Klaus Mäkelä is speaking... Chicago is listening

Klaus Mäkelä conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Scott Hostetler

Klaus Mäkelä conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

By Graham Meyer, 20 February 2026

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“Mäkelä coaxed a tremolo as quiet as breathing from the Chicago strings”

Reviewed at Chicago Symphony Center, Chicago on 19 February 2026

Sibelius, Lemminkäinen Suite (Four legends) for orchestra, Op.22

Strauss R., Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), Op.40

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Klaus Mäkelä, Conductor

Chicago Symphony Orchestra music on death: whimper then bang

Graham Meyer, 9th April

Jakub Hrůša leads the CSO in pedestrian Janáček and Rachmaninov, but Strauss's Four Last Songs and Wagner's Tristan excerpts send audiences home deeply touched.

***11

Matthew Aucoin’s Song of the Reappeared premieres in Chicago

Graham Meyer, 4th December

A strong world premiere of Aucoin's evocative and immediate Song of the Reappeared, a concerto for voice written for soprano Julia Bullock which sets vivid imagery by a poet who suffered under authoritarianism.

*****

Manfred Honeck brings his über-dramatic Mozart Requiem to Chicago

Graham Meyer, 20th November

The Austrian conductor's loudest fortes and softest pianos pull together a dramatic arc from the Requiem, other Mozart works and chant. But it's not really a funeral.

****1

Daniela Candillari makes her Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut

Graham Meyer, 3rd October

Without a baton, the contemporary-music specialist showcases the Chicago Symphony strings in an intimate program ranging from music of the last decade all the way back to Pergolesi.

****1

Polished Ravel x 2 from Alice Sara Ott with the Chicago Symphony

Graham Meyer, 25th September

Three hands for two concertos: Alice Sara Ott joins the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for Ravel's Piano Concerto for the left hand and the Piano Concerto in G major.

****1

Ravinia Festival opens with bombastic Gershwin, emotional Tchaikovsky

Cameron Kelsall, 12th July

Under Marin Alsop, the Chicago Symphony string players also offered a lyrical reading of Jessie Montgomery’s beguiling Strum.

***11

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Graham Meyer

Graham is a Chicago-based arts and culture journalist, covering all forms of live performance, and specializing in classical music. His work has appeared extensively in Chicago magazine and Crain’s Chicago Business, as well as in The Chicago Tribune and at Chicago Classical Review. He has also covered dining and restaurants, winning a City and Regional Magazine Award for the restaurant newsletter Dish. Semi-professionally, he sings baritone in the choir Vox Venti, plays amateur piano, and composes music, especially choral. Apart from music, he constructs crossword puzzles and plays competitive bridge with his teenage daughter.