Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival has announced its 2018 season, which will take place at “Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, and satellite locations next door and across the city,” writes John von Rhein in Wednesday’s (1/10) Chicago Tribune. Principal Conductor Carlos Kalmar and Chorus Director Christopher Bell “have raised the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus to a level of achievement that allows them to prepare challenging repertory … under tight rehearsal conditions, and present it with absolute conviction and commitment…. People are coming to snap selfies at The Bean, but more and more of them are staying for the music…. Festival memberships grew from 6,367 in 2016 to 7,410 last year…. Overall attendance rose from 284,000 to 311,000. An endowment fund begun in 2016 now stands at about $2.5 million…. This summer [Kalmar] will preside over an as-yet-untitled work for chorus and orchestra by the Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds…. Several 20-something soloists will be featured on festival programs this summer as part of Chicago’s Year of Creative Youth initiative…. Festival Connect, Grant Park’s music education and community engagement initiative, again will administer string and vocal fellowship programs to guide young minority musicians toward careers in the orchestral and choral fields.”
Posted January 10, 2018
Pictured: Grant Park Music Festival Principal Conductor Carlos Kalmar conducts the Grant Park Orchestra at Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Photo by Shirin Mozaffari
