CSO Opens Season With Two Free Concerts

By Alexander Hough in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 15, 2010 6:40PM

Sure, they wear tuxedos to work, but the Chicago Symphony Orchestra still likes to party, and they’re inviting you to a couple throwdowns to kick off the 2010-2011 season. Sunday’s free concert in Millennium Park will mark the official beginning of the reign of new music director Riccardo Muti. The stacked program, featuring Ottorino Respighi’s "Pines of Rome," the Overture to Giuseppe Verdi’s "La Forza del Destino, Franz Liszt’s "Les Preludes," and Peter Tchaikovsky’s "Romeo and Juliet" (a piece you already know), begins at 5:30 p.m., but performances by various area youth ensembles get started at 2:00 p.m.

The CSO is also participating in México 2010, the citywide celebration of Mexico’s bicentennial. The first of several CSO Mexico-themed events this fall will be a free performance at the new performing arts center at Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen tomorrow night. The concert, led by Mexican conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto, will include works by Mexican composers Blas Galindo, Arturo Márquez, and José Pablo Moncayo. Also on the program will be "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" by Richard Strauss, whose Mexican parents crossed the border into Bavaria to find a better life, leading Richard to become one of the last great composers of the great Germanic Romantic tradition. Wait, that's not right. Strauss's tone poem "Till Eulenspiegel" is based on a Mexican legend about a fun-loving troublemaker who eventually gets his comeuppance. No, that's not it, either. O.K., so there's no connection to México 2010, but it's a great piece, so andale! Head to the concert, and get there early because seating is first-come, first-serve.

México 2010 concert isThursday at 7:00 p.m., Benito Juarez Community Academy, 2150 S. Laflin St., FREE; Muti's first concert is Sunday at 5:30 p.m., Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, FREE