The best of 2022 in photos

The last 12 months generated many milestones for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: its first performances of a Philip Glass symphony, Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3, Jessie Montgomery’s Hymn for Everyone and Mason Bates’ Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra. Other highlights included the return of the free Concert for Chicago to Millennium Park, the bonus of two Symphony Balls and the release of Cavalleria rusticana on CSO Resound.

Here’s a look back at 2022, in photos:

A homecoming for Philip Glass

Contemporary works figured prominently in Riccardo Muti’s concerts in 2022, including the CSO’s first performances of Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 11. For the occasion, Glass joined Muti and the CSO onstage after the work’s performance Feb. 19. In a letter printed in the program book, the Baltimore native described the Windy City as “one of his artistic homes” and recalled that he used to attend CSO concerts while studying at the University of Chicago. “It’s a great privilege for any composer to have their work performed by this world-class ensemble,” he wrote, “doubly so with the delight of having Maestro Riccardo Muti conducting.”

Sold out: Beethoven 9

Reprising a work that had opened the 2014-15 season to a huge success, Riccardo Muti led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in four capacity performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. It also expanded Muti’s legacy of showcasing choral and operatic masterworks during his tenure as CSO music director. The first concert followed the horrifying news of the Ukrainian invasion, and so Muti dedicated the performance of the work, and its explicit message of universal kinship, to the people of Ukraine and other victims of violence worldwide: “We make music that means joy and peace. But we will think in this moment that joy without peace cannot exist.”

Symphony Ball: spring and fall editions

In the spring, the Women’s Board of the CSOA welcomed guests to Symphony Center for the first in-person Symphony Ball since September 2019. The gala occasion April 2 consisted of a concert by the CSO, led by Riccardo Muti, and featuring mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča, followed by dinner and dancing at the Four Seasons Hotel. Symphony Ball sponsors and donors raised more than $1.2 million to support the CSOA. In the fall, the gala event returned to its usual spot on the CSO calendar, with star pianist Yefim Bronfman joining Muti and the orchestra on Sept. 24.

The premiere of Hymn for Everyone

Mead Composer-in-Residence Jessie Montgomery’s Hymn for Everyone, the first of her CSO commissions, received its world premiere in April during concerts conducted by Riccardo Muti. A tribute to her mother and a reflection on the collective challenges of the pandemic, the work is a meditation for orchestra, “exploring various washes of color and timbre through each repetition of the melody,” as Montgomery explained in her program note. The Chicago Classical Review called it “her finest effort heard locally to date. She could hardly have wished for a more communicative or sensitive sendoff than that delivered by Muti and the orchestra,” wrote Lawrence A. Johnson. “Few contemporary composers seem to have the ability to write a melody that stays in the memory and Montgomery’s hymn theme is lovely and indelible.”

The legacy of Florence Price

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has a historic bond with 20th-century Black composer Florence Price, whose Symphony No. 1 had its premiere by the CSO in 1933. Price’s inaugural full-scale orchestral work, it was the first symphony by a Black woman to be performed by a major American orchestra. Despite that auspicious event, Price’s work and subsequent pieces went largely ignored during her lifetime and decades after her death in 1953. Nearly 70 years later, Price has experienced a renaissance, with major orchestras worldwide programming examples from her extensive catalog. In April, the CSO’s first performances of Price’s Symphony No. 3 anchored a spring program featuring music by another groundbreaking African American composer, William Grant Still. 

The local premiere of Philharmonia Fantastique

Originally scheduled to celebrate the 2020 centennial of the CSO’s children’s concerts, Philharmonia Fantastique: The Making of the Orchestra finally received its long-awaited Chicago premiere in May. Former Mead Composer-in-Residence Mason Bates wrote the multimedia work, a co-commission of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and five other ensembles, with Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom and animator Jim Capobianco. An animated film set to Bates’ score, Philharmonia Fantastique follows an impish sprite as he journeys through an orchestra’s instruments. The film, which also features the CSO, was shot in February 2021 at Orchestra Hall and also is available to stream or purchase via Apple TV. Its soundtrack was released in April on Sony Classical and received a Grammy nomination for best engineering, classical, for CSO audio engineer Charlie Post, Shawn Murphy and Rydstrom. 

Concert for Chicago

Closing the season in June, Muti led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in works by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky during the 2022 Concert for Chicago, which drew a capacity audience of 12,000 to Millennium Park. The free event marked their sixth performance together at the park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion, after a Concert for Chicago hiatus due to the pandemic.

Cavalleria rusticana on CSO Resound

Recorded live in 2020 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Riccardo Muti, and a stellar cast of vocal soloists, the opera Cavalleria rusticana was released this fall on the CSO Resound label. For this recording, Muti’s 11th with the CSO as its music director, the acclaimed soloists were tenor Piero Pretti, in his CSO debut, as Turiddu; as Santuzza, mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili, hailed by Muti as “the greatest mezzo-soprano of today”; baritone Luca Salsi as Alfio; mezzo-soprano Ronnita Miller as Lucia (Alfio’s mother), and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as Lola. Duain Wolfe, who retired earlier this year as chorus director, prepared the Chicago Symphony Chorus. The Chicago Tribune called the performance “hair-raising and exquisite,” while the Chicago Sun-Times said that the “CSO, Riccardo Muti and soloists triumph ... an utterly superlative offering in every way.” The recording, which was released Sept. 16 on digital platforms and Nov. 25 on physical discs, also marks the first CSO Resound release in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos, an immersive audio format.

Riccardo Muti in his 500th CSO concert

Nearly 50 years after making his local debut, Riccardo Muti marked his 500th performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in September. In 1973, Muti made his CSO debut at the Ravinia Festival in a program of Rossini’s Overture to Semiramide, Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor and Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition. For his 500th concert, fittingly Pictures was once gain on the program. Since 1973, the bond between Muti and the CSO has continued to bloom in memorable concerts throughout Chicago, across the nation and around the world. 

CSO Artist-in-Residence Hilary Hahn: Season 2

For one of the signature concerts of her second year as CSO Artist-in-Residence, Hilary Hahn performed Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in concerts Dec. 8-10. In the Chicago Classical Review, critic Lawrence A. Johnson raved about Hahn: “Once again, [she] displayed her fluent virtuosity and singular ability to bring a fresh and individual interpretation to even the most familiar warhorses. ... Hahn drew out her solo phrases languorously with a silvery tone and communicative grace. She brought consistent delicacy of expression to passages others just bang out, making for a more intimate take on this concerto than usual.”