreview.com/2025/07/a-neglected-american-symphony-receives-an-impassioned-revival-at-grant-park-music-festival/

28/07/2025

Klaus Mäkelä's latest disc offers worthy, idiomatic performances of two French favorites.

https://chicagoclassicalreview.com/2025/07/makelas-new-disc-offers-idiomatic-performances-of-french-favorites/

24/07/2025

Tech fails bedeviled a pair of double debuts at the Grant Park Music Festival Wednesday night.

The Grant Park Orchestra soldiered through the summer’s most oppressively humid weather Wednesday night at the Pritzker Pavilion. Guest conductor Lee Mills and pianist Maxim Lando were both making their debuts with the downtown festival, bringing a joint youthful spirit yet resulting in decidedly ...

19/07/2025

Conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson and violin soloist Augustin Hadelich struck sparks with the Grant Park Orchestra in a Russian program Friday night at Millennium Park.

One repeat on Saturday

After a stretch of heat, humidity and the occasional storm,  Friday’s cool, clear weather proved ideal for an outdoor concert. The Grant Park Orchestra obliged with a program of Russian and Ukrainian music that filled the night with color and fire.

17/07/2025

Courtney Lewis made an impressive Grant Park Music Festival debut Wednesday night, leading an eloquent account of Elgar's Enigma Variations.

https://chicagoclassicalreview.com/2025/07/eloquent-debuts-for-conductor-lewis-clyne-concerto-with-grant-park-orchestra/

12/07/2025

The Chicago Symphony, Marin Alsop and pianist Bruce Liu delivered the musical goods at the CSO's summer opener at Ravinia Friday night.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra launched its 89th summer residency at the Ravinia Festival on Friday night, and, true to tradition, the program ticked all the wonted boxes. Soloistic glitter? Check. Thrilling symphonic sinew? Check. A rousing nod to barrier-breaking contemporary Americana? Check.