Carlos Miguel Prieto gets energized by the process of collaborating with Civic

It has been more than a decade since Carlos Miguel Prieto conducted the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, but he readily remembers details of his time with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s training ensemble for young professional musicians. “The memories are as good as it gets,” said the Mexican conductor of Civic’s 2014 season finale performance of Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote with cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

In a recent interview, he shared one anecdote in which he recalled that many Civic members eagerly participated in an optional assignment to read the novel by Miguel de Cervantes that inspired Strauss’ tone poem. “That happens with young people — they will do some things that just wow you by how deep they can go and how much they can run with an idea,” he said.

A Grammy Award winner who was Musical America’s 2019 Conductor of the Year, Prieto returns to the Civic podium this spring for two performances of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad) — a free community concert at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville (April 5) and a mainstage performance in Orchestra Hall (April 6). An unusually long symphony that calls for a large ensemble, the Leningrad will feature the full Civic Orchestra, as well as several musicians who hold diversity fellowships with professional orchestras in Minnesota, Cincinnati, Dallas and more. CSO Fellows Jesús Linárez and Olivia Reyes, both former Civic members, will perform in these concerts as concertmaster and principal bass, respectively.

Shostakovich composed his Seventh Symphony while the city of Leningrad was under siege during World War II, and its march-like rhythms, sorrowful passages and defiant victory hymn evoke these grim circumstances. The piece quickly gained popularity in the Soviet Union and the West as a symbol of anti-fascist resistance, and it remains a powerful tribute to the victims of the nearly 900-day siege.

Prieto has always had “a very close affinity with the music of Shostakovich” — whom his father, cellist Carlos Prieto, knew personally — and he conducted the composer’s Sixth Symphony in his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. When the Civic Orchestra’s leadership chose to program the Leningrad Symphony this season, Prieto was a natural choice to guest conduct.

“This music is by a great composer, who, in greatly trying times, was ready to risk even his life to make a musical, artistic statement,” Prieto said of Shostakovich. “That’s admirable to me, because the easiest thing — and I’ve even experienced this in my own country — is just to take the center road and not move things and not say what you think. But there is an honesty to someone who said what they thought, which is exactly what the Leningrad is about.”

Prieto also noted, “With Shostakovich, everything is a little bit more complex than it looks on first reading. There is so much extra-musical story around the siege of Leningrad that a piece of music, even as powerful and as long as Leningrad, is just a very, very mild remembrance of something that must have been earth-shattering for anyone who was part of it.”

“Young musicians bring a freshness and an energy and a very honest approach to music that just feels right to me." — Carlos Miguel Prieto

He feels there’s value in young people exploring this difficult period in history through music. “We are detached from the siege of Leningrad by three-quarters of a century already. I imagine someone who is 20 or 25 probably knows it remotely, but is not moved by it directly,” Prieto said. “I think we will talk about tough things without turning the rehearsals into political statements. How do you perform a piece that has such a deep and harrowing connection with human drama?”

Despite the heavy subject matter, Prieto expects to be energized by the process of collaborating with the Civic Orchestra again. “Conducting young musicians is something that I do with a passion and a conviction,” he said. “Young musicians bring a freshness and an energy and a very honest approach to music that just feels right to me. It’s also incredibly motivating to see young musicians play at a high level. It gives me, and it should give us, great hope in the future.”

Throughout his career, Prieto has prioritized music education and mentorship. He has conducted the Orchestra of the Americas — composed of musicians from ages 18 to 30, representing more than 25 countries of the Western Hemisphere — since the ensemble’s inception in 2002, and he currently serves as music director. He has also worked regularly with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the NYO2, Carnegie Hall’s free orchestral program for 14- to 16-year-olds.

The legacy of the Civic Orchestra and similar programs is apparent in the remarkable success of their alumni. “People who play at the level of organizations such as Civic, or New World in Miami, or the conservatories that I go to, Orchestra of the Americas, etc., all these orchestras that I conduct — there’s hardly ever a professional orchestra that I go to where I don’t see, in the first rehearsal, at least a dozen faces who I recognize from these groups,” Prieto said.

“The fact that those young musicians have gone on to such stellar careers is something that just makes me extremely happy.”