The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the ensemble has been based in the Symphony Center since 1904 and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. Klaus Mäkelä was named music director-designate in 2024, with his first contractual season to begin in 2027. The orchestra's most recent music director is Riccardo Muti, whose tenure spanned 13 seasons, from 2010 to 2023, and he continues to perform on occasion as director-emeritus. The CSO is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five".
The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and their ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. With a limited performance size, the orchestra specializes in 18th-century music and was created to perform Baroque Music. The orchestra regularly tours in the UK and internationally, and holds the distinction of having the most extensive discography of any chamber orchestra and being the most well-traveled orchestra in the world; no other orchestra has played concerts (as of 2013, according to its own publicity) in as many countries as the English Chamber Orchestra.
Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler's musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards including Germany's Order of Merit – Officer's Cross.
The Harvard Din & Tonics are a signature, five-part jazz a cappella group from Harvard University, founded in 1979.
The Harvard Glee Club is a 60-voice, Tenor-Bass choral ensemble at Harvard University. Founded in 1858 in the tradition of English and American glee clubs, it is the oldest collegiate chorus in the United States. The Glee Club is part of the Harvard Choruses of Harvard University, which also include the treble voice Radcliffe Choral Society and the mixed-voice Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum. All three groups are led by Harvard's current Director of Choral Activities Andrew Gregory Clark.
The Harvard–Radcliffe Collegium Musicum is a mixed chorus at Harvard University, composed of roughly 50 voices from undergraduate and graduate student populations. Founded in 1971 to coincide with the coeducational merger of Harvard and Radcliffe College, Collegium drew from members of the Harvard Glee Club and the Radcliffe Choral Society to form a smaller mixed group that could represent Harvard on tours. Although Collegium used to perform primarily early Renaissance music, its repertoire now draws from centuries of a cappella and orchestral selections. Together with the (tenor-bass) Harvard Glee Club and the (soprano-alto) Radcliffe Choral Society, it is a member of the Harvard Choruses.
Masaaki Suzuki is a Japanese organist, harpsichordist, conductor, and the founder and music director of the Bach Collegium Japan. With this ensemble he is recording the complete choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach for the Swedish label BIS Records, for which he is also recording Bach's concertos, orchestral suites, and solo works for harpsichord and organ. He is also an artist-in-residence at Yale University and the principal guest conductor of its Schola Cantorum, and has conducted orchestras and choruses around the world.
Bright Sheng is a Chinese-born American composer, pianist and conductor. Sheng has earned many honors for his music and compositions, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 2001; he also was a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. His music has been commissioned and performed by virtually every major American symphony orchestra, in addition to the Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra among numerous others. His music has been performed by such musicians as the conductors Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Christoph Eschenbach, Charles Dutoit, Michael Tilson Thomas, Leonard Slatkin, Gerard Schwarz, David Robertson, David Zinman, Neeme Järvi, Robert Spano, Hugh Wolff; the cellists Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, and Alisa Weilerstein; the pianists Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, and Peter Serkin; the violinists Gil Shaham and Cho-Liang Lin; and the percussionist Evelyn Glennie.
Jaime Laredo is a violinist and conductor. He was the conductor and Music Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and he began his musical career when he was five years old.
Yehudi Wyner is an American composer, pianist, conductor and music educator.
Kent Tritle is a choral conductor and organist in New York City, United States. He is the current director of the professional chorus Musica Sacra and of the Oratorio Society of New York, and director of cathedral music and organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He is a concert organist, including organist of the New York Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra. He has been Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music, and on the graduate faculty of the Juilliard School.
Samuel Jones is an American composer and conductor.
Maria Guinand is an internationally renowned choral conductor.
Oleh Mahlay is an American violinist, pianist, bandurist, choral conductor and lawyer of Ukrainian ethnicity. Mahlay has made a significant contribution to Ukrainian emigre music, primarily through his work with the Ukrainian bandura and the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus. Merited Figure of Arts of Ukraine.
Jeffrey Alan Kahane is an American classical concert pianist and conductor. He was music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for 20 years, the longest of any music director in the orchestra's history. He is the music director of the Sarasota Music Festival, a program of the Sarasota Orchestra, music director-designate of the San Antonio Philharmonic, and a professor of keyboard studies (Piano) at the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles, California.
Stefan Jackiw is an American classical violinist.
Robert Hart Baker was an American symphonic and operatic conductor
Jonathan Yates is an American conductor of the Sarah Lawrence College, Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble and a recipient of both Walter F. Naumburg's Chamber Music Prize and American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers award.
David Avshalomov is a third generation classical composer, singer, and conductor. David is the son of Jacob Avshalomov and grandson of Aaron Avshalomov who were both distinguished classical musicians. As a composer, he has been commissioned by several orchestras such as the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Mission Chamber Orchestra, Oddysea Chorus of Lisbon, and the Anglican Chorale of Southern California. He is also a vocalist - having served in the United States Air Force as a Singing Sergeant - and conductor.
