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Chicago Tribune
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: A delicious weekend at Ravinia brings together music and fine dining
'A good program,' chief conductor Marin Alsop told a crowd in Ravinia's Tree Top Lounge, 'is like a meal.' She wasn't just reaching for a fanciful metaphor. Each year, Breaking Barriers, the festival-within-a-festival she devised around gender equity at Ravinia, spotlights a different profession. This year's focus on the culinary arts invited women chefs to devise dishes inspired by Alsop's Chicago Symphony programs. Alsop picked the music, while her co-curator, 'Food Network' star Molly Yeh, matchmade the pieces with specific chefs. At this ticketed, add-on event in the Tree Top Lounge, a Ravinia audience sampled the results. The chefs themselves assembled and handed out the hors d'oeuvres at a long table: 'Chopped' judge Maneet Chauhan, New York City baker Jacqueline Eng, Florida chef Mika Leon, and Monteverde and Pastificio chef/co-owner Sarah Grueneberg. For some of the chefs, thinking deeply about music is already second nature. Yeh is the daughter of CSO clarinetist John Bruce Yeh and a Juilliard-trained percussionist; she designed a bite and performed at Saturday's chamber concert. And Eng is also a percussionist with a Juilliard credential. (Those department dinner parties must have been elite.) Despite the crush of more than 250 attendees — about the most Tree Top can fit comfortably — the preconcert tasting went off smoothly. When the line got long, a quick-thinking Chauhan started offering her dish to those waiting, scoopable from a Fritos bag. I'm a pale excuse for a food critic. But after sampling the bites first, then attending the concert in the Pavilion, I found that the chefs' dishes uncannily forecasted the performance to come. Here's how this musical feast went on Friday: Accompanying Reena Esmail's 'Re|Member' By seeking an Indian spin on Midwestern comfort food, Chauhan set a challenge for herself. Any Frito pie, even a cheffed-up one, has to contend with the overwhelming saltiness of the chips themselves. Chauhan might not have been able to surmount that totally, but I can't imagine it being done much better. Her answer was to introduce several tastes: fruity pops of pomegranate seed and mango koochumbar, sweet-and-sour tamarind chutney and briny-creamy queso fresco. In a clever stroke, Chauhan made the vindaloo with ground lamb, rather than the usual hunks, to nod to the more traditional chili topping. Your aunt in Cedar Rapids would surely approve. The Midwest/Indian mashup was apropos for Esmail, who was born in Chicago. In her 'Re|Member,' premiered in 2021, an oboist prerecords their solo, to be shown on a video screen at the top of the piece. Later, the video returns, with the same oboist duetting with their past self live onstage. Of all the pandemic-era commissions out there, Esmail's 'Re|Member' stands out for its poignancy — and I loved that Chauhan, by riffing on a familiar, lovable dish, managed to nod to that nostalgia. So, I was extra disappointed that Ravinia opted to go a different direction for this performance. Instead of the video duet, CSO oboists Lora and Will Welter played a spatialized duet— Schaefer playing in the Pavilion aisle, Welter onstage. Even with its profundity curbed, this was a fine, stirring performance. That's a credit to guest conductor Alexandra Arrieche, a participant in Alsop's fellowship program for female conductors. Accompanying Tim Corpus's 'Great Lake Concerto,' Movement III When you think 'percussion,' you probably think big, bold, maybe a little aggro. It's no surprise Eng's perspective as a former percussionist led her to temper those stereotypes. Instead of going for the obvious associations, she focused on that other, unseen aspect of being a musician: long sessions in the practice room. As she explained in the introductory video played in the Pavilion, she selected rye for its resilience in many different climates. (That grain selection had the added benefit of a slightly sour edge, brightening the dish.) And the bean-and-vegetable it rested upon had the rich, layered flavor one can only achieve by stewing high-quality ingredients patiently for hours on end. Decadent, a little cheesy, and oh-so-umami, it was the most flavor-packed bite of the evening. With its focus on Lakes-region vegetables and grains, Eng also drew inspiration from the piece's title. Corpus, a Chicago-based composer, composed the work specifically for CSO percussionist Vadim Karpinos and Lyric percussionist Ed Harrison; it was premiered by Roosevelt University's student orchestra last year. The third movement, marked 'Explosive,' throws us into a fast-paced repartee between Karpinos and Harrison from opposite sides of the stage — Karpinos on xylophone, Harrison on tom-toms. Corpus's writing is consistently inventive: It's never quite clear whether the soloists are teasing one another or casually trying to one-up each other, and you'll never hear a xylophone sound more mournful than it does at the middle of the movement. I's always a high endorsement, to both performer and composer, when people start hooting in the middle of a classical music piece like they're at a stadium show. Harrison's moment was his minute-long maraca solo (yes, really), and Karpinos' his stunt of tossing, then catching, a shekere 10 feet in the air during a cadenza. I'll be thinking about that performance for a long time—just like those beans. Accompanying George Gershwin's 'Cuban Overture' Of the four, León's dish was the most conventional, which is no slight. The texture of the ropa vieja was just right — not too soupy, but also not getting caught in your teeth for perpetuity, like some ropier ropas viejas. I could see a world in which the tostón weighs down the dish. Instead, it was just dense enough to support the generous mound of meat on top. I might have wanted some more acidity to brighten the dish. Then again, at this point in the meal, some unabashed heartiness was welcome. Without León's dish, I don't know that I would have left the Tree Top Lounge fully satiated. Alsop and the CSO's 'Cuban Overture' stuck to one's ribs, too. Maybe a little too much, actually — the overall spirit seemed transplanted from Gershwin's blustery, big-city tone poems, like 'American in Paris' or 'Rhapsody in Blue.' For a work that references son and rumba so deeply over its short duration, this overture didn't dance much as possible, I tried to isolate each dish's composite parts before taking them in together. The lamb vindaloo in the Frito pie. The cultured butter off Eng's rye toast. Even the tostón, alone, in León's creation. When I did the same for this 'pasta tale' — a chilled orzo, with a tomato saffron sauce pooling at its side — I admit, I was skeptical. Between the freshness of the lump crab and its vegetal crunch, the orzo had all the makings of a great summer pasta salad, if on the mild-mannered side. Meanwhile, the sauce was not at all what I expected, leading with the tomato's acidity. The saffron, for all its potency, arrives only on the back end of the bite, albeit mild enough to be overpowered by the taste of Ravinia's wooden utensils. I swapped to plastic before mixing it all together and digging in. Then: total magic. It's as though Grueneberg had carefully plotted a run-of-show for each bite. First, the salinity of the crab, now amplified. Then, that tomato zing, rounded off pleasantly to become more mere aroma than star. The fresh veggies complete the garden, but no longer dominate. And then: the saffron, asserting itself more bravely than before. If this ends up on Monteverde's menu, catch me there tomorrow, a Road-Runner puff of dust pluming behind. What kismet that the most nuanced dish got the most nuanced performance. If programs are like meals, 'Scheherazade' would be the equivalent of a weekly special at Chez Ravinia: Like Copland's Clarinet Concerto, appearing later in the weekend, Alsop conducted the work earlier in her Ravinia tenure, in 2022. But the flavor profile of this meeting between CSO, Alsop and associate concertmaster Stephanie Jeong — who, then and now, played the expansive solos representing Scheherazade — has only deepened in those three years. Conducting scoreless, as is her wont in big repertoire works, Alsop had a specific and inspiring vision for the piece: an end-to-end lyricism, episodes that elicited delicious contrasts, slowdowns that were just right. But don't mistake specificity for micromanagement. Just as exhilarating was the sheer freedom and creativity the CSO seized in their solos. Stephen Williamson's runs in the third movement slowed at their peak, like the suspended, heartstopping moment before a roller coaster's big drop. Keith Buncke's bassoon solo was punctuated by pauses, a sage carefully choosing his words. And Jeong — where to begin? It was really her Scheherazade, a masterclass in taking time and, when called for, freezing it altogether. I can't think of a better 'Scheherazade' I've heard live, anywhere, even including Grant Park's noble account last summer. If only we could come back for seconds. The Breaking Barriers Festival continues 5 p.m. Sunday with Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4, 'Italian,' and Chicago Symphony clarinetist Stephen Williamson playing Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto. Tickets $35–$95 Pavilion, $15 lawn. More information at
Chicago Tribune
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: Grant Park Music Festival is lifted by an artist-in-residence and a poignant ‘Enigma Variations'
Everyone, it seems, needs to have an 'artist-in-residence' these days. Though lofty, the title, as interpreted in recent seasons by the Grant Park Music Festival and the Chicago Symphony, tends to overpromise. It's becoming industry parlance for 'has at least two bookings with us a season' — significant for the artist and presenter, maybe, but mostly a blip for audiences. Cellist Inbal Segev's residency with the Grant Park Music Festival, which concluded on Wednesday, felt closer to a fair billing. The Israeli-American cellist was here for just a week, but it was a packed one: a Pavilion concert on July 9 (playing Mark Adamo's 'Last Year,' a latter-day 'Four Seasons' inflected by climate change), a recital on July 13 which included some of her own music, and a masterclass on July 15, before concluding with another concert in the Pavilion on July 16. In grand-finale spirit, Segev dusted off Anna Clyne's 'Dance,' a calling card of hers, for the occasion. Not that she needed to do much dusting: Guest conductor Courtney Lewis noted in comments to the audience that, since Segev premiered the concerto in 2019, she has performed about half of its 80 performances since. That deep experience was manifest in Wednesday's performance. Like 'Masquerade,' another widely programmed piece by Clyne, 'Dance' dresses up centuries-old musical forms in 21st-century clothing — the placid round of the third movement, the striding ground bass of the fourth. But even amid more fervid movements like the second and fifth, Segev radiated calm confidence through their percussive chords and fingerboard-spanning dexterity. She often smiled encouragingly at Lewis, or, in the finale, at concertmaster Jeremy Black, with whom she swapped knotty, bluesy solos. Her coolheaded virtuosity soothed, even when the music didn't. As an encore, Segev brought the same tranquil command to the Sarabande from Bach's Cello Suite No. 3. Her sound was magisterial and rich, a full-bodied account — until the very end. On that final resolution, she quieted to a mere, otherworldly wisp, like a final wave from a distance. Lewis and the Grant Parkers were every bit as unflappable in their accompaniment. Voices in the orchestra step forth to double the cello here and there — a tricky alignment in any acoustic. But from my vantage in the Pavilion seating area, these all converged impeccably, most especially the ghostly bowed vibraphone supporting Segev's harmonics. Against 'Dance,' a frazzled 'Fledermaus' overture sounded like it might have gotten the short end of the rehearsal stick. Lewis's sudden, tensile beats left the orchestra guessing at subdivisions, nor did they give Strauss's beloved Viennese waltzes much freedom to bounce. Other gestures — scrunched shoulders, a finger to the lips to hush the orchestra — seemed patently superfluous for a group of Grant Park's caliber. But if Lewis spent Grant Park's blink-and-you-miss-it rehearsal time preparing his poignant 'Enigma Variations,' that was a worthy tradeoff. Lewis cultivated an entrancingly variegated ensemble sound, adding new dimension to even Elgar's most familiar strains. The yin-and-yang themes of 'R.P.A.' seemed somehow connected at the hip, rather than starkly juxtaposed. Later, the seafaring variation which Elgar laconically titled '***' — spurring avid speculation about whose initials, exactly, he was redacting — gained might the same way an ocean storm does: gradually at first, then all at once. Then, of course, there's 'Nimrod,' the piece's most famous excerpt. Strings played the opening with no vibrato, sounding for all the world like the stillness before daybreak. When the sun rose through mounting crescendos, the orchestra was bright but not blaring, the Grant Park brass offering sculpted support. The final variation, named for Elgar himself, likewise refused to be weighted down. The opening scampered with tricksterish levity; later on, when the movement cycles through vignettes from earlier in the piece, Lewis balanced the orchestra so that they sounded like flotsam bobbing in '***'s' surf. Now that's how you play the 'Enigma Variations.' A postscript: Inbal Segev's Grant Park week would have been even more packed, were it not for a day-of cancellation of her Monday recital repeat at the Columbus Park Refectory. Festival spokespeople explained the performance, co-presented by the Chicago Park District's 'Night Out in the Parks,' was canceled due to noise-bleed concerns from a 'Bike Night' hosted on the adjacent parking lot, an event they say the festival learned about that morning. In truth, Columbus Park has hosted hundreds for Bike Night every Monday all summer, complete with food-truck vendors, signage and traffic cops. The most generous read of the snafu suggests this was just an awkward breakdown in communication between the festival and the Parks District. It's worth noting, too, the Refectory building itself, where the concert was supposed to happen, was not double-booked, and was thus available on paper. But the broader cluelessness here from Grant Park strikes at a deeper issue, one certainly not unique to this festival. What, exactly, are arts organizations hoping to achieve through neighborhood events if they don't know all that much about the neighborhoods in question? The festival should take the fumble as a learning opportunity as its 'Night Out' partnership continues: July 17 at Olympia Park, July 24 at Indian Boundary Park, July 31 at Lake Shore Park, Aug. 7 at Jefferson Memorial Park and Aug. 14 at Lincoln Park Cultural Center. The Grant Park Music Festival continues July 18-19 with Augustin Hadelich playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, 201 E. Randolph St. Free; more information and ticketed Pavilion seating at
Chicago Tribune
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: CSO's season opens at Ravinia, egging on hopes for the Pavilion renovation
The Chicago Symphony's return to Ravinia? Make it double. On July 11 and 12, the orchestra and chief festival conductor Marin Alsop opened its season with two twinned programs. Both began with engrossing contemporary American openers: Carlos Simon's 'AMEN!' on Friday, Jessie Montgomery's 'Strum' on Saturday. Those were followed by gripping performances of piano cornerstones: Rachmaninoff's 'Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini' played by Bruce Liu, then Gershwin's Concerto in F, played by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Each ended, customarily, with a symphonic juggernaut: Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, 'Pathétique,' respectively. While the actual music varied between the two concerts, their overall takeaways did not. Prime among them: The Ravinia Festival's Pavilion renovation, to be unveiled next summer, cannot come soon enough. Thanks to a study commissioned by Threshold Acoustics, a consultant to the renovation, the festival is armed with more empirical data about the perils of its stage than ever before. Despite that, the pain points of an over-responsive Pavilion ached all weekend. Über-familiar repertoire works jiggering out of sync as often as they did is a sure sign orchestra musicians are having trouble hearing each other — and the same seemed to go for Alsop, sometimes twisting to get a straight sightline of both soloists' hands. All the while, nuclear brass and percussion sat somewhere on the spectrum between 'unbalanced' and 'unpleasant.' Of course, at Ravinia, CSO musicians are rarely just contending with a punishing acoustic. Lightning shuddered during the opening bars of Friday's 'Rite,' as though being conjured by the music itself. A mounting breeze rippled across the orchestra's music stands before a storm sprayed the Ravinia lawn. As though the weather was its own release, this very animalistic performance settled into more subtlety in its latter half, if never conquering those core ensemble issues. Thankfully, Liu and Thibaudet were undisputed peaks of a rocky weekend. Liu, 28, is a Chopin Competition winner of vertiginous agility, and he remained so on a sticky opening night. The young Canadian made Rachmaninoff's Olympian technical matters sound dégagé. Perhaps he lacked a sense of true sentimental abandon. Then again, hearing this heart-wrencher with its histrionics thoughtfully muted — even in the famous 18th variation — provided its own cool relief. For his encore, Liu followed the Rhapsody with yet another Paganini riff by a great virtuoso pianist-slash-composer: Liszt's superhuman 'La Campanella.' He doubled down on the savoir-faire that distinguished his Rachmaninoff, this time without emotional equivocation. The music poured from Liu unstoppered — as did the sweat from his temples, dramatically documented by Ravinia's mondo LED screens. Thibaudet brought the same troubadour spirit to the Ravinia stage the following evening. The best Gershwin accounts capture the effervescence of improvisation in the context of a wholly composed work. It's no surprise Thibaudet struck that balance, his phrasings feeling at once fresh and natural — this concerto is straight out of central casting for the French pianist. The transporting second-movement cadenza had the warming calm of a daydream. The movement ended with a tender moment between Thibaudet and guest principal flutist Minha Kim, locking eyes and swaying together for their duet. But for the most part, Saturday's was a harried meeting between orchestra and soloist, down to the bungled gong hit at the piece's climax. Afterwards, Thibaudet offered Brahms's Intermezzo in A Major as a salve, cutting through its buttery richness with the semplice touch of a lullaby. The ensuing 'Pathétique' wasn't exempt from the weekend's brass overzealousness, or the awkward fit of ensemble puzzle pieces. But on the whole, this was an interpretive highlight of the weekend, in keeping with Alsop's Tchaikovsky 5 two summers ago. She maintained the symphony's songfulness end-to-end, her tempos intuitive and often satisfying. An assured sense of super-structure gave Tchaikovsky's obsessive repetition direction and gravitas — discrete, punctuated utterances for woodwinds and brass at the end of the first movement, a weightier arrival in the last statement of the third. Oddly, though, that didn't apply to the most important moment of all: The trombone incantation and bass-led sighs ending the entire symphony passed more or less unremarked upon. Where Alsop excels consistently, however, is in her preparation of new repertoire, choosing pieces which unite popular appeal with striking craft. Simon's 'AMEN!' and Montgomery's 'Strum' are very much in that lineage. A rafter-shaking, crisply inventive tribute to the Black Pentecostal worship tradition, 'AMEN!' is the rare contemporary work that lives its name to the hilt. Blues harmonies sparkle under hammy, crooning trombones, blooming into a larger-than-life gospel cadence for tutti orchestra. The CSO's performance of 'Strum,' for string orchestra, was just as clean and confident — familiar fare for the ensemble, having played it before and worked with Montgomery for three seasons as its composer-in-residence. Even so, this was an impressive performance by any metric, sections sounding as unified as Montgomery's original version for string quintet, and featuring distinguished first-desk cameos aplenty. Now, if everything goes according to plan, imagine how all that could sound in a new Pavilion next summer. Amen, indeed.
Chicago Tribune
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: Muti returns to the CSO, principal trumpeter and Verdi's Requiem in tow
For a time, Chicago Symphony music director emeritus Riccardo Muti planned to end the 2024/25 downtown season with Hector Berlioz's 'The Damnation of Faust,' not heard at Orchestra Hall since 2008. But last summer, the CSO announced the Berlioz would be swapped out with a more recent throwback: Verdi's Requiem, which Muti last led in Chicago in 2018. A signature of Muti's tenure here, the Requiem was performed and recorded to wide acclaim, first through a Grammy-winning 2010 album and again via livestream in 2013, back when that technology was relatively novel. Despite missing out on a rare-going-on-rarer 'Faust,' the Muti/Requiem pairing is as sure a thing as they come. Thursday's concert was no exception, clinching a standout performance of the year with a quartet of superbly cast — and superbly matched — vocal soloists, three of whom were making their CSO debuts. Mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa and tenor John Osborn were both cast for the originally planned 'Faust,' but you'd think they were hand-picked specifically for this repertoire. Crebassa didn't just sing the mezzo part — she seemed to live it, from the throaty intensity of 'Liber scriptus' to a grief-stricken 'Lacrymosa,' her vibrato bubbling like tears. Her jewel-toned voice sat well in Verdi's lower vocal writing, but it also easily winged skyward when called for, like a glittering upward climb in 'Quid sum miser.' Crebassa has not sung at the CSO since 2015, at Esa-Pekka Salonen's invitation; her next visit ought to come far sooner. Osborn was every bit as sensitive, living proof that one doesn't need to muscle through this writing to captivate a hall. Between his dynamic and emotional range, and an uncommon transparency of tone — the top of 'Quid sum miser' would have given most sopranos a run for their money in its diamond-bright purity — his every feature cut straight to the heart. Elena Guseva's soprano staggers in its power and control, retaining its hue even at lofty peaks. But much like her colleagues, the soprano was even more astonishing in moments of balance and introversion, like her spick-and-span octaves with Crebassa in 'Agnus Dei' and the tender sendoffs to 'Domine Jesu Christe' and 'Libera me.' The young bass-baritone Maharram Huseynov stepped in last week for Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, also originally a 'Faust' hire. Where many before him have brought big-boned heft to this role — which might have helped Huseynov when he got swallowed by the orchestra's fire in the 'Confutatis' — I'm not convinced that's the point. Huseynov's lighter touch felt closer to the spirit of the text, his voice toned, vulnerable and sympathetically, grippingly human-sized. These performances mark Donald Palumbo's official debut as the new director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. It was an auspicious first outing, the choir sounding sculpted and notably unified in color and timbre. Basses rumbled in the 'Rex tremendae' like a voice from a fissure in the earth; sopranos entered on the final 'Libera me' canon with the precision of a single singer. Any ensemble issues mostly came from disagreement between the orchestra and the chorus. The chorus floated around the beat in the first 'Dies irae.' The 'Sanctus' was the opposite: they followed Muti's more leisurely tempo like a shadow, despite the orchestra itching to default to the sprightly pace of years' past. But these moments were few and brief in an inspired, brilliantly paced Requiem, its orchestral contributions sounding fresher than ever. Violins supported the 'Kyrie' crisply; later, Vadim Karpinos' timpani licked like flame in the 'Dies irae.' Onstage and offstage trumpet quartets drove a terrifying transition into the 'Tuba mirum.' And when Guseva and the chorus sang that 'the earth shall be shaken' in the 'Libera me,' a mighty rumble in the double basses made sure you really believed it. Elsewhere, Muti halted the action with moments of total silence, all to great, hair-raising effect. Deliverance, indeed. A week earlier, also under Muti's baton, principal trumpet Esteban Batallán — returning to the ensemble this fall after a season with the Philadelphia Orchestra and a summer parental leave — made his CSO solo debut on two 18th century concertos for piccolo trumpet, by Georg Philipp Telemann and Joseph Haydn's overlooked brother, Michael. The repertoire frequently played to Batallán's strong points. Both — especially the Michael Haydn concerto and its virtuosic cadenzas, devised by Batallán himself — gave the trumpeter a chance to show off his dazzling upper register. And for all his sheer power behind the horn, Batallán can certainly scale back when called for, balancing chamber-style against the ensemble throughout. Mostly missing, at least on June 12, was a certain sense of phrase and direction in legato sections. From the slow movements of the Telemann to floating refrains in the Haydn, notes felt over-articulated rather than part of a longer line. The CSO sound under Muti is nothing if not refined — everything shapely and in its place, never crass nor unruly. That made for an elegant yet reliable accompaniment in these concertos. But once the orchestra became the main focus for Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 48, 'Maria Theresa,' and Schubert's Symphony No. 4, 'Tragic,' that refinement sounded more like reticence. The stormy fake-out in the Haydn's first movement sounded defanged, and the finale rather polite. The Schubert was even more reined in, the orchestra clean but sounding like it was playing at half-verve. The overall impression was one of an ensemble walking on eggshells: little spark, little levity, little variety, too much weighty reverence. That's not to discount some fine ensemble work. Woodwind contributions in the Schubert from clarinetist Stephen Williamson, oboist William Welter, and outgoing flutist Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson were both impassioned and lucid. Mark Almond, sitting in the hot seat for the Haydn symphony's diabolically high horn part, wasn't always pristine, but he deserves serious kudos for deftly balancing the stratospheric register of his accompaniment so it dusted the harmonies instead of dominating them — all too easy to do. 'Muti Conducts Verdi Requiem' repeats 7:30 p.m. June 20-24 at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave., tickets starting at $79,
New York Times
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
He Reinvigorated the Met Opera's Chorus. Next Stop, Chicago.
When Donald Palumbo departed his post as chorus master of the Metropolitan Opera last year after nearly two decades, he could have easily taken a break. But Palumbo, 76, wasn't finished. 'I knew it was not a retirement situation for me,' he said. Now Palumbo has lined up his next position: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra announced on Tuesday that he would serve as its next chorus director — only the third in the choir's 67-year history — beginning an initial three-year term in July. 'I love this chorus,' Palumbo said in a telephone interview from Chicago, where he was rehearsing the chorus. 'I love this city.' Palumbo was a fixture at the Met from 2007 to 2024, helping turn the chorus into one of the most revered in the field. He could often be seen during performances racing around backstage, working with singers to refine bits of the score. He was chorus master at Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1991 to 2007. At the Chicago Symphony, he said, he hoped to work with the singers on 'creating an identity as a chorus from the way we sing, and the way we devote ourselves to the music.' Jeff Alexander, the Chicago Symphony's president, said that Palumbo had built a close relationship with the chorus during guest appearances over the years, creating 'an atmosphere of collaboration that yielded exceptional artistry.' 'We knew this would be the ideal choice to build on the legacy of this award-winning ensemble,' Alexander said in a statement. Palumbo, who lives in Santa Fe and will commute to Chicago, is already at work with the Chicago singers. He will serve as guest chorus director this month for Verdi's Requiem, working with Riccardo Muti, the Chicago Symphony's former music director. In July, he will begin his tenure as chorus director with a performance of Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony at the Ravinia Festival, led by the festival's chief conductor, Marin Alsop. While Palumbo has forged a close relationship with Muti, he said, he was still getting to know Klaus Mäkelä, the Chicago Symphony's incoming music director, who begins in 2027. (Palumbo said he has been watching videos of Mäkelä on YouTube: 'Everything he does musically is exciting,' he said.) Palumbo said he hoped to stay in Chicago beyond the end of his initial term in 2028. 'I certainly am not planning on having a cutoff point,' he said. 'I intend to keep working.'
