Zell Music Director Designate Klaus Mäkelä and the CSO, March 6, 2026 in Chicago/Photo: Todd Rosenberg Photography

Ravinia Festival has traditionally been a launching pad for Chicago Symphony Orchestra music directors. No less than five made their CSO debuts at the North Shore summer music festival long before conducting downtown, let alone becoming music director. Reiner, Solti, Muti, Rodzinski and Martinon all followed this path.

For CSO music director-designate Klaus Mäkelä, however, things are moving in the opposite direction. His Ravinia debut on August 6 will come four-and-a-half years after his CSO debut downtown and three-and-a-half years after the 2023 announcement that he will become music director with the 2027-28 season, thirteen months before the official start of his directorship.

“It’s crazy, it’s funny, but nice,” says Mäkelä during a video call from Paris after an afternoon rehearsal in mid-June with Orchestre de Paris, where he is chief conductor for another year and with whom he is to conduct a concert that night. “I’m looking forward to coming to Ravinia and we have nice programs that I’m very excited about.”

Does Mäkelä know much about Ravinia, aside from it being the summer home of the CSO that he is going to take over late next year?

“I know the legend of Ravinia. I know of the wonderful concerts that have happened there. But I’ve never been, because so far, I’ve only been in Chicago when I’m there. So it’s something for me to discover. I’m also looking forward [to it] because I’ve been told that the pavilion has been renovated. It’s something I’m really looking forward to discovering.

“My experience with American summer festivals is very limited. I’ve only been to Blossom [Music Festival, summer home of the Cleveland Orchestra] once. That was my first-ever time and I enjoyed it tremendously.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing for American orchestras to have a summer home because it allows you to expand the season in a different way, play different repertoire and play for different crowds. So many European orchestras have a whole summer off which means that when you come back to work in August or September, it takes a little while to get going. It’s a wonderful thing on many levels.”

Klaus Mäkelä/Photo: Todd Rosenberg Photography 2023

Mäkelä will be conducting two programs at Ravinia. The first, on August 6, includes the Sibelius Violin Concerto (with Swedish violinist Daniel Lozakovich as soloist) and Richard Strauss’ “An Alpine Symphony.” The second on August 7 features Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” and “Ibéria” from “Images for Orchestra” as well as Stravinsky’s “The Firebird.” Was there a particular rationale to the repertoire that will be performed?

“I’ve been planning programs for the orchestra now very often, which I love. I have already conducted some of my favorite pieces in Chicago and experienced a couple of [repertoire] corners from here and there. But there is still so much great music I haven’t done with them.

“One piece I have really wanted to do that is one of my absolute favorites, is ‘An Alpine Symphony.’ That is particularly a work to do with the Chicago Symphony. It’s a piece I’ve conducted a lot. I’ve done it in Paris, in Berlin, in Amsterdam, playing from the original world-premiere parts with Strauss’ handwritten corrections. That was very cool. So that’s a piece I simply wanted to experience with the orchestra.

“I love ‘An Alpine Symphony.’ It was my favorite piece as a child. Back then, I just saw it as music that just gets you, you know? It’s impossible not to feel big emotions in front of that piece.

“For me, it’s the most beautiful piece of Strauss. It can’t be compared with any other work of Strauss in the symphonic repertoire, but it can be compared a lot to his operas. Right now, I’m busy with ‘Die Frau ohne Schatten’ which I’m conducting at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence [July 3-15] and I’m in the middle of the rehearsals for that.

“Ironically, ‘Die Frau ohne Schatten’ is Opus 65, and ‘Alpine Symphony’ is Opus 64 so they’re actually neighbors, so to say. And now, after studying this immense opera—which was one of Solti’s last recordings—I see ‘An Alpine Symphony’ in a completely different light. It’s actually a metaphysical piece.

“Of course, it is also an adventure up the Alps and it has that joy of embarking on a journey. But what it’s really about is life. First you go up, and then you go down. You have all the problems and all the challenges. Then when it comes back to the ‘Night’ where it begins, it’s the most incredibly melancholic moment. Even though it’s exactly the same music as in the beginning which sounded mysterious at first, but now it sounds deeply, deeply, wounded. Then you hear the fanfare one last time, and then there is that last glissando of the violins that goes down after there is that ‘Night’ again. That is the last breath of life.

“When I conduct it, I’m always very touched. To be honest, I rarely think of a waterfall [‘At the Waterfall’]. I don’t think of the cows [‘At the Alpine Pasture’]. For me, it’s more symbolistic. I want to see it as if it would have had a libretto written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which obviously it doesn’t.”

Stravinsky’s “The Firebird” is a curious choice to be the centerpiece of the August 7 concert since Mäkelä made his CSO debut conducting it downtown in April of 2022.

“I thought it would be lovely to do again, because we needed to do two programs that are quite close to each other. ‘Firebird’ is a piece we played in my very first concert with the orchestra, so that’s a rare possibility to come back to a piece that otherwise would wait a long time to be done again in a symphonic season.

Zell Music Director Designate Klaus Mäkelä and the CSO/Photo: Todd Rosenberg Photography

“I always conducted ‘Firebird’ earlier in my life as a suite. The Chicago performance was actually my first-ever performance of the complete ballet. After that, I sort of went the full rounds with it. We played it in Paris. We recorded it with Paris. We toured it in Carnegie Hall, in Asia, in Europe, everywhere. Then I did it in Amsterdam. I did it with the Berlin Philharmonic, with youth orchestras in Verbier and in Oslo. And now I’m going to do it at the Lucerne Festival. So it’s been a very long exploration of the piece.

“What I’ve learned along the way is interesting. In a way, maybe my basic concept hasn’t changed. Of the Stravinsky ballets, this piece has the most narrative. It tells a story. ‘Rite of Spring’ shows you images, it presents you with impulses, but it doesn’t tell a story. But ‘Firebird’ is actually a fairytale, and this is what I love about it.

“The music is written so richly and so full of incredible color. It’s not only late Romantic, it’s not only Impressionistic, but it’s somewhere in between. That makes the piece so unique. It’s written for this enormous orchestra; I mean, it’s ridiculously large. Because of that, it’s so colorful. When you balance it in the right way, I hope, it will really bring out the different layers. This, for me, is really the salt and pepper of this piece.

“From Orchestre de Paris, I learned that it can be played a lot with the color of Debussy and Ravel. This, I think, is one of the keys to success with ‘Firebird,’ that you have a certain transparency which allows the textures to breathe. It gets a little bit closer to the idea of the sound of the instruments of that time, a bit more than a hundred years ago. They had a slightly different tone, less equalized. Different registers, for example, sounded a little bit different. Less even, but more characterful. I try to embody some of these elements into the interpretation. Of course, then I will see what fun we can have with friends in the CSO.”

Since Mäkelä last performed in Chicago in March, he conducted his farewell concert as chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic. His five-year contract was supposed to conclude after the 2026-27 season, but it ended a year early at the conclusion of the 2025-26 season, in May 2026.

“That was very special. We’ve done a lot of things together. They were my very first orchestra. That was wonderful, because they trusted an extremely young man with very little experience. Through that experience, there were so many wonderful concerts. Really, we kind of grew together. That’s very nice.

“We finished with the great cellist Truls Mørk, one of the greatest Norwegians who ever lived on this earth. He played the Dvorák [Cello Concerto], which we also took to the Prague Spring Festival.

“The second half was [Finnish composer] Magnus Lindberg’s ‘Kraft,’ that is this immense masterpiece that has been played in America because he was the composer-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic some years ago with [then-music director] Alan Gilbert. [Lindberg] came to Oslo and we played this immense piece that is very much from the eighties in its wonderful attitude. It’s incredible music. It was wonderful to do something that in a way, didn’t feel like a concert, but more like an event.”

There has been much speculation, but what is the rationale behind Mäkelä leaving his position in Oslo a year early?

“I’ve been six years in Oslo, and then after I finish in Paris in a year’s time, I will also have been six years there. We made plans when I started in Oslo that we would have goals. ‘We want to do this and this and that and that.’ And we fulfilled all the goals. We did all the recordings. We were at the Salzburg Festival for the first time in decades, and all of those things.

“Then, simply, I needed a little bit of time in between [Oslo] and then the start in Amsterdam and in Chicago. Because for me, that is a big change in 2027-28 when I start at the same time in Amsterdam [as chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra] and in Chicago [as music director of the CSO]. I can’t just jump directly from one train to another.

“So I asked if I could have a little bit of time off. And they said, ‘Of course.’ With sadness, but that it was possible. Then we came to a conclusion that it makes more sense this way because for me to be there too many weeks next season would simply take too much time. Now, it’s much better for the transition. I’m actually very happy. I have one more year in Paris. And one more year in Amsterdam [as artistic partner and chief conductor designate] because I’ve been there much longer than in Chicago. Next season, I’m already doing fifty concerts with [Concertgebouw].”

Zell Music Director Designate Klaus Mäkelä and the CSO/Photo: Todd Rosenberg Photography

Mäkelä has not only been conducting at the Concertgebouw Orchestra longer than he has at the Chicago Symphony, but he is much more familiar with it as a listener and audience member. Does he happen to know either of the two former chief conductors—Riccardo Chailly and Daniele Gatti—who are still with us?

“Gatti, I have never met. But Chailly, I know quite well. We know each other from Lucerne, where he’s the music director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. I conduct them every year. We met there, and also in Amsterdam. He’s always been a wonderful colleague. I respect that.

“I never met [Bernard] Haitink, unfortunately. That is a real pity because in a way, I inherited one-and-a-half orchestras or one and three-quarters from Haitink, however you want to see it. Or maybe two orchestras. But his legacy is still there.”

(Haitink was the chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1961 to 1988 and the principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 2006 to 2010.)

Does Mäkelä happen to know either of the former Chicago Symphony music directors—Daniel Barenboim and Riccardo Muti—who are still with us?

“I met Barenboim only once at a party in Berlin at a musician’s home. We spoke very briefly, but he was incredibly generous with me. I value him very much for many reasons, but I also feel very much in debt to him because of Chicago, of course. But then also, he was the longest-serving music director of Orchestre de Paris [1975-1989]. He was here in Paris for fourteen years, which is, by far, the record. I respect him greatly. He is one of the great minds of our time.”

And Muti? “We have never met, yet. He’s an immense conductor. He’s incredible. He is a legend. But I have heard his concerts. I heard one in Vienna that was marvelous. He played the Schubert C Major Symphony [No. 9, the ‘Great’] and the Stravinsky ‘Divertimento.’ There was also a piece by an Italian composer, the name escapes my brain. But it was not too long ago. I was in town for another concert with the Paris orchestra and we were on tour. There was a morning concert with the Vienna Philharmonic and Maestro Muti and it was wonderful.

“Of course, I also know him from recordings. He’s a legend. And there are so many pieces he conducts better than anyone else in the world. He deserves great admiration.”

Have folks stopped making Mäkelä’s age an issue now that he’s turned the ripe old age of thirty? He laughs. “I hope so. Now, at least I’ve gotten over all the bad things from being thirty, two-day hangovers and everything,” he says, laughing. “No, it’s fine. I think it’s getting less and less. It’s nice because we all know that it doesn’t matter how old you are, but how you do things.”

Music director-designate Klaus Mäkelä conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at 7:30pm on August 6 and 7 at Ravinia Festival.

Published in the print edition of the July-August 2026 issue, with the headline “A New Summer Home: Klaus Mäkelä Says Farewell to Oslo and Hello to Ravinia.”