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Earth, in all its marvelous vitality and fragility, has inspired generations of composers. In The Oceanides, Sibelius conjures the water nymphs of Greek mythology and the broad majesty of the sea. Dvořák’s The Wild Dove is based on a dark folktale about a dove’s prophetic song. Childhood memories shape Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, his sumptuous masterpiece.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/canellakis-and-rachmaninov

CSO Program Notes: Canellakis Conducts Rachmaninov

Dancers from Chicago’s world-renowned Joffrey Ballet join the CSO with newly commissioned choreographies. Symphonies by Haydn and the Chevalier de Saint-Georges abound in witty and joyful melodies while two 20th-century works are full of popular influences: Perkinson’s jazz-tinted Sinfonietta No. 1 and Milhaud’s rollicking Brazilian postcard, The Ox on the Roof.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/cso-and-the-joffrey-ballet

CSO Program Notes: CSO x The Joffrey Ballet

In his Third Symphony, Mahler portrays the whole of earthly existence. Its six movements — written for a massive orchestra, two choruses and a contralto soloist — explore humanity’s relationship with nature using fanfares, marches, folk dances and bird calls. Children’s voices portray angels while the sixth movement is a pantheistic love song to all of creation.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/makela-conducts-mahler-3

CSO Program Notes: Mäkelä Conducts Mahler 3

CSO Artist-in-Residence Daniil Trifonov, “without question the most astounding pianist of our age” (The Times of London), takes on Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, as remarkable for its rich orchestral writing as for its simultaneously glittering and muscular piano part. Dvořák’s turbulent Seventh Symphony is both an expression of the composer’s personal crises and a lyrical tribute to the Czech spirit.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/makela-and-trifonov

CSO Program Notes: Mäkelä & Trifonov

The CSO brings the soaring emotional peaks and valleys of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony to Chicago audiences before performing it on Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw stage. The “hammer blows of fate” in the finale seem to foreshadow the tragedies in Mahler’s life, including his own fatal illness. But the symphony brims with life’s pleasures, too, from memories of mountain pastures (listen for the cowbells) to a rapturous portrait of the composer’s wife, Alma.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/mahler-6-with-jaap-van-zweden

CSO Program Notes: Mahler 6 with Jaap van Zweden

In Randall Goosby, the pioneering American composer Florence Price “has her ideal champion,” writes The Guardian, “his playing full of old-school warmth and breadth but never schmaltzy.” Price’s beguiling violin concerto shares a program with Prokofiev’s enchanting Seventh Symphony, composed for a children’s radio broadcast. The suite from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg gathers stirring moments from Wagner’s opera. 

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/elder-goosby-and-price

CSO Program Notes: Elder, Goosby & Price

Esteban Batallán, the CSO’s principal trumpet since 2019, makes his much-anticipated debut as a soloist with the Orchestra in a pair of brilliant, high-flying concertos. Riccardo Muti frames the program with Joseph Haydn’s tempestuous Symphony No. 48 and Schubert’s Haydn-inspired Tragic Symphony.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/muti-and-esteban-batallan

CSO Program Notes: Riccardo Muti & Esteban Batallán

Verdi’s Requiem Mass, in its fervent quest for eternal rest, stands as a powerful demonstration of the composer’s ability to harness the human voice. Hailed by NPR as “simply magnificent” for their two-time Grammy Award-winning CSO Resound recording of this work, Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus are joined by a thrilling quartet of international singers to once again deliver a masterful blend of passion and precision.

Please note: This program replaces Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/muti-verdi-requiem

CSO Program Notes: Muti Conducts Verdi Requiem

As the Irish Hotels Federation calls for an immediate VAT rate drop, General Manager of the Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel Colin Ahern says it's tough for small businesses, in particular those offering food. Though he adds the CSO figures re a drop in tourism figures doesn't appear to be the case in Kilkenny and Carlow ... 

KCLR News: Colin Ahern of Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel on VAT rates & tourism figures (1st July 2025)

We're Carlow & Kilkenny's number one radio station with over 81,000 adult listeners every week. Catch up in full online at kclr96fm.com.

Founded in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. In collaboration with the best conductors and guest artists on the international music scene, the CSO performs well over one hundred concerts each year at its downtown home, Symphony Center, and at the Ravinia Festival on Chicago’s North Shore, where it is in residency each summer. Music lovers outside Chicago enjoy the sounds of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra through best-selling recordings and frequent sold-out tour performances in the United States and around the globe.

Visit cso.org for tickets and information.

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