Chicago Symphony Orchestra Music Director, Riccardo Muti, Receives Three New Honors

Riccardo Muti, music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), and an internationally celebrated conductor, can now add three more awards to the dozens he has received over the course of his career.

Two are from the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella in Maestro Muti's hometown of Naples, Italy, where he studied piano under Vincenzo Vitale and graduated with distinction. The third is from the Società Italia Argentina, based in Rome.

On Saturday, March 1, 2014, the Conservatory honored Maestro Muti with the San Pietro a Majella Prize. The Conservatory also named a room after Maestro Muti. The former foyer of Scarlatti Hall in the Conservatory will now be known as Riccardo Muti Hall, the first time in the Conservatory's history that a room has been named after a living person. According to Elsa Evangelista, director of the Conservatory, the space was dedicated to Maestro Muti because he is the most illustrious of living alumni of the Conservatory.

In an article about the two honors that was published March 2, 2014 by the Italian website, Campania Su Web, Maestro Muti was quoted, "For me, it all started here.... The fact that my name is linked to the hall of the foyer, where the greatest conductors in the world have passed, moves me. This place, as one can see through its library, its architecture, and its history, belongs not only to Naples, but to the whole world, to humanity and the history of culture." (based on a Google translation via the Chrome browser).

The Società Italia Argentina announced that on Wednesday, March 5, 2014, it awarded Maestro Muti its Gold Medal Prize for Italian Culture in Argentina. A statement issued by the organization indicated that Maestro Muti was honored "for having spread in Argentina, personally and with all his work, the excellence of Italian culture, contributing to the improvement in the relations between the two peoples and nations."

Maestro Muti is in residence through March 8 at the Rome Opera (Teatro dell'Opera di Roma), where he is conducting the Giacomo Puccini opera, Manon Lescaut. In addition to serving as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Muti is the honorary director for life of the Rome Opera.

Maestro Muti returns to Chicago later this month for two weeks of programs that continue the cycle of Schubert's symphonic works that began at the start of the 2013/14 season. CSO Concerts with Maestro Muti take place March 20-22 and 26-29, 2014. The first week's program features Schubert's Symphony No. 9, the "Great" C Major and pianist Mitsuko Uchida as the soloist in Schumann's Piano Concerto. On March 26-29, CSO Principal Cello John Sharp joins Maestro Muti and the CSO as the soloist in Elgar's Cello Concerto. The March 26 performance is part ofan Afterwork Masterworks program that starts at 6:30 p.m. and is performed without an intermission. It includes a Q&A session after the performance with Maestro Muti and John Sharp.

About Riccardo Muti (www.RiccardoMutiMusic.com)
Riccardo Muti, born in Naples, Italy, is one of the preeminent conductors of our day. In 2010, when he became the tenth music director of the world-renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), he had more than forty years of experience at the helm of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence (1968-80); the Philharmonia Orchestra in London (1972-82); the Philadelphia Orchestra (1980-1992); and Teatro alla Scala in Milan (1986-2005).

He continues to be in demand as a guest conductor for other great orchestras and opera houses: the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, and many others. He is an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic, which gave him its Golden Ring as a special sign of esteem and affection. He is an honorary member of Vienna's Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of the Friends of Music) and is also honorary director for life of the Rome Opera.

Muti has received innumerable honors from Italy, the United States, France, Germany, Austria, Great Britain, Israel, Spain, Russia, Sweden, and the Vatican as well as more than 20 honorary degrees from universities around the world. Passionate about teaching young musicians, Muti founded the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra in 2004. Through Le vie dell'Amicizia (The Paths of Friendship), a project of the Ravenna Festival in Italy, he has conducted in many of the world's most troubled areas in order to bring attention to and advocate for civic and social issues. In Chicago and around the globe, Muti demonstrates his strong commitment to sharing classical music broadly by regularly offering free concerts and rehearsals to the public and by performing in schools, prisons, and other community venues.

Riccardo Muti's vast catalog of recordings, numbering in the hundreds, ranges from the traditional symphonic and operatic repertoires to contemporary works. He also has written two books, "Verdi, l'italiano" (published in Italian and German) and "Riccardo Muti: An Autobiography: First the Music, Then the Words," which has been published in several languages.

About the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (cso.org)
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is consistently hailed as one of the greatest orchestras in the world. Its music director since 2010 is Riccardo Muti, one of the preeminent conductors of our day. Pierre Boulez is the CSO's Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus; Yo-Yo Ma is the CSO's Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant. Mason Bates and Anna Clyne are the CSO's Mead Composers-in-Residence.

The musicians of the CSO annually perform more than 150 concerts, most at Symphony Center in downtown Chicago and, in the summer, at the suburban Ravinia Festival. The CSO frequently tours internationally and occasionally performs in other parts of the U.S. Since its founding in 1891, the Orchestra has made 57 international tours, visiting 28 countries on five continents. At home and on tour, tickets are always in high demand and frequently sold out.

People around the globe enjoy the extraordinary sounds of the Orchestra through broadcasts and webcasts of the weekly CSO Radio program and through CSO Resound, the CSO's own record label. Recordings by the CSO have won 62 Grammy Awards®.

The parent organization for the CSO is the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association (CSOA). It also includes the Chicago Symphony Chorus, directed by Duain Wolfe, and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a pre-professional ensemble conducted by Cliff Colnot. Through a series called Symphony Center Presents, the CSOA brings internationally known guest artists and ensembles from a variety of musical genres-classical, jazz, pop, world, and contemporary-to Chicago.

The CSOA's Institute for Learning, Access and Training offers a variety of youth, community, and education programs that engage more than 200,000 people of diverse ages, incomes and backgrounds. Through the programs of the Institute as well as many other activities, including a free annual CSO concert, the CSOA promotes the concept of Citizen Musicianship: using the power of music to contribute to our culture, our communities and the lives of others.

A nonprofit organization, the CSOA is governed by a voluntary board of trustees and supported by tens of thousands of other volunteers, patrons and corporate, foundation and individual donors. Deborah F. Rutter, a highly regarded arts executive, is president of the CSOA.

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