Klaus Mäkelä
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” Milhaud and Gershwin
Stravinsky’s complete “Firebird” ballet was the centerpiece of the then twenty-six-year-old Klaus Mäkelä’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut in April of 2022. Less than a year later, the Finnish conductor and cellist was asked to become the CSO’s youngest-ever music director starting with the 2027-28 season. With another year and a half to go before Mäkelä formally assumes that position, the music director-designate returns to Stravinsky and his revolutionary 1913 ballet score, “The Rite of Spring,” in a program that also includes Milhaud’s “Le Bœuf sur le toit” and Mäkelä’s first foray into American music in Chicago, Gershwin’s “An American in Paris.”
March 5-6, 7:30pm, at Symphony Center, 220 South Michigan. cso.org.
Richard Webster
Bach in the City, St. Mark’s Passion
Bach Week in Evanston had a fifty-one-year run before spawning Bach in the City, centered in Chicago (hence the pun), last year. Bach Week music director Richard Webster, who had led the suburban Baroque festival for fifty years, reassumes that role with Bach in the City. Webster and forces will present what is being billed as the Midwest premiere of British musicologist Malcolm Bruno’s reconstruction of Bach’s “St. Mark Passion,” a lost work. Soloists include soprano Hannah De Priest, countertenor Ryan Belongie, tenor Oliver Camacho and bass David McFerrin with the Bach in the City Chorus and a period-instrument orchestra.
March 20, 7:30pm, St. Vincent de Paul Church, 1010 West Webster. bachinthecity.org.
Nino Rota
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Nino Rota Film Music and Tchaikovsky Third Symphony
Just before the start of the 2011-12 season—Riccardo Muti’s second as CSO music director—he began playing some music on the piano in his studio that gradually morphed into a specific theme. “My teacher Nino Rota was a great composer who wrote many operas and concertos in his day, as you know. He also was a conductor who studied with Toscanini. I would not be a conductor today if Rota had not seen I had the gift to conduct. Today he is best remembered for scoring Fellini films. Rota told me that he was so close to Fellini and so much like him that they would think the same things. When you see Fellini, you hear Rota. When you hear Rota, you see Fellini. With [Italian director Luchino] Visconti, it was another story. Rota kept bringing different melodies to him for his film ‘Il Gattopardo,’ ‘The Leopard,’ but Visconti was never happy.”
Rota became so discouraged that he was going to pull out of scoring the film altogether. “Rota improvised all the time. So one day, as he was improvising at the piano while waiting for Visconti to tell him [he was leaving the film], Visconti came in, very excited. ‘What is this music you are playing?’ ‘What music?’ said Rota. And that is how the famous theme to ‘The Leopard’ was born!” Muti will conduct Rota’s music from “The Leopard,” his Suite from Muti’s cousin Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” and Tchaikovsky’s Third “Polish” Symphony.
March 26 & 28, 7:30pm; March 29, 3pm, at Symphony Center, 220 South Michigan. March 27, 7:30pm, at Edman Chapel, 401 East Franklin, Wheaton. cso.org.
Angel Bat Dawid
World Premieres, Chicago Composers Orchestra and Nova Linea Musica
Chicago Composers Orchestra will present “An Evening of World Premieres” on April 18 that will include new CCO-commissioned works by Chicago-based composers Angel Bat Dawid, Ahmed Al Abaca and Brazilian-Chicago composer Igor Santos. World premieres will also be presented by students of Music Inc., which provides free music instruction to West Side youth. The composers will discuss their pieces in a preconcert talk.
A world premiere by David Hanlon commissioned and presented by Nova Linea Musica will take place May 6 as part of a multi-generational celebration of Jewish American composers that will also include works of Leonard Bernstein, Laura Kaminsky, Ricky Ian Gordon, Laura Karpman, David Leisner and Alex Weiser.
April 18, 7:30pm, at St. James Cathedral, 65 East Huron (at Rush); preconcert talk at 6:45pm; chicagocomposersorchestra.org. May 6, 6:30pm, at Guarneri Hall, 11 East Adams (third floor); novalineamusica.org.
Dennis Polkow is an award-winning veteran journalist, critic, author, broadcaster and educator. He made his stage debut at age five, was a child art prodigy and began playing keyboards in clubs at the age of fourteen. He holds degrees in music theory, composition, religious studies and philosophy from DePaul University in Chicago. Polkow spent his early years performing and recording in rock and jazz bands while concertizing as a classical pianist, organist and harpsichordist and composing, arranging and producing for other artists. As a scholar, Polkow has published and lectured extensively and taught at several colleges and universities in various departments. As an actor, narrator and consultant, Polkow has been involved with numerous films, plays, broadcasts and documentaries. As a journalist, Polkow helped co-create the experiential Chicago Musicale and Spotlight, the award-winning tabloid arts and entertainment section of the Press Publications chain of newspapers, which he later edited. He also created and ran the nationally recognized journalism program at Oakton College and was faculty advisor to its award-winning student newspaper; many former students went on to major media careers, including Channel Awesome’s the Nostalgia Critic. Polkow’s research, interviews, features, reviews and commentaries have appeared across national and international media and he has corresponded from the Middle East, Asia and Africa for the Chicago Tribune. Contact: dpolkow25@aol.com
