Riccardo Muti Opens Next Residency with Missy Mazzoli World Premiere

Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) Music Director Riccardo Muti returns to Chicago in March and April to lead the symphony orchestra in works by Mazzoli, Mahler, Bruckner, Britten, Strauss and Schumann during two weeks of subscription concerts. Muti leads the world premiere of Orpheus Undone by Missy Mazzoli, the CSO’s former Mead Composer-in-Residence and “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (The New York Times).

Also on the program are two late-Romantic works: Bruckner’s Second Symphony and Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, sung by mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča, whose voice “is one in a million, allying grace and power to a commanding authority” (The Independent) (March 31- April 5). A spring edition of Symphony Ball takes place April 2 and features Muti leading the CSO and Garanča in Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, as well as opera overtures by Mozart and Rossini and Liszt’s thrilling orchestral showpiece Les préludes.

Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes joins the CSO to perform Britten’s Piano Concerto, a glittering score composed just before World War II that Andsnes has performed multiple times at the BBC Proms and plays with several orchestras this spring in the U.S. and Norway. Muti and the CSO frame the program with Richard Strauss’ “Dreaming by the Fireside,” one of the orchestral interludes from his comic opera Intermezzo, and Schumann’s Fourth Symphony (April 7-12).

As part of his ongoing commitment to training the next generation of musicians, Muti will also conduct the final event of the 2022 Chicago Youth in Music Festival, a rehearsal on Monday, April 11 at 7:00 p.m. featuring Liszt’s Les préludes that is free and open to the public, with reservations required.

For more program, ticket and patron information, visit cso.org.