PRIETO CONDUCTS SHOSTAKOVICH 7
CONDUCTOR
APR 5 | 2:00
APR 6 | 7:00
Carlos Miguel Prieto
The 2024–25 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation, which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program.
The Chicago Youth in Music Festival is generously sponsored by Megan and Steve Shebik and by Michael and Linda Simon.
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH SEASON
CIVIC ORCHESTRA OF CHICAGO
KEN-DAVID MASUR Principal Conductor
The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair
Saturday, April 5, 2025, at 2:00 Wentz Concert Hall
Sunday, April 6, 2025, at 7:00 Orchestra Hall
Carlos Miguel Prieto Conductor
SHOSTAKOVICH
Symphony
Allegretto
No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60 (Leningrad)
Moderato (Poco allegretto)
Adagio
Allegro non troppo
The 2024–25 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation, which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program.
Major support for the Civic Orchestra of Chicago is also provided by John and Leslie Burns; Robert and Joanne Crown Income Charitable Fund; Nancy Dehmlow; Leslie Fund, Inc.; Judy and Scott McCue; Leo and Catherine Miserendino; Barbara and Barre Seid Foundation; the George L. Shields Foundation, Inc.; the Maval Foundation; and Paul and Lisa Wiggin.
The April 5 concert is generously sponsored by the JCS Arts, Health and Education Fund of DuPage Foundation.
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.
This project is presented in partnership with Equity Arc.
The April 5 concert is generously sponsored by the JCS Arts, Health and Education Fund of DuPage Foundation.
COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Born September 25, 1906; Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), Russia
Died August 9, 1975; Moscow, Russia
Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60 (Leningrad)
COMPOSED
1941
FIRST PERFORMANCE
March 5, 1942; Kuibyshev, Russia
INSTRUMENTATION
3 flutes, alto flute and piccolo, 2 oboes and english horn, 3 clarinets, E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet, 2 bassoons and contrabassoon, 8 horns, 6 trumpets, 6 trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drums, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, tambourine, triangle, xylophone, piano, two harps, strings
APPROXIMATE PERFORMANCE TIME
80 minutes
Shostakovich composed most of his Seventh Symphony in Leningrad, his birthplace, during the siege of the city that ultimately took nearly a million lives— roughly one-third of its inhabitants—as a result of hunger, cold, and air raids. Shostakovich, already a world-famous composer, joined the war effort in late June 1941, right after the Nazi invasion. His time was divided between digging ditches throughout the city and making arrangements of light music to be
played at the front. He began writing his new symphony on July 15. By the end of the month, he was reassigned to the firefighting brigade at the Leningrad Conservatory, and he subsequently was photographed in his fireman’s outfit, standing on the conservatory rooftop. (He made the cover of Time magazine that month wearing his fire helmet.)
As intended, the image of a great composer ready to defend his city and his people did not go unnoticed. The American poet Carl Sandburg wrote: “Sometimes, as a fire warden, you run to the streets and help put out the fire set by Nazi Luftwaffe bombs. Then you walk home and write more music.” The music was the Seventh Symphony, soon to be known everywhere as the Leningrad Symphony. As Sandburg suggested, it was “music written with the heart’s blood.”
Although the members of Leningrad’s most prestigious artistic institutions, including the conservatory and the philharmonic, were evacuated that summer, Shostakovich chose to stay in Leningrad, racing with his family to the air raid shelters and returning to his desk at home to continue his symphony. “Even during air raids, he seldom
this page: Dmitri Shostakovich, portrait, 1942 | next page: Dmitri Shostakovich serving as a volunteer fireman during the siege of Leningrad in 1941. Photo by Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
stopped working,” his wife Nina wrote. “If things began looking too hot, he calmly finished the bar he was writing, waited until the page dried, neatly arranged what he had written, and took it down with him into the bomb shelter.”
The first movement was completed on September 3. He originally had intended it to stand alone as a symphonic poem, but he now recognized that it was merely the opening chapter of a long and deeply personal work. Two more movements were written at great speed. “Our art is threatened with great danger,” he said on Leningrad radio that month. “We will defend our music.”
On October 1, having finished three movements, Shostakovich was evacuated from the city against his wishes. He
later moved to Kuibyshev, in the Volga region, where he finished the finale in December.
Shostakovich’s eventual official statement, “I dedicated my Seventh Symphony to our fight against fascism, to our coming victory over the enemy, and to my native city of Leningrad,” is reproduced on the first page of the printed score merely as “Dedicated to the city of Leningrad.” Although Shostakovich originally gave titles to the four movements—War, Remembrance, The Wide Spaces of Our Land, and Victory—he later discarded them and provided only a few hints about the meaning of the music:
1. War breaks suddenly into our peaceful life. . . . The recapitulation is a funeral march, a deeply tragic episode, a mass requiem.
2. A lyrical intermezzo, . . . no program and fewer “concrete facts” than in the first movement.
3. A pathetic adagio with drama in the middle episode.
4. Victory, a beautiful life in the future.
The symphony was performed for the first time on March 5, 1942, in Kuibyshev, by the evacuated orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre. Three weeks later, it was played in Moscow. Within a month, the score was microfilmed, placed in a tin can, and secretly sent to the United States, by
plane and by car, in a circuitous route through Teheran, Cairo, and South America before ending up in New York City. On July 19 Toscanini and his NBC Symphony introduced the symphony to this country in a radio broadcast that reached several million listeners—an unparalleled event for a piece of new music. (Toscanini beat out both Koussevitzky and Stokowski for the right to give the Western premiere.)
Seldom has a new work received so much advance publicity and attracted so many listeners or caused such a stir. A number of the leading composers of the era who had immigrated to the United States, including Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Hindemith, and Rachmaninov, tuned in to the July broadcast to hear what their colleague was up to. Schoenberg complained that “with composing like this, one must be grateful that he has not already gone up to Symphony no. 77,” and Hindemith simply went to his desk to write a set of fugues, the Ludus tonalis, as a way of clearing the air. Béla Bartók listened to the broadcast from his summer cottage in Saranac Lake, New York, and was so outraged by the repetitious first-movement march that he wrote a parody of it in his Concerto for Orchestra on which he was then at work.
In August, Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony came home to Leningrad. After the devastations suffered during the city’s first winter under siege, only the conductor and fourteen members of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra—the only group of musicians who, like
Shostakovich, had resisted evacuation— were still alive. Qualified musicians were brought in from the front line to fill out the orchestra, and somehow, they managed to learn Shostakovich’s demanding, emotionally draining new score. Three of the players died of starvation before the premiere. The Leningrad performance, on August 9, was defiantly broadcast over loudspeakers to the German troops camped outside the city. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra played the work for the first time under Frederick Stock later that month, on August 22, at a benefit concert for the Russian War Relief at Ravinia. Stock died a week before he was scheduled to conduct the symphony in Orchestra Hall that autumn; those performances, in late October, were led by the Orchestra’s associate conductor Hans Lange, who unaccountably took an intermission between the second and third movements.
Shostakovich had prepared a program for this new symphony that was drawing international attention. “This is the simple, peaceful life lived before the war,” he wrote of the first movement. The symphony opens confidently with a grand, striding unison theme—the voice of “people sure of themselves and their future.” But, later on, in the development section, “war bursts into the peaceful life of these people. I am not aiming for the naturalistic depiction of war, the depiction of the clatter of arms, the explosions of shells, and so on. I am trying to convey the image of war emotionally.”
The first movement is dominated by this great marching music—what Shostakovich himself called the “invasion episode.” The theme itself could hardly sound more innocuous at first, but it’s based on an aria from Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow, a favorite of Hitler. Eventually, the invasion music becomes so menacing and forceful that it overwhelms both the striding theme, which opens the symphony, and the delicate, almost Mahler-like lyrical section that follows. Bartók was not alone in attacking the numbing repetition (over the span of 350 measures) and Boléro-like crescendo of the march over a relentless snare-drum rhythm. (Bartók mocks the theme in the fourth movement of his Concerto for Orchestra, where it is greeted with squawks of derision.) Shostakovich had anticipated a violent response even before he finished the first movement: “Let them accuse me, but that’s how I hear war,” he told a friend.
There is irony and humor, of all things, in the second movement—necessary relief after the relentless opening Allegretto. There are hints of military music midway through, launched by the piercing song of the E-flat clarinet. Both the opening and closing pages show Shostakovich’s mastery of a solo melody over simple, repeated accompaniment figures.
The slow movement begins with great resounding chords—wonderfully scored
for full winds and two harps—followed by an eloquent string melody, strong and bracing in its naked simplicity (the lower strings occasionally offer a single note or chord as support). The solo flute provides a second theme over plucked strings. Again, a more vigorous middle section suggests that the war is not over. At the end, the strings take up the vast wind chords with which the movement began.
“My idea of victory isn’t something brutal,” Shostakovich said. “It’s better explained as the victory of light over darkness, of humanity over barbarism, of reason over reaction.” In the finale, victory does not come at once. Shostakovich begins with little more than the timpani roll that concluded the slow movement and gradually adds other voices. A broad climax quickly unwinds; a single viola line is left hanging. Finally, the music slowly and deliberately moves toward a grand conclusion, sprinkled with brass fanfares and cymbal crashes, and forces its way into C major—the traditional key of victory. Even then, when the symphony’s opening theme returns to crown the moment, it is chock-full of notes that have no place in C major, and the final chords in that most brilliant of keys have a bitter ring to them.
Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
CHICAGO YOUTH IN MUSIC FESTIVAL
Launched in 2009, the CSO’s Chicago Youth in Music Festival is an annual celebration of young people who are passionate about symphony orchestras. The 2025 Festival takes place throughout April at Symphony Center and across the city of Chicago in partnership with leading music education organizations.
EQUITY ARC ANNUAL CONVENING AND PATHWAYS ORCHESTRA
The Festival launches on Sunday, April 6 at 2 pm with a concert by the Equity Arc Pathways Orchestra, an ensemble comprised of high school students representing “pathways” music education programs across the country, including over a dozen fellows from the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative. Students sit side-by-side with members of the CSO and Civic Orchestra conducted by Kyle Dickson. The concert culminates a weekend-long convening led by Equity Arc for students, teachers, and administrators who are devoted to greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in American orchestras.
CIVIC ORCHESTRA OF CHICAGO + PROFESSIONAL U.S. ORCHESTRA FELLOWS
This concert features the Civic Orchestra of Chicago—the CSO’s prestigious training program for early-career professionals— augmented by Civic Alumni as well as ten professional fellows representing major orchestras of Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minnesota, and Pittsburgh.
CONVENINGS FOR CHICAGO YOUTH
Later this month, the Civic Orchestra will welcome over 250 youth from across Chicago for daylong convenings that include rehearsals, sectionals, and a performance:
SATURDAY, APRIL 19
Community Youth Orchestra Convening Featuring students from Chicago Arts and Music Project, Chicago Metamorphosis Orchestra Project, The People’s Music School, and Sistema Ravinia.
THURSDAY, APRIL 24
Chicago Public Schools Band Convening Featuring students from King College Prep, Lincoln Park High School, Mather High School, and Northside College Prep.
FRIDAY, APRIL 25
Chicago Public Schools String Orchestra Convening
Featuring students from Amundsen High School, Kenwood Academy, Mather High School, and Northside College Prep.
MASTER CLASS SERIES
Finally, to engage Chicago’s most advanced young musicians, the NMI will present a series of master classes led by CSO Musicians for students from the Merit School of Music, Music Institute of Chicago, Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative, and the People’s Music School. These master classes will be hosted at each partner’s site across the city throughout the month of April.
Learn more about the Chicago Youth in Music Festival at cso.org/cymf.
PROFILES
Carlos Miguel Prieto Conductor
Known for his charisma and expressive interpretations, Grammy Award–winning Mexican conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto has established himself not only as a major figure in the orchestral world but also as an influential educator, cultural change-maker, and champion of new music.
Career highlights include engagements with the Cleveland Orchestra, New Jersey, Dallas, Toronto, and San Francisco symphony orchestras, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Hallé, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Spanish National Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Strasbourg Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, and a successful BBC Proms debut at Royal Albert Hall.
Prieto was named music director of the North Carolina Symphony in 2023. Since 2008 he has been music director of Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, with which he earned a Latin Grammy nomination for Best Classical Music Album. From 2007 to 2022, Prieto was the music director of the Orquesta
Sinfónica Nacional de México, the country’s leading ensemble, significantly raising the caliber of the orchestra. He was also music director of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra from 2006 to 2023, where he helped lead the cultural renewal of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
An advocate for music education, Prieto has conducted the Youth Orchestra of the Americas since its inception. Alongside Gustavo Dudamel, Prieto served as the orchestra’s principal conductor from 2001 until 2011, when he was appointed music director. In 2018 he conducted the orchestra on a tour of European summer festivals, performing at the Rheingau and Edinburgh festivals and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. He has also worked regularly with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the NYO2 in New York.
Prieto is renowned for championing new and lesser-known Latin American and African American music. He has conducted over a hundred world premieres of works by Mexican and American composers, many of which he commissioned. Carlos Miguel Prieto has recorded on the Deutsche Grammophon, Naxos, and Sony labels and was recognized by Musical America as the 2019 Conductor of the Year. A graduate of Princeton and Harvard universities, he studied conducting with Jorge Mester, Enrique Diemecke, Charles Bruck, and Michael Jinbo.
PHOTO BY BENJAMIN EALOVEGA
Civic Orchestra of Chicago
The Civic Orchestra of Chicago is a training program of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Negaunee Music Institute that prepares young professionals for careers in orchestral music. It was founded during the 1919–20 season by Frederick Stock, the CSO’s second music director, as the Civic Music Student Orchestra, and for over a century, its members have gone on to secure positions in orchestras across the world, including over 160 Civic players who have joined the CSO. Each season, Civic members are given numerous performance opportunities and participate in rigorous orchestral training with its principal conductor, Ken-David Masur, distinguished guest conductors, and a faculty of coaches comprised of CSO members. Civic Orchestra musicians develop as exceptional orchestral players and engaged artists, cultivating their ability to succeed in the rapidly evolving music world.
The Civic Orchestra serves the community through its commitment to present free or low-cost concerts of the highest quality at Symphony
Center and in venues across Greater Chicago, including annual concerts at the South Shore Cultural Center and Fourth Presbyterian Church. The Civic Orchestra also performs at the annual Crain-Maling Foundation CSO Young Artists Competition and Chicago Youth in Music Festival. Many Civic concerts can be heard locally on WFMT (98.7 FM), in addition to concert clips and smaller ensemble performances available on CSOtv and YouTube. Civic musicians expand their creative, professional, and artistic boundaries and reach diverse audiences through educational performances at Chicago public schools and a series of chamber concerts at various locations throughout the city.
To further expand its musician training, the Civic Orchestra launched the Civic Fellowship program in the 2013–14 season. Each year, up to twelve Civic members are designated as Civic Fellows and participate in intensive leadership training designed to build and diversify their creative and professional skills. The program’s curriculum has four modules: artistic planning, music education, social justice, and project management.
A gift to the Civic Orchestra of Chicago supports the rigorous training that members receive throughout the season, which includes coaching from musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and world-class conductors. Your gift today ensures that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association will continue to enrich, inspire, and transform lives through music.
Civic Orchestra of Chicago
Ken-David Masur Principal Conductor
The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair
VIOLINS
Jesús Linárez+~
Herdis Gudmundsdottir
Darren Carter
Adam Davis
Ebedit Fonseca
Sean Hsi
Ran Huo
Hojung Christina Lee
Elise Maas
Marian Antonette Mayuga*
Nelson Mendoza+
Valentina Guillen Menesello+
Naomi Powers
Yebeen Seo
Keshav Srinivasan
Justine Jing Xin Teo
Maria Arrua+
Harin Kang
Polina Borisova
Carlos Chacon
Isabelle Chin
Jenny Choi
Rose Haselhorst
Jason Hurlbut
Munire Mona Mierxiati
Matthew Musachio*
Annie Pham
Alec Tonno
Yulia Watanabe-Price
Lina Yamin*
VIOLAS
Jarrett Threadgill+~
Pedro Mendez+~
Jason Butler
August DuBeau
Elena Galentas
Judy Yu-Ting Huang
Xiaoxuan Liang
Carlos Lozano
Yat Chun Justin Pou
Mason Spencer*
Sam Sun
Sava Velkoff*
Derrick Ware
Sanford Whatley
CELLOS
David Caplan
J Holzen*
Sam Day
Buianto Lkhasaranov
Nick Reeves
Jiho Seo
Somyong Shin
Cameron Slaugh+
Santiago Uribe-Cardona
Brandon Xu
BASSES
Caleb Edwards+~
Olivia Reyes+~
Walker Dean
Broner McCoy
Daniel W. Meyer
Bennett Norris
Hannah Novak
J.T. O’Toole*
Alexander Wallack
FLUTES
Daniel Fletcher
Jungah Yoon
Cierra Hall
ALTO FLUTE
Jungah Yoon
PICCOLO
Cierra Hall
OBOES
Will Stevens
Kyungyeon Hong
Jonathan Kronheimer
ENGLISH HORN
Jonathan Kronheimer
CLARINETS
Elizabeth Kapitaniuk
Hae Sol (Amy) Hur*
Tyler Baillie
Jonah Stuckey
BASS CLARINET
Jonah Stuckey
E-FLAT CLARINET
Tyler Baillie
BASSOONS
Ian Schneiderman
William George
Carlos Clark~
CONTRABASSOON
Carlos Clark~
HORNS
Jacob Medina+
Mark Morris
Fiona Chisholm+
Loren Ho
Dena Levy
Landon Young~
Emily Whittaker
Lily Kern
Micah Northam
TRUMPETS
Sean-David Whitworth
Abner Wong
Sarah Heimberg
Hamed Barbarji
Maria Merlo
Kai-Chun Chang
TROMBONES
Felix Regalado+~
Dustin Nguyen
Jordan Milek Johnson~
Hugo Saavedra+ Arlo Hollander
BASS TROMBONES
Joe Maiocco
Jordan Milek Johnson~
TUBAS
Nick Collins
Ben Poirot
TIMPANI
Tomas Leivestad
PERCUSSION
Cameron Marquez*
Alex Chao
Charley Gillette
Tae McLoughlin
Kevin Tan
Karel Zambrano
HARPS
Natalie Man+
Ksenia Sushkevich
PIANO
Marissa Kerbel
LIBRARIAN
Benjimen Neal
NEGAUNEE MUSIC INSTITUTE AT THE CSO
the board of the negaunee music institute
Leslie Burns Chair
Steve Shebik Vice Chair
John Aalbregtse
David Arch
James Borkman
Jacqui Cheng
Ricardo Cifuentes
Richard Colburn
Dunni Cosey Gay
Charles Emmons
Judy Feldman
Lori Julian
Toni-Marie Montgomery
Rumi Morales
Mimi Murley
Margo Oberman
Gerald Pauling
Harper Reed
Melissa Root
Amanda Sonneborn
Eugene Stark
Dan Sullivan
Ex Officio Members
Jeff Alexander
Jonathan McCormick
Vanessa Moss
negaunee music institute administration
Jonathan McCormick Managing Director
Katy Clusen Associate Director, CSO for Kids
Katherine Eaton Coordinator, School Partnerships
Carol Kelleher Assistant, CSO for Kids
Anna Perkins Orchestra Manager, Civic Orchestra of Chicago
Zhiqian Wu Operations Coordinator, Civic Orchestra of Chicago
Rachael Cohen Program Manager
Charles Jones Program Assistant
Frances Atkins Content Director
Kristin Tobin Designer & Print Production Manager
Petya Kaltchev Editor
civic orchestra artistic leadership
Ken-David Masur Principal Conductor
The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair
Coaches from the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra
Robert Chen Concertmaster
The Louis C. Sudler Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor
Baird Dodge Principal Second Violin
Teng Li Principal Viola
The Paul Hindemith Principal Viola Chair
Brant Taylor Cello
The Blickensderfer Family Chair
Alexander Hanna Principal Bass
The David and Mary Winton Green Principal Bass Chair
Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson Principal Flute
The Erika and Dietrich M. Gross Principal Flute Chair
William Welter Principal Oboe
Stephen Williamson Principal Clarinet
Keith Buncke Principal Bassoon
William Buchman Assistant Principal Bassoon
Mark Almond Principal Horn
Esteban Batallán Principal Trumpet
The Adolph Herseth Principal Trumpet Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor
John Hagstrom Trumpet
The Bleck Family Chair
Tage Larsen Trumpet
Michael Mulcahy Trombone
Charles Vernon Bass Trombone
Gene Pokorny Principal Tuba
The Arnold Jacobs Principal Tuba Chair, endowed by Christine Querfeld
David Herbert Principal Timpani
The Clinton Family Fund Chair
Vadim Karpinos Assistant Principal Timpani, Percussion
Cynthia Yeh Principal Percussion
Justin Vibbard Principal Librarian
HONOR ROLL OF DONORS
Negaunee Music Institute at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Negaunee Music Institute connects individuals and communities to the extraordinary musical resources of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The following donors are gratefully acknowledged for making a gift in support of these educational and engagement programs. To make a gift or learn more, please contact Kevin Gupana, Associate Director of Giving, Educational and Engagement Programs, 312-294-3156.
$150,000 AND ABOVE
Lori Julian for The Julian Family Foundation
The Negaunee Foundation
$100,000–$149,999
Abbott Fund
Allstate Insurance Company
Megan and Steve Shebik
$75,000–$99,999
John Hart and Carol Prins
Barbara and Barre Seid Foundation
$50,000–$74,999
Anonymous
BMO
Robert and Joanne Crown Income Charitable Fund
Lloyd A. Fry Foundation
Judy and Scott McCue
Ms. Deborah K. McNeil
Polk Bros. Foundation
Michael and Linda Simon
Lisa and Paul Wiggin
$35,000–$49,999
Bowman C. Lingle Trust
National Endowment for the Arts
Margo and Michael Oberman
$25,000–$34,999
Anonymous
Carey and Brett August
John D. and Leslie Henner Burns
Crain-Maling Foundation
Nancy Dehmlow
Kinder Morgan
The Maval Foundation
Ms. Cecelia Samans
Shure Charitable Trust
Gene and Jean Stark
$20,000–$24,999
Anonymous
Mary and Lionel Go
Halasyamani/Davis Family
Illinois Arts Council Agency
Richard P. and Susan Kiphart Family
Mr. Philip Lumpkin
PNC
D. Elizabeth Price
Sandra and Earl Rusnak, Jr. †
Charles and M. R. Shapiro Foundation
The George L. Shields Foundation, Inc.
Dr. Marylou Witz
$15,000–$19,999
Nancy A. Abshire
Mr. & Mrs. John Baldwin
Robert and Isabelle Bass Foundation, Inc.
Sue and Jim Colletti
Dr. Leo and Catherine Miserendino
$11,500–$14,999
Barker Welfare Foundation
Mr. † & Mrs. David A. Donovan
Nancy and Bernard Dunkel
Benjamin J. Rosenthal Foundation
Ksenia A. and Peter Turula
$7,500–$11,499
Anonymous (2)
Robert H. Baum and MaryBeth Kretz
Fred and Phoebe Boelter
The Buchanan Family Foundation
Mr. Lawrence Corry
Mrs. Carol Evans, in memory of Henry Evans
Ellen and Paul Gignilliat
Mr. & Mrs. Joseph B. Glossberg
Chet Gougis and Shelley Ochab
Mary Winton Green
Mr. & Mrs. Edward T. Joyce
The League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association
Mr. Glen Madeja and Ms. Janet Steidl
Drs. Robert † and Marsha Mrtek
Ms. Susan Norvich
Mr. & Mrs. Aaron Oberman
Ms. Emilysue Pinnell
Mary and Joseph Plauché
Ms. Liisa M. Thomas and Mr. Stephen L. Pratt
Laura and Terrence Truax
Theodore and Elisabeth Wachs
$4,500–$7,499
Dora J. and R. John Aalbregtse
Joseph Bartush
Charles H. and Bertha L. Boothroyd Foundation
Ann and Richard Carr
Harry F. and Elaine Chaddick Foundation
CIBC
Dr. Brenda A. Darrell and Mr. Paul S. Watford
Charles and Carol Emmons
Tarek and Ann Fadel
Mr. Graham C. Grady
Ms. Dawn E. Helwig
Mr. James Kastenholz and Ms. Jennifer Steans
Dr. June Koizumi
Leoni and Bill McVey
Jim and Ginger Meyer
Stephen and Rumi Morales
David † and Dolores Nelson
Dr. Linda Novak
The Osprey Foundation
Lee Ann and Savit Pirl
Robert J. Richards and Barbara A. Richards
Dr. Scholl Foundation
Dr. & Mrs. R. Solaro
Ms. Joanne C. Tremulis
Mr. Paul R. Wiggin
Zell Family Foundation
$3,500–$4,499
Anonymous (2)
Mr. & Mrs. Paul Clusen
Mr. & Mrs. Dwight Decker
Mr. Clinton J. Ecker and Ms. Jacqui Cheng
Judith E. Feldman
Ms. Mirjana Martich and Mr. Zoran Lazarevic
Mr. Bruce Oltman
$2,500–$3,499
Anonymous
David and Suzanne Arch
Mr. James Borkman
Adam Bossov
Ms. Danolda Brennan
Ms. Rosalind Britton
Mr. Ray Capitanini
Ms. Debora de Hoyos and Mr. Walter Carlson
Lisa Chessare
Mr. Ricardo Cifuentes
Patricia A. Clickener
David and Janet Fox
Mr. † & Mrs. Robert Heidrick
William B. Hinchliff
Michael and Leigh Huston
Dr. Victoria Ingram and Dr. Paul Navin
Merle L. Jacob
Ronald E. Jacquart
Ms. Stephanie Jones
Anne and John † Kern
Northern Trust
Ms. Jane Park
Mr. & Mrs. Jeffery Piper
Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Racker
Erik and Nelleke Roffelsen
Mr. David Sandfort
Gerald and Barbara Schultz
Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Scorza
Jessie Shih and Johnson Ho
Amanda A. Sonneborn
Carol S. Sonnenschein
Mr. † & Mrs. Hugo Sonnenschein
Mr. Peter Vale
Mr. Kenneth Witkowski
Jack And Goldie Wolfe Miller Fund
Ms. Camille Zientek
ENDOWED FUNDS
Anonymous (5)
Dr. & Mrs. Bernard H. Adelson Fund
Marjorie Blum-Kovler Youth Concert Fund
Civic Orchestra Chamber Access Fund
The Davee Foundation
Frank Family Fund
Kelli Gardner Youth Education Endowment Fund
Jennifer Amler Goldstein Fund, in memory of Thomas M. Goldstein
Mary Winton Green
John Hart and Carol Prins Fund for Access
William Randolph Hearst Foundation Fund
Richard A. Heise
Julian Family Foundation Fund
The Kapnick Family
Lester B. Knight Charitable Trust
Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Chair Fund
The Malott Family School Concerts Fund
Eloise W. Martin Endowed Funds
Murley Family Fund
The Negaunee Foundation
Margo and Michael Oberman Community Access Fund
Nancy Ranney and Family and Friends
Helen Regenstein Guest Conductor Fund
Edward F. Schmidt Family Fund
Shebik Community Engagement Programs Fund
The Wallace Foundation
Zell Family Foundation
CIVIC ORCHESTRA OF CHICAGO SCHOLARSHIPS
Members of the Civic Orchestra receive an annual stipend to help offset some of their living expenses during their training in Civic. The following donors have generously helped to support these stipends for the 2024–25 season.
Ten Civic members participate in the Civic Fellowship program, a rigorous artistic and professional development curriculum that supplements their membership in the full orchestra. Major funding for this program is generously provided by Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation
Nancy A. Abshire
Mason Spencer,* viola
Dr. & Mrs. Bernard H. Adelson Fund
Elena Galentas, viola
Fred and Phoebe Boelter
Daniel W. Meyer, bass
Rosalind Britton^
Sam Day, cello
John and Leslie Burns**
Layan Atieh, horn
Will Stevens, oboe
Robert and Joanne Crown
Income Charitable Fund
Charley Gillette, percussion
Kyungyeon Hong, oboe
Buianto Lkhasaranov, cello
Matthew Musachio,* violin
Sam Sun, viola
Mr. † & Mrs. David Donovan
Bennett Norris, bass
Charles and Carol Emmons^ Will Stevens, oboe
David and Janet Fox^
Carlos Lozano Sanchez, viola
Ellen and Paul Gignilliat
Tiffany Kung, bass
Mr. & Mrs. Joseph B. Glossberg
Hannah Novak, bass
Richard and Alice Godfrey
Darren Carter, violin
Jennifer Amler Goldstein Fund, in memory of Thomas M. Goldstein
Alex Chao, percussion
Chet Gougis and Shelley Ochab
Nick Reeves, cello
Mary Winton Green
Walker Dean, bass
Jane Redmond Haliday Chair
Munire Mona Mierxiati, violin
Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation
David Caplan, cello
Lina Yamin,* violin
League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association
Kari Novilla, harp
Leslie Fund, Inc.
Cameron Marquez,* percussion
Lester B. Knight Charitable Trust
Daniel Fletcher, flute
Elise Maas, violin
Tricia Park, violin
Brandon Xu, cello
Jocelyn Yeh, cello
Mr. Philip Lumpkin
J.T. O’Toole,* bass
Mr. Glen Madeja and Ms. Janet Steidl
Herdis Gudmundsdottir, violin
Maval Foundation
Mark Morris, horn
Dustin Nguyen, trombone
Sean Whitworth, trumpet
Judy and Scott McCue
Cierra Hall, flute
Dr. Leo and Catherine
Miserendino^
Lidanys Graterol, cello
Elizabeth Kapitaniuk, clarinet
Sava Velkoff,* viola
Ms. Susan Norvich
Nick Collins, tuba
Benjamin Poirot, tuba
Margo and Michael Oberman
Hamed Barbarji, trumpet
Bruce Oltman and Bonnie McGrath†^
Alexander Wallack, bass
Sandra and Earl Rusnak, Jr. †
Loren Ho, horn
Barbara and Barre Seid Foundation
Alex Ertl, trombone
Joe Maiocco, bass trombone
The George L. Shields Foundation, Inc.
Keshav Srinivasan, violin
Derrick Ware, viola
Dr. & Mrs. R. Solaro^
Sanford Whatley, viola
David W. and Lucille G. Stotter Chair
Ran Huo, violin
Ruth Miner Swislow Charitable Fund
Kimberly Bill, violin
Ksenia A. and Peter Turula
Abner Wong, trumpet
Lois and James Vrhel
Endowment Fund
Broner McCoy, bass
Theodore and Elisabeth Wachs^
Amy Hur,* clarinet
Paul and Lisa Wiggin
Layan Atieh, horn
Tomas Leivestad, timpani
Dr. Marylou Witz
Marian Mayuga,* violin
Anonymous
Hojung Lee, violin
Anonymous
J Holzen,* cello
Anonymous^
Carlos Chacon, violin
† Deceased * Civic Orchestra Fellow ^ Partial Sponsor ** Civic Administrative Fellowship Sponsor
Italics indicate individual or family involvement as part of the Trustees or Governing Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association.
Gifts listed as of February 2025