Lina González-Granados calls community concerts ‘a love letter to Chicago’

Returning to Chicago always feels like a homecoming for Lina González-Granados, the Colombian-American conductor who served as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Sir Georg Solti Conducting Apprentice from 2020 to 2023. Following her most recent appearances at Symphony Center in February 2024, she will reunite with the CSO for a community concert Jan. 8 at Morton East High School’s Chodl Auditorium in Cicero.  

González-Granados is balancing three demanding jobs these days. As resident conductor of the Los Angeles Opera, a post she has held since 2022, she currently works in California about half of each year. In November, she led the company’s production of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet, and she will conduct Golijov’s Ainadamar in spring 2025. LA Opera recently renewed her contract through June 2028, adding three more years to her initial appointment.

Also maintaining a busy schedule as a freelance conductor, she began the 2024-25 season with an extensive tour of Colombia with Filarmónica Joven de Colombia. Her season also includes debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra; Royal Stockholm Philharmonic; the Phoenix, New Jersey and National Dublin symphonies, and National Arts Center Ottawa. Last but certainly not least, she’s parenting a one-year-old daughter and navigating “the beautiful challenges that come with having a full-time career in conducting and having a baby,” she said in a recent interview.

In the midst of her busy schedule, returning to the CSO is “always such a big honor,” said González-Granados, whose apprenticeship with then-Music Director Riccardo Muti included several career milestones. In April 2022, she made history as the first Latin-American woman to lead the CSO, stepping in for Muti when he tested positive for COVID-19. Just two months later, she filled in for him again — this time with only a few minutes’ notice — to conduct a program featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter as soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.

González-Granados noted that these two experiences deepened her relationship with the orchestra: “There was a little bit more trust, and I felt very embraced by some of the orchestra members who didn’t even have [any] idea who I was at that moment.” The concerts with Mutter, her first with the renowned violinist, also marked the beginning of “a professional friendship … that’s very meaningful,” she said.

In February 2024, she took the podium at Symphony Center for the first time since the end of her apprenticeship. Her weeklong engagement began with conducting the Civic Orchestra — the CSO’s training ensemble for young professional musicians — in a program anchored by Anthology of Fantastic Zoology, an 11-movement work by former CSO Mead Composer-in-Residence Mason Bates. “Working with Civic is always a joy because the young professionals of Civic have such a discipline and work ethic,” said González-Granados. “I think it’s a testament to what the musicians of the CSO instill in the young artists.”

Later that week, she led members of the CSO in Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals at four school and family matinee concerts. “It feels like every time I go to Chicago, it’s like coming home to a known sound, a sophisticated artistry and legacy that I had the honor to be part of for three years,” she said.

These school and family performances also included two pieces that González-Granados will reprise with the full Chicago Symphony Orchestra in its upcoming concert at Morton East High School: Mother and Child by William Grant Still and Starburst by former Mead Composer-in-Residence Jessie Montgomery. The program will conclude with Brahms’ Second Symphony, best known for its “lullaby” theme. It’s a piece that the CSO has performed with Muti many times, including on its most recent European tour.

The performance will be the CSO’s first after the holiday break, and González-Granados feels that this repertoire has a “sense of familiarity and community” that will offer a warm welcome back for musicians and audiences in the new year.

“When I go to Chicago, my way to show love to that particular community, that particular city, is always thinking of pieces that instill love,” she said. “Mother and Child is such a beautiful piece, full of melodies that talk about love … and I feel that Brahms 2 has that same ethos. It’s such a gigantic piece, but it’s full of love and joy, and the same with Starburst, even if it’s more abstract. Jessie Montgomery has done such a great job showing love for the community, [and] that’s what I wanted to show.”

“Bringing the orchestra to the community means that we want to show them how much we appreciate them,” she said. “It’s a love letter to Chicago and a love letter to the orchestra.”