25/26 CSO Season brings Mäkelä, Muti, DiDonato and America 250 focus

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 135th season in 2025/26 honors classical music’s rich history, showcases today’s top artistic talents and looks to the field’s future with nearly non-stop offerings from Sept. 18 through June 27, 2026, at Symphony Center.

The lineup features high-profile outings by the CSO’s past and future music directors, Riccardo Muti and Klaus Mäkelä; three appearances by famed mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who also will serve as the CSO’s 2025/26 artist-in-residence, and America 250, a season-ending salute to the 250th anniversary of the United States’ independence.

Other highlights include rare orchestral concerts with renowned pianist Evgeny Kissin in three concertos by Rimsky-Korsakov, Scriabin and Prokofiev on one program (April 16 and 18, 2026), an all-Stravinsky program (Oct. 23-25) with a semi-staged presentation of The Soldier’s Tale in collaboration with Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and the return April 23-26, 2026, of Japanese conductor-pianist Joe Hisaishi. Best known for his more than 100 film scores, especially those created for the films of Hayao Miyazaki, Hisaishi will lead an encore program of his symphonic and film music. His four concerts with the CSO in 2024 were all sold out.

In addition to its main subscription series, the CSO will perform in family concerts, holiday offerings and CSO at the Movies, a series in which the orchestra performs film scores live as the respective movies are projected above the stage.

Symphony Center Presents, the CSO’s presenting arm, spotlights an array of visiting artists in its piano and chamber-music series, including Yunchan Lim (Oct. 19), Beatrice Rana (Nov. 2), Sinfónica de Minería (Jan. 18, 2026) and pianist Yuja Wang and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (April 29, 2026).

Klaus Mäkelä, Zell Music Director Designate

In April 2024, Klaus Mäkelä was named the CSO’s 11th music director. The Finnish conductor will be 31 when he takes over his duties in September 2027 — the youngest person ever to hold the position. Before then, he serves as Zell Music Director Designate, gradually expanding his time each season with the orchestra.

He will launch his 2025/26 appearances on Oct. 16-18 with an all-Berlioz program featuring the French composer’s Harold in Italy and Symphonie fantastique and return Dec. 18-20 for a set of concerts featuring pianist Yunchan Lim, winner of the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. After leading Feb. 19-21, 2026, concerts in Orchestra Hall, Mäkelä and the CSO will embark on a four-city American tour, including his first Carnegie Hall appearance with the ensemble.

Mäkelä rounds out his CSO appearances March 5-6, 2026, with a program of Gershwin’s An American in Paris and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, the latter of which he recorded with the Orchestre de Paris for Decca, which released the session in 2023. Mäkelä also is set to make his Ravinia Festival debut in summer 2026.

Riccardo Muti, Music Director Emeritus for Life

As he has each season since he stepped down in 2023 as the CSO’s music director, Muti will spend six weeks with the orchestra in 2025/26. He will lead four programs during Symphony Center residencies in the fall and spring and lead the CSO on a January 2026 tour to Arizona and California. His two fall runs will feature works such as Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 (From the New World) (Oct. 30-Nov. 1, with a concert Nov. 4 at the Krannert Center in Urbana-Champaign), and Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas as soloist (Nov. 6-8).

Drawing on his extensive opera experience, including 19 years as music director at Milan’s famed La Scala, Muti will begin his spring CSO residency with a program of arias and other excerpts from Italian operas by Verdi and Puccini (March 19-21, 2026). Joining him will be soprano Lidia Fridman (in her CSO debut), tenor Francesco Meli and the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Muti’s second spring program (March 26-29, 2026) will feature music from the film scores of “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Leopard” (1962) by Italian composer Nino Rota (1911-79), one of the maestro’s early mentors and teachers.

Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, Artist-in-Residence

In 2021, violinist Hilary Hahn became the CSO’s first artist-in-residence, holding the position through June 2024. She was followed in the role this season by pianist Daniil Trifonov, and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato will take over in 2025/26. In addition to performing in multiple concerts, the post provides numerous opportunities for these extraordinary artists to connect with Chicagoans through educational and community-engagement programs.

DiDonato will have two programs with the CSO, starting with a concert Sept. 20 associated with the annual Symphony Ball. She will perform three art songs by Richard Strauss, as well as the Habanera from Bizet’s opera Carmen. Then, during a May 7-9, 2026, set of concerts, she joins guest conductor Edward Gardner for Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs. The American composer wrote the five settings of sonnets by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda for his wife, famed mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who performed them only a few times before dying in 2006 after a relapse of breast cancer.

Also during her residency, DiDonato will appear in a Symphony Center Presents Chamber Music concert on Feb. 10, 2026, with Time for Three, a cross-genre string trio. The foursome will perform Kevin Puts’ Emily — No Prisoner Be, an 80-minute, semi-staged song cycle featuring the poetry of Emily Dickinson. The work will have its world premiere in August at the Bregenzer Festspiele, an annual summer festival in Austria.

America 250

The CSO will join arts organizations across the United States in marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the document that set the nation on its path to becoming an independent republic. America 250, a June 2026 showcase of CSO concerts and SCP performances, begins June 2 with a concert featuring trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Then, as part of the SCP Piano series, Conrad Tao will present a primarily American program on June 7 with jazz and classical works by composers George Gershwin, Billy Strayhorn, Sergei Rachmaninov (who became a naturalized American in 1943) and Art Tatum.

The CSO’s subscription season culminates with three all-American programs led by top American conductors: Marin Alsop, James Gaffigan and Joshua Weilerstein (in his Orchestra Hall podium debut). Alsop kicks things off June 4-6 with a program featuring the CSO’s first performances of two CSO co-commissions. They are The Rock You Stand On by John Adams, composer of the opera Nixon in China, and many other notable works, and trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis’ Liberty (Symphony No. 5), which also will feature the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. 

Rounding out the showcase will be a presentation June 25-27 of “Stars Wars: A New Hope,” as part of the CSO at the Movies series. This film features a score by John Williams, arguably America’s greatest cinematic composer.

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