Muti returns for a full slate in winter and spring 2022

After a spectacular fall residency, Riccardo Muti returns for a full slate of ambitious programming this winter and spring with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He will lead world premieres of CSO-commissioned works by Missy Mazzoli and Jessie Montgomery, and the CSO’s first performances of Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 11 and Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3. Large-scale works bookend the schedule: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and the CSO’s first performances of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. To cap off the season, Muti and the CSO will perform their first Concert for Chicago in Millennium Park since 2018.


Glass and Beethoven, Feb. 17-19: Muti returns in February with a program that pairs Beethoven with the CSO’s first performance of Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 11. In 2017, Glass celebrated his 80th birthday with the work’s premiere. Although once known as a minimalist, Glass describes his work as “music with repetitive structures,” and himself as “one of the generation of people who have returned to the idea of tonal music.” Acclaimed pianist Mitsuko Uchida joins Muti and the CSO for  Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 on this program, which opens with Beethoven’s Overture to The Ruins of Athens.

Beethoven Ninth, Feb. 24-27: For the first time since 2014, Muti returns to Beethoven’s iconic Symphony No. 9, which culminates with the singular “Ode to Joy” that celebrates friendship and brotherhood. He leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (the latter prepared by Chorus Director Duain Wolfe, who marks his retirement this season). Completing the artistic forces is a distinguished group of soloists: soprano Lisette Oropesa, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, tenor Daniel Johansson and bass Tareq Nazmi (the latter three all in CSO debuts). Muti’s previous performance of the Ninth with the CSO has become an online sensation, amassing more than 32 million YouTube views since its initial release in May 2015.

Orpheus Undone, March 31, April 1 and April 5: Muti’s two-week spring residency opens with the world premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s orchestral work Orpheus Undone, commissioned by the CSO during her tenure as Mead Composer-in-Residence from 2018 to 2021 and rescheduled from its original April 2020 premiere. The work is inspired by the Greek myth of Orpheus, who descends into the underworld to rescue his wife, Eurydice. Mazzoli says of her piece, “It has moments of incredible lightness and determination, and then at the end, a sort of resolve, and pain.” Completing the program is Bruckner’s Second Symphony and Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder with acclaimed mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča as soloist in her CSO debut.

Symphony Ball, April 2: The annual fund-raising gala moves to the spring from its usual fall slot. Riccardo Muti leads the CSO in a concert program that opens with Rossini’s Overture to William Tell and concludes with the tone poem Les preludes by Liszt. Mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča joins Muti and the CSO in Mahler’s Ruckert-Lieder.

Britten, Strauss and Schumann, April 7-9 and 12: Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, an Orchestra Hall favorite, joins Muti and the CSO for a performance of composer Benjamin Britten’s brilliantly virtuosic piano concerto. Strauss’ Symphonic Interlude No. 2 from his opera Intermezzo and Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 round out the program.

Montgomery premiere, Bottesini and Beethoven Pastoral, April 28-30 and May 3: Later in April, Muti continues his focus on new music. His first program opens with the world premiere of the first CSO-commissioned work by Jessie Montgomery, Mead Composer-in-Residence through 2024. Completing the program are the Double Bass Concerto No. 2 by 19th-century Italian composer Giovanni Bottesini with CSO Principal Bass Alexander Hanna as soloist, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral).

Still and Price, plus Beethoven, May 5-7: Muti’s next program features music of two 20th-century African American composers. William Grant Still’s Mother and Child for string orchestra, from 1943, is performed alongside Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3, commissioned by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Music Project; the work had its premiere in 1940. Price was the first Black female composer to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra, when her Symphony No. 1 received its world premiere from the CSO in 1933. Two
works by Beethoven, the Overture to Egmont and the Symphony No. 4, complete the program.

Brahms and Beethoven, June 16-18: Muti returns for his final residency of the season with a program featuring two masterworks of the symphonic repertoire, Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 and the Beethoven Violin Concerto, with celebrated violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter as soloist.

Un ballo in maschera, June 23, 25 and 28: Regarded as the world’s consummate Verdi interpreter, Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the composer’s Un ballo in maschera, following his past successes of Verdi’s Aida, Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff. The concert staging features a stellar cast of tenor Francesco Meli (Riccardo), baritone Luca Salsi (Renato), soprano Joyce El-Khoury (Amelia), mezzo Yulia Matochkina (Ulrica), soprano Damiana Mizzi (Oscar) and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green (Tom).

Concert for Chicago, June 27: For the first time since 2018, Muti and the CSO return to Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park for the free Concert for Chicago, with a program of Shostakovich’s Festive Overture of Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.

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