Chicago Symphony Orchestra Summer Residency
Ravinia is the verdant summer home of the CSO.
The CSO has been a regular guest since 1905, and Ravinia became its summer residence in 1936. Each year, the orchestra headlines more than a dozen concerts over six weeks, featuring music that stirs emotions from the first hearing to the fiftieth. Whether up close in seats or relaxed across the Lawn, enjoying the CSO at Ravinia is an idyllic setting for experiencing some of the most moving music from history and today.
As Ravinia’s Chief Conductor, Marin Alsop curates and leads three weeks of programs with the CSO. Several guest conductors and soloists, both longtime favorites and artists making their CSO debuts, also join the orchestra onstage throughout the summer.
Ravinia has just extended Alsop’s contract as Chief Conductor for three years, through the summer of 2025. Renewing and growing her bond with Ravinia and the CSO, in the 2022 season Alsop is inaugurating the Breaking Barriers Festival, an annual series that celebrates the diverse artists and leaders helping classical music continue to grow its roots.
View the complete CSO residency
For the first Breaking Barriers Festival in 2022, Marin Alsop curated three days around women on the podium, honoring 20 years of the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship and the centenary of Margaret Hillis, the pioneering founder of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Featured events across the series included:
- two CSO concerts led by Alsop, former Taki Alsop fellows Jeri Lynne Johnson and Laura Jackson, and newly named 2022 Taki Alsop fellow Anna Duczmal-Mróz;
- screening of the documentary film about Alsop, The Conductor;
- a symposium featuring women conductors, moderated by music journalist Wynne Delacoma;
- a special exhibit exploring the history of women conductors in Chicago; and
- education and family programming, along with other ancillary programs, to be announced in the spring.
