“Reflecting the city-wide Year of Chicago Music celebration, the Grant Park Music Festival will present two commissioned world premieres and spotlight local musicians and ensembles in its 2020 season,” writes Lawrence A. Johnson in Tuesday’s (1/7) Chicago Classical Review. “In addition to its customary mix of classical standards and choice rarities, this summer’s lineup at the lakefront music festival will offer more events that, says the festival release, reflect the city’s musical dynamism and ‘breathtaking diversity.’… The 2020 festival ‘aspires to better reflect our community by presenting more works by women and composers of color.’ Among those will be the Violin Concerto No. 2 by jazz composer and pianist Billy Childs, which will receive its world premiere with Chicagoan Rachel Barton Pine as soloist.… ‘We tried to focus on soloists that have ties to Chicago …’, said Carlos Kalmar, artistic director and principal conductor. The other as-yet-unnamed premiere will be … by genre-traversing Chicago native Mischa Zupko.… The festival will open June 10 with Kalmar leading the Grant Park Orchestra in Florence Price’s Concert Overture No. 1, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto (with the Tempest Trio) and orchestral excerpts from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg…. The festival will run for ten weeks.”
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