Symphony Center is a music complex located at 220 South Michigan Avenue in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Chicago Symphony Chorus; Civic Orchestra of Chicago; and the Institute for Learning, Access, and Training; Symphony Center includes the 2,522-seat Orchestra Hall, which dates from 1904; Buntrock Hall, a rehearsal and performance space; Grainger Ballroom, an event space overlooking Michigan Avenue and the Art Institute of Chicago; a public multi-story rotunda; Forte restaurant and café; and administrative offices. In June 1993, plans to significantly renovate and expand Orchestra Hall were approved and the $110 million project resulting in Symphony Center began in 1995 and was completed in 1997.
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma. The company was re-organized by Fox in 1956 under its present name and, after her 1981 departure, it has continued to be of one of the major opera companies in the United States. The Lyric is housed in a theater and related spaces in the Civic Opera Building. These spaces are now owned by the Lyric.
The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise. It is the oldest improvisational theater troupe to be continuously based in Chicago, with training programs and live theatres in Toronto and Los Angeles. The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959, and has become one of the most influential and prolific comedy theatres in the English-speaking world. In February 2021, ZMC, a private equity investment firm ironically based in Manhattan, purchased the Second City.
Music Theater Works is a resident professional not-for-profit musical theatre company in Evanston, Illinois. It was founded in 1980 by Philip Kraus, Bridget McDonough, and Ellen Dubinsky.
The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance is a 1,499-seat theater for the performing arts located along the northern edge of Millennium Park on Randolph Street in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, US. The theater, which is largely underground due to Grant Park-related height restrictions, was named for its primary benefactors, Joan and Irving Harris. It serves as the park's indoor performing venue, a complement to Jay Pritzker Pavilion, which hosts the park's outdoor performances.
Philip Kraus is an American operatic baritone and stage director known for his performances with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, starting in 1991, and for his co-founding of Light Opera Works, a professional light opera company in Chicago, in 1980.
Alan Heatherington is one of the leading orchestra conductors in Illinois. He has conducted and/or played with virtually all of the major orchestras in the Chicago area. He was the Music Director of Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra, the Lake Forest Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Master Singers, and is Music Director Emeritus of all three ensembles.
The Beethoven Project Trio is an American piano trio that was formed in Chicago in 2008. Its founding members are pianist George Lepauw, violinist Sang Mee Lee and cellist Wendy Warner. The first public concert given by the trio was on March 1, 2009 at Chicago’s Murphy Auditorium for the world premiere of a recently rediscovered piano trio by Ludwig van Beethoven, as well as the American premiere of another Beethoven trio and the Chicago premiere of yet another Trio ; the performance also included the well-known “Archduke” Trio by Beethoven. John von Rhein, music critic of the Chicago Tribune, wrote about the trio's first concert that "for musicians who had never worked together as a trio before, pianist George Lepauw, violinist Sang Mee Lee and cellist Wendy Warner made a splendid ensemble, playing with finely judged balance, evenness of sound and unanimity of style [...] Lepauw, Lee and Warner ended their program with Beethoven’s familiar “Archduke” Trio, a masterpiece that drew fully on their individual and collective abilities. The slow movement emerged with particular eloquence here."
American Blues Theater is a nonprofit, professional Equity theater company in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The ensemble currently has 30 members.
Music of the Baroque is an American professional chorus and orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois.
WFMT is a commercial FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, featuring a classical music radio format. It is managed by Window to the World Communications, Inc., owner of WTTW, Chicago's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member station. WFMT seeks donations on the air and on its website. The studios and offices are on North Saint Louis Avenue in Chicago.
Michael Halberstam is an American stage actor and director. He co-founded the Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois, and served as its artistic director until 2021. He resigned after years of reported harassment and abuse from artists working at the theater.
The DuPage Opera Theatre (DOT) is one of three professional opera companies located in the Chicago area, along with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Chicago Opera Theater. Founded in 1977 as a resident, professional ensemble at the McAninch Arts Center at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, DuPage Opera has mounted several hundred performances since its inception.
Hope Abelson, was an American theatre producer and philanthropist. She spent her childhood and career devoted to the arts, first as an artist, and later as a producer and arts philanthropist. Notably, Abelson helped fund the burgeoning theatre scene in Chicago through support of institutions like Victory Gardens Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and Court Theatre (Chicago).
Andreas Mitisek is the Artistic and General Director of Long Beach Opera, a position he has held since 2003 and from 2012 to 2016 was the General Director of Chicago Opera Theater. Since his conducting debut with the company in Henry Purcell's The Indian Queen in 1998, Mitisek has since served as conductor, stage director and designer for many Long Beach Opera productions.
A Coffin in Egypt is a chamber opera in one act by composer Ricky Ian Gordon. The work uses an English language libretto by Leonard Foglia which is based on a 1980 play by Horton Foote. Set in Egypt, Texas, the work tells the story of Myrtle Bledsoe, an embittered 90-year-old woman who sifts through the memories of her past in a quest for self-forgiveness. The opera had its world premiere at the Houston Grand Opera (HGO) in March 2014.
The Chicago Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois, governed by the Chicago Philharmonic Society. Founded in 1988 by principals of the Lyric Opera Orchestra of Chicago, it is a musician-governed, non-profit organization consisting of nearly 200 classical music performers from the Chicago area. Since 2013, the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor has been Scott Speck.
Amanda Majeski is an American operatic soprano.
Lidiya Yankovskaya is a Russian-American opera and symphonic conductor and the Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater.
