Carnegie Hall

(NEW YORK, NY; September 6, 2023)—Carnegie Hall celebrates the start of its 2023–2024 season with an Opening Night Gala concert on Wednesday, October 4 at 7:00 p.m. featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) conducted by Riccardo Muti. Acclaimed violinist Leonidas Kavakos is the soloist for this special evening, performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on a program that also includes Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition (orch. Ravel), a work that Muti conducted at the Ravinia Festival in his 1973 CSO podium debut.

This Opening Night performance will be heard live by listeners around the world, launching the thirteenth annual Carnegie Hall Live broadcast and digital series. Produced by WQXR and Carnegie Hall and co-hosted by WQXR’s Jeff Spurgeon the concert will be broadcast on WQXR 105.9 FM in New York and streamed online at wqxr.org and carnegiehall.org/wqxr.

Mercedes T. Bass and Hope and Robert F. Smith are the Gala Lead Chairmen for Carnegie Hall’s black-tie Opening Night Gala event. Gala Chairmen Committee members include Veronica Atkins; Len and Emily Blavatnik; Maral and Sarkis Jebejian; Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis; Beatrice Santo Domingo; David M. Siegel and Dana Matsushita; Vista Friends of Hope and Robert F. Smith; and Joan and Sanford I. Weill. Gala Co-Chairmen include Bruce and Suzie Kovner; Xiaoshan Ren; Marvin S. Rosen, Shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; Richard A. Rosenbaum, Executive Chairman of Greenberg Traurig; Jean and Melanie Salata; Elizabeth Segerstrom; Tracy Chutorian Semler and Eric Semler; and Georgia Irwin and David S. Winter. PwC is the Opening Night Gala Lead Sponsor for the 20th consecutive season, and Dennis M. Nally, Retired Chairman, PwC; Roy Weathers, Vice Chairman, PwC; and Brad Silver, New York Office Managing Partner, PwC are the Corporate Chairmen for the event. Kirkland & Ellis LLP is the Opening Night Gala Dinner Sponsor. The gala concert benefits Carnegie Hall’s artistic and education and social impact programs and includes a dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street following the concert. For more information about Opening Night, please visit carnegiehall.org/OpeningNight2023.

The following evening, Thursday, October 5 at 8:00 p.m., Muti and the CSO return with an Italian-themed program: Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, “Italian,” and R. Strauss’s Aus Italien alongside the New York premiere of Philip Glass’s The Triumph of the Octagon. Reflecting on the inspiration for the new CSO-commissioned work, Philip Glass offered, “In February 2022, I travelled to Chicago for performances of my Symphony No.11. It was a thrill to hear this great orchestra and conductor in the hall where I would visit as a student in the early 1950s. After those performances, we began conversations about writing a new piece specifically for this orchestra with the initial idea to create an “Adagio for Muti.” The final title of the work came from a suggestion from Mo. Riccardo Muti about Castel del Monte, a 13th century southeastern castle in Italy.”

Riccardo Muti formally concluded his 13-season tenure as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s tenth music director in June 2023. At that time, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association announced his appointment as the Orchestra’s Music Director Emeritus for Life, beginning with the 2023–2024 season. Mr. Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last appeared at Carnegie Hall in November 2019, performing two highly acclaimed concerts.  

About the Artists
Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos is recognized as an artist of rare quality, known for his virtuosity, superb musicianship, and the integrity of his playing. By age 21, Mr. Kavakos had won three major competitions: the 1985 Sibelius Competition, and the 1988 Paganini and Naumburg competitions. He was the first to record the original Sibelius Violin Concerto (1903/4), which won the 1991 Gramophone Concerto of the Year Award.

Over the years, Mr. Kavakos has developed close relationships with some of the most prestigious orchestras and conductors. In 2017–2018, he was Artist in Residence at both the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Musikverein in Vienna, and toured North America with Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, performing Brahms and Schubert trios. He was featured as a Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist in the 2021–2022 season.

Mr. Kavakos is an exclusive artist with Decca Classics. Recent recordings include Virtuoso (2016), Brahms Violin Sonatas with Yuja Wang (2014), Brahms Violin Concerto with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Riccardo Chailly (2013), and the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Enrico Pace (2013). He recorded the Brahms Trios with Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma, released on Sony Classical in September 2017.

Born into a musical family, Mr. Kavakos curates an annual violin and chamber-music master class in his native Athens, which attracts violinists and ensembles from all over the world. He plays the "Willemotte" Stradivarius violin of 1734.

Born in Naples, Italy, Riccardo Muti is one of the preeminent conductors of our day. In 2010, when he became the tenth music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), he had more than forty years of experience at the helm of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (1968–80), the Philharmonia Orchestra (1973–82), The Philadelphia Orchestra (1980–92), and Teatro alla Scala (1986–2005).

Mr. Muti studied piano under Vincenzo Vitale at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella in his hometown of Naples, graduating with distinction. After he won the Guido Cantelli Conducting Competition by unanimous vote of the jury in Milan in 1967, his career developed quickly. In 1968, he became principal conductor of Florence’s Maggio Musicale, a position that he held until 1980.

Herbert von Karajan invited him to conduct at the Salzburg Festival in Austria in 1971, and Mr. Muti has maintained a close relationship with the summer festival and with its great orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, for more than 45 years. When he conducted the orchestra’s 150th anniversary concert in 1992, he was presented with the Golden Ring, a special sign of esteem and affection, and in 2001, his outstanding artistic contributions to the orchestra were further recognized with the Otto Nicolai Gold Medal. He is also a recipient of a silver medal from the Salzburg Mozarteum for his contribution to the music of Mozart and the Golden Johann Strauss Award by the Johann Strauss Society of Vienna. He is an honorary member of Vienna’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of the Friends of Music), the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Vienna State Opera.

Mr. Muti succeeded Otto Klemperer as chief conductor and music director of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra in 1973, holding that position until 1982. From 1980 to 1992, he was music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and, in 1986, he became music director of Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. During his 19-year tenure, Muti conducted operatic and symphonic repertoire ranging from the baroque to the contemporary, also leading hundreds of concerts with the Filarmonica della Scala and touring the world with both the opera company and the orchestra. His tenure as music director, the longest of any in La Scala’s history, culminated in the triumphant reopening of the restored opera house with Salieri’s Europa riconosciuta, originally commissioned for La Scala’s inaugural performance in 1778.

Riccardo Muti’s vast catalog of recordings, numbering in the hundreds, ranges from the traditional symphonic and operatic repertoires to contemporary works. He also has written three books, Verdi, l’italiano and Riccardo Muti: An Autobiography: First the Music, Then the Words, both of which have been published in several languages, as well as Infinity Between the Notes: My Journey Into Music, published May 2019 and available in Italian.

During his time with the CSO, Mr. Muti has won over audiences in greater Chicago and across the globe through his music making as well as his demonstrated commitment to sharing classical music. His first annual free concert as CSO music director attracted more than 25,000 people to Chicago’s Millennium Park. He regularly invites subscribers, students, seniors, and people of low incomes to attend, at no charge, his CSO rehearsals. Mr. Muti’s commitment to artistic excellence and to creating a strong bond between an orchestra and its communities continues to bring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to ever higher levels of achievement and renown. In June 2023 Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association (CSOA) announced that Riccardo Muti, has been named Music Director Emeritus for Life beginning this fall when he will open the CSO’s 133rd season in Chicago with two weeks of concerts before traveling to New York for the two concerts at Carnegie Hall. This season, Muti will also lead the Orchestra on a January 2024 European tour, the CSO’s 64th international tour.

Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. Since 2010, the pre-eminent conductor Riccardo Muti has served as its 10th music director. Jessie Montgomery is Mead Composer-in-Residence, and Hilary Hahn is CSO Artist-in-Residence.

From baroque through contemporary music, the CSO commands a vast repertoire. Its renowned musicians annually perform more than 150 concerts, most at Symphony Center in Chicago and, each summer, at the suburban Ravinia Festival. They regularly tour nationally and internationally. Since 1892, the CSO has made 63 international tours, performing in 29 countries on five continents.

People around the globe listen to weekly radio broadcasts of CSO concerts and recordings on the WFMT radio network and online at cso.org/radio. Recordings by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have earned 64 Grammy Awards from the Recording Academy. Two Grammys were awarded in 2011 for Muti’s recording with the CSO and Chorus of Verdi's Messa da Requiem (Muti’s first of eleven releases with the CSO to date). Find details on these and many other CSO recordings at cso.org/resound.

The CSO is part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, which also includes the Chicago Symphony Chorus and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago (Ken-David Masur, Principal Conductor), a training ensemble for emerging professionals. Through its prestigious Symphony Center Presents series, the CSOA presents guest artists and ensembles from a variety of genres—classical, jazz, world and contemporary.

The Negaunee Music Institute at the CSO offers community and education programs that annually engage more than 200,000 people of diverse ages and backgrounds. Through the Institute and other activities, including a free annual concert led by Muti, the CSO is committed to using the power of music to create connections and build community.

The CSO is supported by thousands of patrons, volunteers, and institutional and individual donors. The CSO’s music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation. The Negaunee Foundation provides generous support in perpetuity for the work of the Negaunee Music Institute.

Program Information
Wednesday, October 4 at 7:00 p.m.
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage

CARNEGIE HALL’S OPENING NIGHT GALA
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
RICCARDO MUTI, Conductor
LEONIDAS KAVAKOS, Violin

TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto
MUSSORGSKY Pictures from an Exhibition (orch. Ravel)

Opening Night Gala Lead Sponsor: PwC

Opening Night Gala Dinner Sponsor: Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Tickets: $75–$225.
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Thursday, October 5 at 8:00 p.m.
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage

CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
RICCARDO MUTI, Conductor

PHILIP GLASS The Triumph of the Octagon (New York Premiere)
FELIX MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 4, "Italian"
R. STRAUSS Aus Italien

Sponsored by Ernst & Young LLP

Tickets $48–$160.

 

 

Ticket Information

Opening Night Gala Benefit tickets—priced at $2,000; $3,000; $6,000; and $10,000—include concert seating and the post-concert dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street. Private Gala Dinner Tables start at $20,000. Tickets priced at $1,000 include the concert and a pre-concert cocktail reception at 5:30 p.m. in Carnegie Hall’s Rohatyn Room. All gala benefit tickets are available by calling the Carnegie Hall Special Events office at 212-903-9679 or online at carnegiehall.org/OpeningNight2023.

A limited number of Opening Night concert-only tickets—priced at $75 to $225—are now available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, or online at carnegiehall.org.

For the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s October 5 concert, tickets priced at $48–$160 are available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 154 West 57th Street, or can be charged to major credit cards by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800 or by visiting the Carnegie Hall website. Artists, programs, and prices are subject to change.

 

Photo: Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by Todd Rosenberg