The Civic Orchestra, led by Ken-David Masur, offers an inclusive season

For Ken-David Masur, serving as music director of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago goes beyond just artistic administration and concert leadership. It also means being part of a tight-knit if far-reaching community of young, up-and-coming musicians.

When the German-born American conductor recently conducted the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado, he ran into current and incoming Civic Orchestra members. The same thing has happened at the Tanglewood Music Festival in Lenox, Massachusetts, and elsewhere he has conducted in the summers.

“It’s a fantastic program,” he said of the nationally known pre-professional training arm of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and which is overseen by the CSO’s Negaunee Music Institute. The ensemble’s 2023-24 season, announced Sept. 14, consists of seven mainstage concerts at Orchestra Hall and five community concerts at local venues. “I’m so proud to be part of it, with the programming that we are doing, the spirit we have and the camaraderie.”

He praises the mentorship and exposure to wide-ranging repertoire that the members receive as well as training in how to take an entrepreneurial approach to their careers. 

But for Masur, it’s very much a two-way street. “I feel all the time educated in how it challenges me and how it informs me what these [young musicians] are bringing, what their challenges are, what they are hoping for both in conversation and onstage as we explore these works,” he said. “To, me it’s a such a mutual benefit.”

The Civic Orchestra was founded in 1919 by Frederick Stock, the CSO’s second music director, both as a training ensemble and also as a means, in his words, to “Americanize” this country’s orchestras and reduce their dependence on European musicians. The group has 90 members with an average age of about 25. About 70 percent have already earned their master’s degrees and are out of school, and the rest are continuing their post-graduate studies. The members are appointed to two-year terms, and each has the possibility to audition for a third, final year — an option that was instituted in 2018-19.

Explore the Civic Orchestra 23-24 Season

Masur, who also serves as music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, is returning for his fifth season with the Civic. The 2023-24 lineup features guest artists such as the Chicago Symphony Chorus (Dec. 4), the Grammy-winning new music ensemble Eighth Blackbird (Feb. 12), CSO Young Artists Competition finalists (Feb. 24) and Ryan Opera Center soloists (June 3).

Masur will conduct five of these concerts, but he also worked alongside Jonathan McCormick, the CSO’s director of education of the Negaunee Music Institute, to plan the structure and content of the entire season. “We talk a lot of about: What are the things that we want the Civic members to experience as a whole? And then which programs I would like to do and what composers I would like to introduce them to and of course, what wonderful guest conductors we are bringing as well,” Masur said.

More than perhaps in any previous year, the Civic Orchestra’s 2021-22 season, the first after the COVID-19 shutdown, put an emphasis on diversity, with works by women and people of color. That inclusive approach will be continued in 2023-24. “The programs that we’ve put together,” Masur said, “have a storyline, a narrative that binds them together somehow and will allow all the musicians, not just the audience, to make sense of it on a heart level and not just on an intellectual level.”

In October, Masur will begin everything with an informal reading of a few works or sections of works as a way to welcome new members and get all Civic members acclimated. Because of demands on his time in Milwaukee and elsewhere, Masur will not conduct his first concert until Dec. 4, when he leads the finale of Civic Orchestra’s Bach Marathon, a now much-anticipated annual event begun in 2014 at the urging of cellist Yo-Yo Ma, then the CSO’s Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant. During this one-day event, Civic ensembles have traditionally spread out across the city to perform one of J.S. Bach’s six Brandenburg Concertos and then regroup that evening to perform all of them in one location.

Because Masur was born in Leipzig, Germany, a city where Bach spent much of his life, he was eager to continue the Bach Marathon when he arrived at Civic. But this year, he is adding what he calls a “little twist” to the finale, performed as usual at the Fourth Presbyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut. Instead of all six Brandenburg Concertos, the program will feature three of those works, as well as two of Bach’s cantatas, Nos. 40 and 110, both written for the Christmas season. The concert will feature the Chicago Symphony Chorus. “I’ve always dreamed of working with the singers there in the church, which is wonderful with the organ,” Masur said. He hopes the audience will join in singing the chorales, as Bach’s congregations would have done.

Masur’s second program Jan. 7-8 centers on Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 (From the New World), one of the most frequently performed orchestral works. The Czech composer wrote the piece during a much-celebrated stay in this country in 1892-95. In interviews during that time, Dvořák exhorted U.S. composers to draw on indigenous music, especially spirituals, to create works that were distinctively American. One piece that fits that bill is William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony (1934). “Dawson’s symphony is perhaps something that Dvořák would absolutely be proud of and very happy for, as a searching, very authentic and earnest work that is doing exactly what he was encouraging American composers to do,” Masur said.

Dawson began the work, heavily inspired by spirituals, while living in Chicago in the 1920s. It was the third symphony by an African-American composer to be performed by a major orchestra, following William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1 (Afro-American) and Florence Price’s Symphony in E Minor. “The Dawson for me is a wonderful find,” Masur said. “It has a very warm, soulful message. I’m so happy we can do this pairing.” Also notable: Dawson was a member of the Civic Orchestra trombone section from 1927 to 1930.

On April 8, Masur and Civic Orchestra tackle two of the 20th-century's most innovative and expressive symphonic works. Sibelius’ Symphony No. 7, which opens the program, is an unprecedented exploration of themes celebrating the "joy of life and vitality," in the composer's own words. It captures listeners with its poignant melodies and introspective themes, all unified in this remarkable single-movement work. Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony—a bold tribute to the unyielding grandeur of the human spirit—closes the program. The Prokofiev will also be performed at Kenwood Academy on April 7 in a performance that features students of the school's music department, conducted by Jhonatan Roldan-Ramirez, at the beginning of the concert.

Civic Orchestra of Chicago 2023-24 season 

Symphonic Dances, Oct. 23, Orchestra Hall
James Gaffigan conductor
ADAMS Short Ride in a Fast Machine
OGONEK All These Lighted Things
RACHMANINOV Symphonic Dances

Natural Wonder, Nov. 19, Senn High School  
Tito Muñoz conductor 
SMITH Tumblebird Contrails
HOVHANNES Symphony No. 2 (Mysterious Mountain)
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral)

Natural Wonder, Nov. 20, Orchestra Hall 
Tito Muñoz conductor
Repeat of Nov. 19 program

Bach Marathon Finale, Dec. 4, Fourth Presbyterian Church 
Ken-David Masur conductor
Chicago Symphony Chorus
J.S. BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 5
J.S. BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
J.S. BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 4
J.S. BACH Cantata No. 110
J.S. BACH Cantata No. 40

New World Perspectives, Jan. 7, South Shore Cultural Center
Ken-David Masur conductor
DAWSON Negro Folk Symphony
DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 9 (From the New World)

New World Perspectives, Jan. 8, Orchestra Hall
Ken-David Masur conductor
Repeat of Jan. 7 program

Fantastic Zoology, Feb. 12, Orchestra Hall
Lina González-Granados conductor
Eighth Blackbird
CUONG Vital Sines
RAUTAVAARA Cantus Arcticus 
BATES Anthology of Fantastic Zoology

CSO Young Artists Competition Finals, Feb. 24, Orchestra Hall 
Kyle Dickson conductor
Program TBA, following preliminary auditions in January

Celebrating Women Composers, March 11, Hinsdale Central High School
Andrew Grams conductor
MONTGOMERY Coincident Dances
BROUWER Remembrances
PRICE Symphony No. 1

Prokofiev 5, April 7, Kenwood Academy High School
Ken-David Masur conductor
Program to include:
PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 5

Prokofiev 5, April 8, Orchestra Hall
Ken-David Masur conductor
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 7
PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 5

Shostakovich 4, April 29, Orchestra Hall
Chicago Youth in Music Festival Finale
Giancarlo Guerrero conductor
Side by side with Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 4

Civic & Ryan Opera Center, June 3, Orchestra Hall  
Roberto Kalb conductor
Members of the Ryan Opera Center
Program TBA