The Berlin Philharmoniker at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall performed Mahler’s “Symphony No. 7” on Nov. 16, 2022. (Credit: Todd Rosenberg Photography)

Every one of the theater’s more than 2,500 seats had been snapped up for this one-night-only performance of Gustav Mahler’s wildly innovative, emotionally stunning “Symphony No. 7.” The piece is a monumental 85-minute work of great sonic magic and innovation. 

Pianist Inna Faliks performs at the Music Institute of Chicago, where her mother was a faculty member. (WTTW News)

Pianist Inna Faliks is an educator, mom and a distinguished concert pianist who is in demand across the globe. But before all that, one of her first television appearances was on WTTW in 1994 when she was just 15 years old.

Pianist Evgeny Kissin (Credit: Sasha Gusov)

The first half of Evgeny Kissin’s program was devoted to the triumvirate of the masters — Bach, Mozart and Beethoven — and he mastered them all. But it was the second half of the program, devoted entirely to Chopin that clearly held the audience in thrall.

Yefim Bronfman is pictured in a provided publicity photo. (Credit: Frank Stewart)

Pianist Yefim Bronfman performed galvanic renderings of Beethoven and an immensely challenging modernist work at his Sunday afternoon Orchestra Hall performance. 

Germán López is performing in Chicago at the Instituto Cervantes of Chicago on March 25, 2022. (Credit Nacho Gonzalez)

When it’s used to play the traditional music of the Canary Islands, the small instrument’s sound is often bright and folksy. But in the hands of Germán López, whose style combines the sound of the Canary Islands with pop and world rhythms, the timple takes on an entirely new character.

Vera Lytovchenko holds her violin as she poses for a photo in a basement of an apartment building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday March 6, 2022. (Vera Lytovchenko via AP)
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Vera Lytovchenko has become an internet icon of resilience as images of the concert violinist playing in the basement bomb shelter in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv have inspired an international audience via social media.

Pianist Daniil Trifonov. (Credit Dario Acosta)

Pianist Daniil Trifonov held a concert at Orchestra Hall featuring three fiendishly difficult pieces by Szymanoski, Debussy and Brahms. 

Branford Marsalis performed at Orchestra Hall with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. (Courtesy of Eric Ryan Anderson)

The goal behind the concert at Orchestra Hall, which featured the notably “conductorless” New York-based Orpheus Chamber Orchestra along with saxophone master Branford Marsalis, was to explore the intriguing early intersection of classical and jazz music. 

Kailie Holliday, began playing the cello at age 7, She says that as a child, it was the size of the instrument that drew her in. (WTTW News)

Back in February, we met four teenagers participating in a program that helps students pursue careers in classical music. Here, one of those students, Kailie Holliday, talks about playing the most huggable string instrument as she plays “The Courante” from Bach’s cello suite.

Sisters Claire, left, and Esme Arias-Kim (WTTW News)

As part of an ongoing series on how professional musicians are responding to a changing landscape, we meet a few aspiring young musicians, who tell us the downside – and the upside – of studying music during the pandemic.

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Chicago Tonight visits a little shop in Chicago for a look at how to rejuvenate pitched percussion instruments – and to get a history lesson in concert tuning.

We meet a group of dancers who prove that breakdance and Johann Sebastian Bach can work well together.  

A festival brings the love to Ludwig van Beethoven. Artists from a dozen countries converge on Chicago for 100 events that celebrate this giant of classical music in surprising ways. Read an interview with the festival's art director and view a slideshow.

CSO Mead Composer-in-Residence

A nightclub setting will host members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. We speak with the composer and DJ who is bringing the two worlds together.