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. The orchestra's most recent music director is Riccardo Muti, whose tenure spanned 13 seasons, from 2010–2023. The CSO is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five".
Sharon Isbin is a classical guitarist and the founding director of the guitar department at the Juilliard School.
Shulamit Ran is an Israeli-American composer. She moved from Israel to New York City at 14, as a scholarship student at the Mannes College of Music. Her Symphony (1990) won her the Pulitzer Prize for Music. In this regard, she was the second woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first being Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1983. Ran was a professor of music composition at the University of Chicago from 1973 to 2015. She has performed as a pianist in Israel, Europe and the U.S., and her compositional works have been performed worldwide by a wide array of orchestras and chamber groups.
Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra.
William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, a Grammy Award, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. He taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973 until 2008. He is married to mezzo-soprano Joan Morris.
Aaron Jay Kernis is a Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy Award-winning American composer serving as a member of the Yale School of Music faculty. Kernis spent 15 years as the music advisor to the Minnesota Orchestra and as Director of the Minnesota Orchestra's Composers' Institute, and is currently the Workshop Director of the Nashville Symphony Composer Lab. He has received numerous awards and honors throughout his thirty-five year career. He lives in New York City with his wife, pianist Evelyne Luest, and their two children.
Steven Edward Stucky was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.
Robin Greville Holloway is an English composer, academic and writer.
Bernard Rands is a British-American contemporary classical composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy. He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and the University of York before emigrating to the United States in 1975; he became a U.S. citizen in 1983. In 1984, Rands's Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has since taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at Harvard University, where he is Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Emeritus.
Jay Pritzker Pavilion, also known as Pritzker Pavilion or Pritzker Music Pavilion, is a bandshell in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located on the south side of Randolph Street and east of the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. The pavilion was named after Jay Pritzker, whose family is known for owning Hyatt Hotels. The building was designed by architect Frank Gehry, who accepted the design commission in April 1999; the pavilion was constructed between June 1999 and July 2004, opening officially on July 16, 2004.
Augusta Read Thomas is an American composer and professor.
Yehudi Wyner is an American composer, pianist, conductor and music educator.
Cedille Records is the independent record label of the Chicago Classical Recording Foundation.
Carlos Kalmar is a Uruguayan conductor.
The Grant Park Music Festival is a ten-week classical music concert series held annually in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It features the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Grant Park Chorus along with guest performers and conductors, and claims to be the only free outdoor classical-music concert series in the US. The Festival is a non-profit organization. The Festival has been a Chicago tradition since 1931, when mayor Anton Cermak suggested free concerts to lift spirits of Chicagoans during the Great Depression. The tradition of symphonic Grant Park Music Festival concerts began in 1935.
Jimmy López Bellido is a classical music composer from Lima, Peru. He has won several international awards and has been nominated to a Latin Grammy Awards. Pieces composed by him have been performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Peru, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. His works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Gewandhaus Leipzig, and during the 2010 Youth Olympic games in Singapore. His music has been featured in numerous festivals, including Tanglewood Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Grant Park Music Festival, Darmstadt International Course for New Music, and Donaueschingen Music Festival.
Robert Frank Kurka was an American composer, who also taught and conducted his own works.
Jonita Lattimore is an American operatic soprano and a faculty member of Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts. She is a lyric soprano from Chicago's South Side who has performed a wide range of operatic roles, as well as oratorio performances with major orchestras both internationally and domestically.
Juliette Louise B. Pochin is a Welsh classically trained mezzo-soprano singer, composer/arranger, and record producer. She is known not only for her performances in operas and as a classical recitalist but also for her recordings of operatically styled crossover music. Morgan Pochin Music Productions Ltd, the company she formed with her husband James Morgan, is known for its record productions for artists such as Katherine Jenkins and Alfie Boe, as well as its arrangements for film and television scores.
