Civic Orchestra releases details of its programming for the 2025/26 season

Today’s classical musicians need to know how to play the core repertoire that is a mainstay of most symphony orchestras’ seasons, but they also must be ready to tackle new music, educate young audiences and engage communities in all kinds of ways.

Preparing top young musicians for this fast-changing world is the job of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. The renowned training orchestra operates under the auspices of the Negaunee Music Institute at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, whose members lead sectional rehearsals and master classes and serve as mentors.

The Civic Orchestra’s just-announced 2025/26 schedule includes a fall-to-spring performance series at Symphony Center, community concerts around the city and an array of other activities. These events give area audiences a chance to experience the ensemble’s up-and-coming musical talent in action without the barrier of cost. Many of the offerings are free, and its presentations at Symphony Center are “pay what you wish,” with a $5 per ticket minimum. Tickets become available two weeks before each Civic concert. 

The Civic’s free community concerts have been expanded in 2025/26, with performances at Senn High School, 5900 N. Glenwood Ave. (Oct. 26); Fourth Presbyterian Church,  126 E. Chestnut St. (Dec. 15); Kenwood Academy High School, 5015 S. Blackstone Ave. (Feb. 1, 2026); Vernon Hills High School, 145 Lakeview Pkwy., Vernon Hills (Feb. 15); South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Dr. (March 1); Wentz Concert Hall of North Central College, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville (March 29), and New Trier High Schoo, 385 Winnetka Ave., Winnetka (May 3).

The Civic’s anchor Symphony Center season will run from Oct. 27 through June 1, with eight concerts. Part of the ensemble’s mission is to expose its members to bedrock works that they will perform regularly as future orchestra professionals. Such repertory stalwarts on this season’s programs include: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 (Oct. 27), Gustav Holst’s The Planets (Nov. 17), Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 (Feb. 2) and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 (March 30).

At the same time, these musicians and their audiences will be exposed to lesser-known but compelling works from the past and present. One example is Ethiopia’s Shadow in America by Florence Price, a Black composer who has become an orchestral mainstay in the last few decades after being largely forgotten since her death in 1953. This 1932 piece, which was rediscovered in 2009 in a cache of lost manuscripts, portrays the spiritual and emotional journey of an enslaved person brought to North America. Other newer selections include Iman Habibi’s Every Tree Speaks (2020), which was commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra to mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, and Michael Abels’ Delights & Dances, a concerto for string quartet and string orchestra with a witty mix of bluegrass, jazz and Latin dance rhythms. Other newer works include Carlos Chávez’s Sinfonia indía and Toru Takemitsu’s Visions. The CSO commissioned and premiered the latter in 1990. 

Ken-David Masur, music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and a guest conductor with ensembles worldwide, is returning for his seventh year as the Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor of the Civic Orchestra. He will lead three of the programs at Symphony Center, as well as the ensemble’s annual Bach Marathon finale. Also featured will be returning guest conductors Carlos Miguel Prieto, Thomas Wilkins and Erina Yashima, with Civic podium debuts by Alpesh Chauhan, music director of the Birmingham (England) Opera Company, and Mallory Thompson, former director of bands, professor of music and coordinator of the conducting program at Northwestern University in Evanston.

The Apollo Chorus of Chicago and D-Composed, a Chicago-based Black-music collective, will serve as guest artists for two concerts; the full complement of singers from the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago will join the Civic Orchestra for a program of opera arias and scenes and orchestral favorites on June 1.

Back again will be the Civic’s annual Bach Marathon, a tradition begun in 2014 in collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma. The celebrated cellist served as the CSO’s Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant in 2010/19 and devoted considerable attention to the Civic Orchestra. During this annual one-day event, Civic ensembles spread out across the city to each perform select Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, along with other music by J.S. Bach, and then regroup for a finale that evening. This year’s edition of the latter, performed on Dec. 15 at the Fourth Presbyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut, will feature four of the six beloved concertos, along with an inventive arrangement of Bach dances by composer Eric Nathan.

Other special events include two concerts Oct. 18 and April 16 in conjunction with the Negaunee Music Institute’s Notes for Peace program, which uses the healing benefits of music to support families who have lost loved ones to gun violence, and the Jan. 17 finals of the annual Crain-Maling Foundation CSO Young Artists Competition (this time, for strings), this season led by guest conductor Naomi Woo.

Founded in 1919 by Frederick Stock, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s second music director, as a training ensemble, the Civic has operated continuously over the more than a century since.  

The Civic Orchestra has 90 members with an average age of about 25, and its central mission is to serve as a bridge between the academic and professional worlds. About two-thirds of the players have already earned their master’s degrees and are out of school, and the rest are continuing their undergraduate or post-graduate studies. The members are required to live in the Chicago area, working part-time for the Civic Orchestra and filling out their time with other work or studies. They are appointed to two-year terms and select members have the possibility of auditioning for a third final year.

In 2013/14, the ensemble founded its Civic Fellows program, a leadership training initiative in which a dozen or so members of the ensemble are chosen for additional training in artistic planning, music education, social justice and project management with the Negaunee Music Institute. Eleven fellows were chosen for 2025/26, and they will take part in such projects as teaming with members of the International Contemporary Ensemble to curate a Jan. 25 concert by living composers and working with the Chicago Refugee Coalition on an April 22 program of music and spoken word, in addition to developing their own community-engagement projects with mentorship and resources from the NMI.  

Civic Orchestra of Chicago 2025/26 Season

Oct. 26, Senn High School, 5900 N. Glenwood Ave.; Oct. 27, Symphony Center, with Ken-David Masur, conductor

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 has for decades ranked among the most performed works in the form. It will be heard here alongside Iman Habibi’s Every Tree Speaks, inspired by the global challenge of climate change, and Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis (1943), which draws on the music of Carl Maria von Weber.

Nov. 17, Symphony Center, with Thomas Wilkins, conductor

The Planets, Gustav Holst’s popular musical exploration of the solar system, is paired with another work that draws inspiration from the cosmos as well as a Jewish harvest festival, James Lee III’s Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula.

Feb. 1, Kenwood Academy, 5015 S. Blackstone Ave; Feb. 2, Symphony Center, with Alpesh Chauhan, conductor

Polish composer Witold Lutosławski’s folk-infused Concerto for Orchestra (1954) has firmly established itself in recent decades as a repertoire standard. Alongside it will be Edward Elgar’s In the South, and Reena Esmail’s Black Iris, named after Georgia O’Keeffe’s famous painting and inspired by the #MeToo movement.

Feb. 15, Vernon Hills High School, 145 Lakeview Pkwy., Vernon Hills; Feb. 16, Symphony Center, Civic Wind Ensemble, with Mallory Thompson, conductor

Thompson, a longtime former Northwestern University faculty member, will lead a program of masterworks for winds by such composers as Gustav Holst, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky and Joan Tower.

March 1, South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Dr.; March 2, Symphony Center, with Ken-David Masur, conductor

Along with Florence Price’s evocative Ethiopia’s Shadow in America, this program will feature works by two other important Black composers, George Walker and Ulysses Kay. Also included will be Symphony No. 7 by Antonín Dvořák, who spent time in the United States and advocated for a distinctively American classical voice that drew on Black and Native American traditions.

March 29, Wentz Concert Hall, North Central College, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville; March 30, Symphony Center, with Carlos Miguel Prieto, conductor

This program of music from across North America features Carlos Chávez’s most popular work, Sinfonía india, which incorporates melodies originating from indigenous tribes in northern Mexico, and Michael Abels’ Latin-tinged Delights & Dances. Anchoring it all is Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 3, one of American composer’s most celebrated masterworks.

May 3, New Trier High School, 385 Winnetka Ave., Winnetka, and May 4, Symphony Center, with Ken-David Masur, conductor

Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 established the composer as a transcendent voice in the form. Alongside that milestone 1887-88 work will be the Prelude to Act 1 of Richard Wagner’s opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu’s Visions. The CSO commissioned and premiered the latter in 1990.

June 1, Symphony Center, Ryan Opera Center, with Erina Yashima, conductor

The Civic Orchestra teams with the top-flight young singers in Lyric Opera’s pre-professional training program for this lineup of opera excerpts and orchestral favorites.

Special events

Civic’s 2025/26 Season also consists of special events that highlight the Civic Orchestra’s commitment to nurturing young musicians and community engagement. 

Oct. 18, Notes for Peace
Launched in March 2018 in partnership with Purpose Over Pain, the Notes for Peace program uses the therapeutic benefits of music to support families who have lost loved ones to gun violence. In this concert, held in Buntrock Hall at Symphony Center, Civic Fellows and families of Purpose Over Pain present original songs of tribute for loved ones. With guidance from the Civic Fellows, guest teaching artists from the U.K.-based Irene Taylor Trust and professional vocalists, parents compose, perform live and professionally record their music, which is then featured on notesforpeace.org.

Dec. 15, Bach Marathon Finale Concert, Fourth Presbyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut, Ken-David Masur, conductor

Jan. 17, Symphony Center, Crain-Maling Foundation CSO Young Artists Competition, with Naomi Woo, conductor
The finals of the 2026 Crain-Maling Foundation CSO Young Artists Competition (this year, for strings) will be led by guest conductor Naomi Woo. Illinois’ most talented young musicians compete for the opportunity to appear as soloist with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the following season.

Jan. 25, Civic Fellows & International Contemporary Ensemble
Civic Orchestra Fellows collaborate with members of the International Contemporary Ensemble to curate a concert of music by living composers. This program will be at Epiphany Center for the Arts, 201 S. Ashland Ave., Chicago.

March 15, IMPACT: Showcasing Education & Community Programs of the CSO
The Negaunee Music Institute presents a showcase at Symphony Center of extraordinary performances by the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, musicians from the CSO, Percussion Scholarship Program students and more.

April 26, Notes for Peace Reunion Concert 
The third annual Notes for Peace Reunion Concert confirms the healing power of music in support of families who have lost loved ones to gun violence.

May 17, Civic Fellows & New Music Chicago
With New Music Chicago, Civic Orchestra Fellows perform a dynamic program featuring music selected from a call for scores. This program will be at Buntrock Hall in Symphony Center.

June 12, Symphony Center, Young Composers’ Initiative Finale Concert
This season’s Young Composers Initiative, led by former CSO Mead Composer-in-Residence Jessie Montgomery, culminates with a concert featuring world premieres of chamber music by young composers from across the Chicago area. Collaborating with New Music Chicago, Civic Orchestra Fellows perform a dynamic program of music selected from a call for scores. This program will be in Buntrock Hall at Symphony Center.