Gathering Note

Randall Goosby honors Florence Price in a heartfelt Chicago Symphony performance

Originally published at Seen and Heard International

The life of Florence Price is both remarkable and uniquely American—one of early triumph, quiet persistence, eventual rediscovery and a posthumous, lasting fame.

Born in Arkansas and educated at the New England Conservatory of Music, as a young woman Price moved to Chicago in the 1920s, part of the Great Migration that brought thousands of Black Americans to northern cities in search of opportunity and reprieve from racist violence. In 1933, during Chicago’s World’s Fair, her Symphony No. 1 was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, marking the first time a major American orchestra had performed a work by a Black female composer. It was a milestone performance that seemed to herald a long and promising career.

Instead, it became a high-water mark. Despite the significance of the premiere, Price’s career plateaued and then faded into relative obscurity. During her lifetime and for decades after her death in 1953, she remained largely absent from concert halls.

Operas, quartets, and Mahler on the lawn

^{Photo Credit: Cory Weaver and Des Moines Metro Opera Festival. Last year’s production of Salome}

Spring is struggling to take hold here in the Midwest. Just when you think warm temperatures and sunshine are here to stay, a cold spell with rain arrives to dampen the mood. Still, the weather won’t stop the summer classical music season from arriving in mid-June.

Classical music sounds better in the summer, at least to my ears. And it’s not just the music—it’s where it’s played: outdoor bandshells, rural hideouts, rustic auditoriums, and expansive lawns. Freed from the formality of the great concert halls, the music breathes differently, more freely, even when the conditions are less than ideal.

I’ve been fostering a side hustle as a part-time freelance music critic since the late ’90s, when I was slogging through law school. Writing about music in Iowa and the Quad Cities helped me survive those grueling academic years. But when summer arrived, everything changed. I stopped using music as a means of escape and started experiencing it as a source of joy. Completely. Whether it was chamber recitals at the local Unitarian church or evenings at Ravinia in Highland Park, those concerts—and the many that followed—came to define summer for me.

The summer of 2025 will be my first full summer in a new city. Last year was all about settling in, arguably the worst part of any move. But this year, I’m ready to see what the area has to offer classical music lovers like me. Here are a few events I’m especially looking forward to.

Mahler’s many voices: how the CSO has shaped and been shaped by his music

Originally published on Seen and Heard International

A palpable buzz filled Orchestra Hall on the afternoon of May 9th, as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, led by Jaap van Zweden, launched into Mahler’s formidable Sixth Symphony. The Friday matinee had drawn a full house, and the performance that unfolded was a gripping study of control, power, and clarity. When the final movement’s infamous hammer blows fell, they did so with unflinching and devastating precision. The performance neither overstated Mahler’s deep ironies nor softened his stark vision.

This concert carried added weight: it marked the CSO’s final performance before their European tour, which included showcasing the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies at the prestigious 2025 Amsterdam Mahler Festival.

Jaap van Zweden returns with a blazing Mahler Sixth

Jaap van Zweden returned to Orchestra Hall this week to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in two commanding performances of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. Whether by design or coincidence, this symphony has become something of a calling card for the Dutch maestro during his visits to Chicago. Van Zweden was on the podium the last two times the orchestra played the piece, and this time he not only led the work at home, but will also take it on tour to Amsterdam for the third Mahler Festival.

Mahler’s Sixth has long been shrouded in biographical myth—its popularity fed by the image of the composer as a death-haunted artist. This lens, while perhaps oversimplified, finds a potent anchor in the work’s unsettling musical language. The mythology would be nothing without the work’s infamous hammer blows in its final movement—strikes that have become almost synonymous with Mahler’s fatalism.

CSO shines under Mäkelä’s baton in trio performance of Brahms, Boulez, Dvořák

Originally published on Seen and Heard International

Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto is a meaty work.. It may not be as imposing as Mahler’s Third Symphony, but large enough in musical vision that it places great demand on both soloist and orchestra. Thus, it was an appropriate choice for Klaus Mäkelä’s second week with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and an equally fitting farewell for Daniil Trifonov, concluding his season-long role as the CSO’s artist in residence for 2024–25.

Mahler’s Third Symphony, Mäkelä’s emerging voice, and a thrilled Chicago audience

Mahler’s symphonies are always events. Whether performed in clusters, as they are this year, or—more typically—once or less per season, their size, length, and narrative sweep tend to position them at the beginning or end of something significant. Jaap van Zweden, who is leading the CSO in two Mahler symphonies this season—the Sixth and Seventh—ended his time with both the Dallas Symphony and the New York Philharmonic with the Second. Just last summer, Carlos Kalmar closed his tenure as Director of the Grant Park Music Festival with the Eighth. You get the idea.

This week, Klaus Mäkelä joined the CSO for two weeks of concerts, beginning with a single-work program: Mahler’s mammoth Third Symphony. And they have the feeling of “occasions”: Friday’s performance was nearly sold out, with only a few seats remaining on the main floor.

CSO’s Mahler survey begins with a thrilling Seventh Symphony

I keep finding my way back to performances of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony. It started in 2018, with a thrilling rendition by Carlos Kalmar and the Oregon Symphony. That performance roared. No, the Oregon Symphony isn’t a world-class orchestra, and subtlety wasn’t its strength. But they more than made up for it with heart and visible joy, especially as Kalmar and his players surged into the final bars of the fifth movement.

Last night, Jaap van Zweden was in town to open a mini-Mahler festival in Chicago. Over the next month, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will perform three Mahler symphonies—the Seventh, Third, and Sixth—in a series of concerts. Van Zweden is leading the Seventh and Sixth, while Klaus Mäkelä, the CSO’s music director designate, will take the podium for the Third. Afterward, the orchestra heads out on a spring European tour featuring the Sixth and Seventh, including a stop at the third Mahler Festival in Amsterdam.

CMS musicians bring warmth and vitality to Harris Theater performance of Schubert, Mozart and W.F. Bach

_{Pianist and CMS Co-Director Wu Han. Photo Credit: Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center}

Originally published on Seen and Heard International

Chicago’s classical music scene is undeniably shaped by the towering presence of the Lyric Opera and the Chicago Symphony, institutions that draw crowds with their scale and prestige. Against this backdrop, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s series at the Harris Theater stands out as a quieter, yet equally vital, counterpoint—offering an intimate alternative that feels both rare and refreshing in a city where chamber music isn’t the first thing on most concertgoers’ minds. Tuesday’s CMS performance drove that point home, showcasing the unique appeal of small-ensemble playing in an intelligent program of Schubert, Mozart and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.

Before the music began, co-artistic director Wu Han stepped out to greet the audience, striking a relatable note by admitting she’d heard some subscribers chose to spend their evening at the Lyric Opera’s La Boheme instead. With a wry smile, she turned the moment into a pivot to the future, announcing the dates for next season. Her co-director and husband David Finkel, will announce next season’s program at CMS’s final Chicago concert in April.

Seattle Symphony offers dramatic range with Stravinsky, Mozart, and a local premiere

Originally published on Seen and Heard International

I have heard the Seattle Symphony perform Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring countless times. This includes at least one performance each under the baton of its permanent music directors over the past two decades—from Gerard Schwarz’s unrelenting drive to Ludovic Morlot’s textural brilliance and Thomas Dausgaard’s focus on the Rite’s folk influences and form. Last week, guest conductor Peter Oundjian brought his own vision of the work to Benaroya Hall, offering an interpretation that braided Morlot’s detailed approach with Dausgaard’s emphasis on shape.

From friendship to music: Williamson premieres Theofanidis’ Indigo Heaven at the CSO

_{CSO Principal Clarinet Stephen Williamson. Photo Credit: Todd Rosenberg}

Originally published on Seen and Heard International

On a summer day in 2022, Stephen Williamson stood outside in Aspen, Colorado, with his clarinet. Surrounded by an endless blue sky, mountains, and the sun, Williamson—the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s principal clarinetist—worked through intricate passages of a brand-new concerto. Its composer, Christopher Theofanidis, was right there with Williamson, shaping the music in real time. “Playing it outside in the fresh air, with the mountains around us, brought a whole new dimension to the sound,” Williamson recalls.

After almost three years of anticipation—due in part to an unexpected health setback— Williamson is finally set to premiere the concerto, Indigo Heaven, which was written specifically for him. “This piece has been on my mind for so long,” he says. “It’s deeply personal, and I can’t wait to finally share it with an audience.” That moment in Aspen was just one step in a long journey for the work, which began as a casual conversation and evolved into one of this concert season’s most highly anticipated premieres.