Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
JAAP VAN ZWEDEN, CONDUCTOR
MEASHA BRUEGGERGOSMAN, SOPRANO

Saturday, October 30, 2010, at 7:30pm | Foellinger Great Hall

Great Hall Series | The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was born when Thomas Edison first displayed his kinetoscope, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky served as guest conductor for the debut of what is now Carnegie Hall, and the first tracks were laid for
the Trans-Siberian Railway. As the planet surged with course-changing inventions, mass migrations, and urban expansion, the orchestra melded high-octane performances of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and Mahler masterpieces with groundbreaking world premieres from Sergei Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, and George Gershwin.

Under Jaap van Zweden—remarkable for his disciplined and rigorous approach to Beethoven’s symphonies and his open-hearted opera productions—the musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will extend this 119-year tradition into the Great Hall. In selections from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn), the orchestra paints vignettes to the “earthy charisma” of soprano and 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony singer Measha Brueggergosman (San Francisco Chronicle). For this evening’s finale, the brass will erupt with ferocious power in Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 65 until silvery music reaches out toward a glimmer of hope and calms the swelling, foreboding surf of Dark Waves by John Adams that opened the concert. The evening thus ends as the symphony’s tenure began: with intertwined respect for tradition and forward motion toward a future undertaken with “otherworldly elegance” (The New York Times).



Endowed Underwriters:
Avis and Dean Hilfinger
Valentine Jobst III

Endowed Sponsors:
Judith and Stanley Ikenberry

Patron Sponsors:
Norma and David Fathauer
Stuart Mamer

Patron Co-sponsors:
Carolyn Burrell
Anonymous

Corporate Silver Sponsor:
Freestar Bank