Chicago Classical Review

06/01/2026

Giancarlo Guerrero and the Grant Park Music Festival will explore the meaning of "American music" this summer with an adventurous, wide-ranging lineup to mark the nation's 250th anniversary year.

The Grant Park Music Festival will serve up one of its most adventurous seasons in years in 2026, the first summer fully programmed by Giancarlo Guerrero.

23/12/2025

The Top Ten Performances of 2025 is posted! Click over to see what made the cut for the year's best musical events, as well as assorted bouquets and brickbats in the CCR Year in Review.

Jakub Hrůša led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a revelatory performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 “The Year 1905” in March that swept away any notion that this is one of the Russian composer’s superficial, Party dues-paying tub-thumpers.

22/12/2025

A standout production of Menotti's Christmas classic "Amahl and the Night Visitors" was presented Sunday night in Evanston.

Gian Carlo Menotti wrote of his Amahl and the Night Visitors, “This is an opera for children because it tries to recapture my own childhood.” While that may not add up as a logical statement—Proust in Swann’s Way does something similar, yet it’s definitely not for kids—Menotti’s classi...

20/12/2025

Music of the Barqoue's Brass and Choral program provided customary holiday warmth Friday night at St. Michael's Church with principal guest conductor Nicholas Kraemer leading the popular seasonal program for the first time.

Two more repeats this weekend.

Music of the Baroque has put in some Christmas overtime this month. Dame Jane Glover began December with an expansive, nearly complete Messiah, before leading that work in her New York Philharmonic debut two weeks later.

19/12/2025

Klaus Mäkelä returned to town to lead the Chicago Symphony orchestra's final program of the year Thursday night. The outstanding performances included two roiling contemporary works, Beethoven's Seventh Symphony and the Schumann Piano Concerto with soloist Yunchan Lim.

Two repeats this weekend.

The final Chicago Symphony Orchestra program of 2025 offered much to guarantee a full house: warhorses by Beethoven and Schumann as well as the subscription concert debut of Van  Cliburn gold medal winner Yunchan Lim. 

15/12/2025

Beset by illness, Apollo's Fire still found customary energy to spark their holiday Michael Praetorius confection, a "Christmas Vespers."

One local repeat Monday night in Winnetka.

December is an excellent time for concert-going, as most every classical ensemble capitalizes on the bubbling holiday cheer by putting on something tinselly. For many it’s the cash engine that keeps the music flowing the rest of the year. But the downside of December is that it takes place in the ...

15/12/2025

Bella Voce offered a discerning Baroque program on a frigid Sunday evening that managed to refresh the mind and spirit.

There are countless choices for seasonal concerts to provide sustenance this time of year. Give credit to Bella Voce for going beyond the usual holiday-music suspects in “Christmas with the Baroque Masters,” a nicely varied and thoughtful program that provided musical warmth on a frigid Sunday...

12/12/2025

Gianandrea Noseda made a successful return to the CSO after 14 years with a program centered on two rarities, including James Ehnes in a sterling performance of Britten's Violin Concerto.

Two repeats this weekend.

Granted, the Italian conductor has been busy. For the past nine seasons, he has been music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, where he has, by all accounts, raised the home ensemble of our nation’s capital to new heights.

05/12/2025

Matthew Aucoin's compelling "Song of the Reappeared" was given a powerful world premiere Thursday night by soprano Julia Bullock, conductor Petr Popelko and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Thursday night.

The Brahms and Strauss works with Popelka and the CSO were equally rewarding.

Three repeats this weekend.

https://chicagoclassicalreview.com/2025/12/compelling-aucoin-premiere-sparks-a-thrilling-evening-with-popelka-cso/

04/12/2025

Salieri's "Falstaff" proved delightful fun in Chicago Opera Theater's clever staging Wednesday night.

Two matinee repeats this weekend.

Verdi’s Falstaff of 1893 is a bona-fide masterpiece. Antonio Salieri’s stage work of the same name, composed nearly a century earlier, is a droll, lighthearted blend of Italian opera buffa and Viennese late-classicism, with no pretensions to greatness.

02/12/2025

Jane Glover and Music of the Baroque heralded the Christmas season with a lively and moving "Messiah" Monday night.

At a time of year when performances of Messiah tend to pile up like snowdrifts, Chicago-area audiences know they can depend on Music of the Baroque to deliver the Handelian goods with a professional polish that makes all the difference.

24/11/2025

The Chicago Chorale opened its 24th season with Rachmaninoff's "All-Night Vigil," a choral rarity and the composer's favorite of all his works,

This is the time of year when Handel’s Messiah begins to beckon from every musical corner of Chicago, continuing for the next four weeks until Christmas.