As temperatures drop, music venues are heating up with great concerts and opera productions available throughout the neighborhood and Chicago in the coming months.
UChicago Presents
University of Chicago Presents has a wealth of concerts coming up in the new year, including two featuring the luminous voices of Trio Mediaeval. On Jan. 23, at Rockefeller Chapel, these Scandinavian women will sing the Tournai Mass as well as music by Hildegard von Bingen. On Apr. 12, at the Logan Center, they will perform Medieval English motets, Scandinavian hymns and contemporary works.
The popular Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) Chamber Music at the University of Chicago series continues with two CSO chamber events coming up. On Feb. 6, at Mandel Hall, members of the CSO will perform music by Christopher Stark and Esa-Pekka Salonen as well as the Piano Quintet in G Minor by Sibelius. On Apr. 19, at the Logan Center, their program includes works by Molly Joyce, Annie Gosfield, Chen Yi, Tilmann Dehnhard, Villa-Lobos and Farrenc.
The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Wind Ensemble will give a concert at Mandel Hall on Apr. 17, featuring music of Mozart and Beethoven. Keyboard concerts are also scheduled for the new year. Organist Lynne Davis performs at Bond Chapel on Feb. 15 and pianist Simone Dinnerstein offers music of Rameau, Bach, Lasser and Jarrett at the Logan Center on Mar. 27.
For more information, visit ChicagoPresents.UChicago.edu.
The Grossman Ensemble
The Grossman Ensemble has two concerts left in its 2025–26 season. March 6 and May 22, at the Logan Center, will find the group presenting concerts made up entirely of world premieres followed by a reception where composers greet their audience.
For more information, visit CCCC.UChicago.edu.
Lyric Opera of Chicago
The second half of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2025–26 season begins with “Salome,” which has six performances between Jan. 25 and Feb. 14. Soprano Jennifer Holloway sings the title role in this opera by Richard Strauss with a libretto based on Oscar Wilde’s play. (Elena Stikhina was originally announced to sing this role but has withdrawn because of her pregnancy.) Brandon Jovanovich and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner also star in this production, which is new to Chicago, originally directed by Sir David McVicar (Julia Burbach is the revival director). Tomas Netopil conducts.
“Cosi fan tutte,” Mozart’s battle of the sexes, opens on Feb. 1 with six performances concluding on Feb 15. It’s updated to a glamorous seaside resort in the 1930s and stars Ana Maria Martinez and Rod Gilfry, with Lyric music director Enrique Mazzola conducting.
Nine performances of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” open March 14 and run through April 12. The Lyric premiere of “El último sueño de Frida y Diego,” a recent opera about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera by Gabriela Lena Frank and Nilo Cruz which premiered in San Diego in 2022, runs from March 21 to April 4.
To learn of other Lyric performances, including a one-night-only concert by Renée Fleming on Feb. 5, visit LyricOpera.org.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The CSO has a wide range of concerts in the new year, including a pair led by Esa-Pekka Salonen at the end of January and the beginning of February. From Jan. 29 through Feb. 1, he leads a concert of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, “Romantic” and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with soloist Daniil Trifonov. On Feb. 5–7, Salonen conducts Debussy’s “La mer” and “Images” as well as Gabriella Smith’s “Lost Coast.”
Klaus Mäkelä returns to the podium to conduct “Lemminkäinen” by Sibelius and “Ein Heldenleben” by Richard Strauss on Feb. 19–21. There’s an opera night with Riccardo Muti on March 19–21 with music by Verdi, Giordano, Catalani and Puccini. The following week, Muti conducts Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 3, “Polish,” as well as Nino Rota’s music from “The Leopard” and a suite from “The Godfather.”
Other guests performing at Symphony Center in the coming months include conductors Jacob Hrusa, Paavo Järvi and Karina Canellakis. Pekka Kuusisto does double duty, serving as both conductor and violin soloist. Evgeny Kissin will perform piano concertos by Prokofiev, Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov.
For more information, visit CSO.org.
Music of the Baroque
“Fathers and Sons” is a Jan. 24–30 concert featuring the work of J.S. Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 4 and that of his son, C.P.E. Bach’s Flute Concerto in G Major, at various locations. There is also flute music by W.A. Mozart and his father, Leopold Mozart. “Baroque Blockbusters” includes music by Bach, Handel and Purcell March 1–6.
For more information and locations, visit Baroque.org.
Haymarket and Chicago Opera Theater
Chicago Opera Theater presents the Chicago premiere of “Der Silbersee—ein Wintermächen” (The Silverlake—a Winter’s Fairy Tale) by Kurt Weill with libretto by Georg Kaiser from March 4-8 at the Studebaker Theater. COT and the Illinois Holocaust Museum are also offering a free event related to the opera: “1933: The Turning Point—Art, Oppression and Resistance” on Feb. 9 at the Harold Washington Library.
For more information, visit ChicagoOperaTheater.org.
Haymarket Opera also presents “La Semele” by Johann Adolf Hasse at Gannon Concert Hall on Mar. 27 and “David et Jonathas by Marc-Antoine Charpentier on June 21 at the same venue.
For more information, visit HaymarketOpera.org.
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