CSO's New Star Announces 2010-2011 Season
By Alexander Hough in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 26, 2010 8:20PM
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra released its schedule yesterday of all classical, jazz, and world music concerts happening at Symphony Center during the 2010-2011 season, as well as the general plans for Riccardo Muti's first season as the CSO's tenth music director.
The sixty-eight-year-old Muti flew in from New York for the press conference - he's currently conducting the Metropolitan Opera (and for the first time, which is amazing given that Muti's operatic resume includes two decades as the music director of Teatro alla Scala in his native Italy) - and was leaving immediately after to catch a plane back. His presence was more or less unnecessary and, with a snowstorm bearing down on the Northeast, definitely risky, which speaks to a few things about the CSO's new music director. First, he's committed to his new gig, has an acute political awareness of the importance of a music director's public image, and marshals his considerable charm to communicate that commitment and win over audiences.
Second, and more tangibly, Chicagoans will get to see Muti in more places than just on stage in Orchestra Hall. The season will open on September 19 with a free concert in Millennium Park (featuring a Verdi overture and Respighi's "Pines of Rome," of course), and he'll lead the Civic Orchestra in an open rehearsal in Pilsen as part of "Mexico 2010," the city's celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Mexican War of Independence and the 100th anniverary of the Mexican Revolution. Muti also has plans for programs in juvenile detention centers; just last month he gave a piano recital to a prison in Bollate, a small town just outside of Milan, Italy (he has a history of doing work with inmates), although the outreach programs of the CSO's Institute for Learning, Access and Training will be more interactive.
The actual music in the upcoming season won't be dramatically different from previous years' music. In general, there's a thoughtfulness to the programming - Muti provided background to two concerts he planned: one that includes Haydn's Symphony No. 39 and Mozart's Symphony No. 25, both in G minor, on the same show because Mozart used Haydn's work as the germ for his piece; and another that puts Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique," usually a second half show piece, on the first half of the concert and concluding with "Lélio," the rarely-performed work that Berlioz actually wrote as a sequel to "Fantastique." The season's repertoire will span hundreds of years, ranging from the Baroque to the premieres of several pieces co-commissioned by the CSO, and Muti will also lead the orchestra in performances of Verdi's "Otello." Muti feels emphasizing opera is important for two reasons. First, he wants to do away with the division of labor between symphony orchestras and opera companies that's unique to U.S. ensembles; and second, he believes performing opera will develop the CSO's sound (he says the musicians will have to "play singing").
Muti will conduct ten weeks of subscription concerts: a one month stint in September and October, three programs in February, and then an additional three programs in April and May. Guest conductors will lead the remaining concerts, with CSO regulars Pierre Boulez (who's supposedly on a sabbatical from conducting) and Bernard Haitink each leading a pair of programs. Single-program conductors include Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Charles Dutoit, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Kurt Masur, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Jaap van Zweden.
Below are the highlights from other Symphony Center events in 2010-2011:
Visiting Orchestras
Mariinsky Orchestra (formerly the Kirov Orchestra) (Oct. 12), Cleveland Orchestra (Feb. 2), St. Petersburg Philharmonic (March 30), Orchestre National de France (April 13)
Chamber Music
Pianist Yefim Bronfman and violist-violinist Pinchas Zukerman (Nov. 17); Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Emanuel Ax, and clarinetist Anthony McGill (three of the four musicians who performed at Obama's inauguration) (Jan. 30); baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and pianist Ivari Ilja (Feb. 16); the Scharoun Ensemble Berlin (March 1); violist Yuri Bashmet and pianist Evgeny Kissin (April 17); Quasthoff Liebeslieder Project (May 1)
Jazz
Wynton Marsalis Septet and pianist Cecile Licad (Aug. 25); Chick Corea, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade (Oct. 8); Hugh Masekela (Oct. 22); Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (Feb. 4); Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard (March 25)
Etc.
Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán (Oct. 3-4); Tribute to Chavela Vargas (Oct. 15); Ravi Shankar and Anoushka Shankar (Oct. 30); Vienna Boys Choir (Nov. 26); Mazowsze (Nov. 27-28); Chanticleer (Dec. 6-7); Kodo (Feb. 21); The Chieftains (March 4); Dr. Ralph Stanley with his Clinch Mountain Boys and Cherryholmes (April 16)