Karina Canellakis regards her switch to the podium as ‘a natural evolution’

Before Karina Canellakis became a conductor, the New York City native began her career as a violinist, after graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2004. She regularly performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a substitute musician in the mid-2000s, so when she conducted the CSO for the first time in 2022, it was “a surreal return” to stand on the podium in such a familiar place.

In any case, coming back to Symphony Center as a conductor simply felt right — a progression into the role that suits her best. “It’s much more natural for me to express myself as a conductor than it ever was as a violinist, so it [becoming a conductor] felt like the natural evolution of things,” Canellakis said in a recent interview from her home in Amsterdam. 

“Of course, with such a great orchestra, there’s a huge amount of excitement, and there’s a lot of unknown factors when you stand up in front of an orchestra, especially if the players knew you in the past,” she added. “That can create kind of an interesting dynamic, but I remember just feeling ultimate support and warmth from everybody, and that was a beautiful thing to feel.”

Canellakis, who is currently the chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, makes her second podium appearance with the CSO on April 3-5. Featuring Sibelius’ The Oceanides, Dvořák’s The Wild Dove and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, the program highlights music inspired by Greek mythology, Czech folklore and the natural world.

“What I love about this program is each of the three works is a completely different approach to storytelling through orchestral sound and color and instrumentation,” she said.

The Oceanides, a tone poem by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, takes its name from the mythological nymphs of the Mediterranean. “It’s so evocative of the sea, and the wildness of the salt air and the waves, and the unpredictability and the rhythmic pulsation of the ocean,” said Canellakis. “I think Sibelius, maybe more than any other composer, being from this vast Finnish landscape, does have built into everything he ever wrote this sense of the immense power of nature.”

Antonín Dvořák’s The Wild Dove is the fourth and final tone poem that the Czech composer based on poetry by Karel Jaromír Erben. A famous Czech author, Erben wrote “these so-called fairy-tales, but they’re horrible stories,” said Canellakis. “They’re really like horror stories — not for kids — and they’re all about killing and death, and people being haunted by things they’ve done.”

This particular tone poem relates the story of a woman whose guilt over poisoning her husband drives her to suicide after a dove sings a mournful tune over his grave. Describing the piece, Canellakis said, “It’s singing, it’s melodic, it’s harmonically very straightforward. It has the very recognizable Dvořák Czech dances in it.’” 

“What I love about this program is each of the three works is a completely different approach to storytelling through orchestral sound and color and instrumentation.” — Karina Canellakis 

The final piece on the program, Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, is the Russian composer’s final major work and the only one written entirely in the United States. Infused with nostalgia for his home country, the three-movement suite incorporates themes from Rachmaninov’s First Symphony and motifs from Russian church music.

“I think there were a lot of different inspirations that must have been going on in Rachmaninov’s dreams and in his sleep when he was writing this,” Canellakis said. “The second movement, especially, is so fantastical, and it’s so intoxicating and literally sweeps you off your feet. … It’s sort of this night waltz, and it has this smoky, misty atmosphere to it.” The third and final movement “is just so exciting and riveting and gutsy and rhythmic,” she added.

Summing up the over-all effect of the Symphonic Dances, Canellakis said, “To me, the piece is like a glimpse into [Rachmaninov’s] own fantasy world in his mind. I’ve been doing this piece for many years, and as it grows and grows and grows in me, it almost becomes like an ever-changing Disney movie in my mind. The images are so strong, and what’s beautiful about listening to a symphony orchestra concert is that you’re not being fed these images on a screen. They come from your own mind, from your own life, from your own memory, from your own inspiration, and this music somehow enters into you, and then brings to the front of your mind all kinds of things from your own past.”

“I feel the Symphonic Dances has a lot of that,” she said. “It has nostalgia in it, and it has longing, and it has loneliness, and it has just pure, raw dancing and partying. All the extremes. So, with this orchestra, it’s going to be just incredible.”

Canellakis’ return to a familiar piece and a familiar place comes at a time when she’s reached a certain level of career stability and artistic autonomy. She began her posts at the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (or Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, RFO) and London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2019 and 2021, respectively, and her contracts with both ensembles have been extended through 2027.

In these roles and as an active guest conductor, she feels fortunate to have the freedom to pursue “real passion projects,” especially in the opera world. Earlier this season, she returned to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris to conduct Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites with Les Siècles, a French orchestra that performs on period instruments. Later this month, she leads the RFO in Janáček’s From the House of the Dead, completing a cycle of Janáček operas there over the past three seasons.

Her next recording with the RFO, featuring mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham and bass-baritone Gábor Bretz in Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, will be released on April 4, during her CSO engagement. Bluebeard’s Castle is “one of my all-time favorite pieces,” one that Canellakis “started to really obsess over” when she played it with the CSO, so it’s a happy coincidence that she’ll be in Chicago when the album comes out.

In addition, Canellakis’ upcoming concerts mark the next step in this longstanding partnership with the CSO — one that she continues to cherish since transitioning from the violin section to the podium. 

“I’m really excited to come back to Chicago,” she said. “I love coming back to certain orchestras around the world with whom I have a really close relationship, and I get really excited to see the musicians — the actual individual musicians of the orchestra. I like to know people by name, and I like to have a relationship with people.”

Preview Canellakis’ forthcoming recording of Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, released by Pentatone.