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

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

2024 Ravinia Festival Opening Night: Celebration of Americana - Broadcast by CSO Association

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

Dvořák’s radiant salute to the New World kicks off an American road trip with James Gaffigan at the wheel. Take in poignant selections from Gershwin’s landmark opera — sung by Janai Brugger — and the composer’s urbane and nostalgic love letter to Paris. Chicago native Florence Price sets two American poems to song, and a pair of symphonic showstoppers by Bernstein transports audiences to “New York, New York” and beyond.

Learn more: cso.org/performances/24-25/cso-classical/an-american-suite

Haitink Conducts Mahler 2 - Broadcast by CSO Association

Giulini Conducts Mahler 9 - Broadcast by CSO Association

Giulini Conducts Mahler 9 - Broadcast by CSO Association

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 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