The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Releases PROKOFIEV: SUITE FROM ROMEO AND JULIET

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's (CSO) fourth CSO Resound recording with Music Director Riccardo Muti, Prokofiev: Suite from Romeo and Juliet, will be released internationally on Tuesday, September 23, the same date that iTunes will begin its exclusive pre-order in the U.S. While scheduled to be released for sale via retail and download outlets in the U.S. on October 14, the CD will be available exclusively in the CSO's Symphony Store, at 220 S. Michigan Ave., at the CSO's Symphony Center home, beginning September 16.

Prokofiev: Suite from Romeo and Juliet features a 10-movement suite from the famous Shakespeare-inspired ballet. These ten movements were selected by Riccardo Muti from two other orchestral suites of seven movements each that Prokofiev created, and their chronology closely follows the storyline of the ballet and tragedy.

Prokofiev led the CSO in 1937 in the first American performances of excerpts of this music to his still-unstaged ballet; since then the CSO has performed the work countless times. Muti has led the CSO in this work to great acclaim both in Chicago in 2011 and 2013, and on two European tours, in 2011 and again earlier this year.

The complete CD liner notes can be read here. They include interesting stories of Prokofiev's relationship with the CSO and his visits to Chicago. A short excerpt:

During Prokofiev's last trip to Chicago, in January 1937, he led the Chicago Symphony in selections from his new, still-unstaged ballet, Romeo and Juliet. Shortly after he arrived in town he sat down with a Chicago Tribune reporter and talked freely while eating apple pie at a downtown luncheonette. He told the Tribune that his Romeo and Juliet featured the kind of 'new melodic line' that he thought would prove to be the salvation of modern music-one, he said, that would have immediate appeal yet sound like nothing written before. 'Of all the moderns,' the Chicago Herald-Examiner critic wrote after hearing Romeo and Juliet later in the week, 'this tall and boyish Russian has the most definite gift of melody, the most authentic contrapuntal technic [sic], and displays the subtlest and most imaginative use of dissonance.'

Recorded in October 2013 at Orchestra Hall, the album was produced by David Frost, a Grammy Award winner, and engineered by Tim Martyn, Charlie Post and Shawn Murphy. At the 2013 Grammy Awards, Frost was named Producer of the Year, Classical, and he and Martyn together won Best Engineered Album, Classical.

Muti and the CSO's first recording together-Verdi's Messa da Requiem with the Chicago Symphony Chorus, released in 2010-won two Grammy Awards. Their second, Verdi's Otello, also with the Chorus, was released in 2013. It won an International Opera Award. Muti's third recording with the CSO, Riccardo Muti Conducts Mason Bates and Anna Clyne, was released earlier this year.

The CSO's music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation. Bank of America is the Global Sponsor of the CSO.

Producer: David Frost

Recording engineer: Tim Martyn, Charlie Post, Shawn Murphy

Mixing: David Frost, Tim Martyn

Editing: David Frost

Mastering: Tim Martyn, Silas Brown

Sergei Prokofiev

Suite from Romeo and Juliet

1 Montagues and Capulets 5:17

2 Juliet the Young Girl 4:17

3 Madrigal 3:33

4 Minuet 3:01

5 Masks 2:08

6 Romeo and Juliet 7:49

7 Death of Tybalt 4:38

8 Friar Laurence 2:58

9 Romeo and Juliet before Parting 8:46

10 Romeo at Juliet's Tomb 6:23

TOTAL: 48:50

Riccardo Muti (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 Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), he already had more than 40 years of experience at the helm of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Philharmonia Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Teatro alla Scala. He continues to be in demand as a guest conductor for orchestras and opera houses all over the world: the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera, and many others.

Muti studied piano under Vincenzo Vitale at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella in Naples, graduating with distinction. He subsequently received a diploma in composition and conducting from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan, where his principal teachers were Bruno Bettinelli and Antonino Votto. After he won the Guido Cantelli Conducting Competition-by unanimous vote of the jury-in Milan in 1967, his career developed quickly. In 1968, he became principal conductor of Florence's Maggio Musicale, a position that he held until 1980.

Herbert von Karajan invited him to conduct at the Salzburg Festival in Austria in 1971, and Muti has maintained a close relationship with the summer festival and with its great orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, ever since. When he conducted the Philharmonic's 150th anniversary concert in 1992, he was presented with the Golden Ring, a special sign of esteem and affection, and in 2001, his outstanding artistic contributions to the orchestra were further recognized with the Otto Nicolai Gold Medal. Muti is an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna's Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of the Friends of Music), the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle and the Vienna State Opera.

Muti succeeded Otto Klemperer as chief conductor and music director of London's Philharmonia Orchestra in 1973, holding that position until 1982. From 1980 to 1992, he was music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and in 1986, he became music director of Milan's Teatro alla Scala. During his nineteen-year tenure, in addition to directing major projects such as the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy and Wagner Ring cycle, Muti conducted operatic and symphonic repertoire ranging from the baroque to the contemporary, also leading hundreds of concerts with the Filarmonica della Scala and touring the world with both the opera company and the orchestra. His tenure as music director, the longest of any in La Scala's history, culminated in the triumphant reopening of the restored opera house with Antonio Salieri's Europa riconosciuta, originally commissioned for La Scala's inaugural performance in 1778.

Throughout his career, Muti has demonstrated a commitment to training young musicians. In 2004, he founded the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini (Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra), based in Italy. He regularly tours with the ensemble to prestigious concert halls and opera houses around the world. Since 1997, as part of Le vie dell'Amicizia (The paths of friendship), a project of the Ravenna Festival in Italy, Muti has annually conducted large-scale concerts in war-torn and poverty-stricken areas around the world, using music to promote hope and unity and to bring attention to social, cultural and humanitarian issues. He has also served as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency.

Muti has received innumerable international honors. He is a Cavaliere di Gran Croce of the Italian Republic and honorary director for life of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. He is also Officer of the French Legion of Honor and a recipient of the German Verdienstkreuz. Queen Elizabeth II bestowed on him the title of honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded him the Order of Friendship and Pope Benedict XVI made him a Knight of the Grand Cross First Class of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great-the highest papal honor. Muti also has received Israel's Wolf Prize for the arts, Sweden's prestigious Birgit Nilsson Prize, Spain's Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts, and the gold medal from Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for his promotion of Italian culture abroad. He has received more than 20 honorary degrees from universities around the world. He also is.

Considered one of the greatest interpreters of Verdi in our time, Muti wrote a book on the composer, Verdi, l'italiano, published in Italian, German and Japanese. His first book, Riccardo Muti: An Autobiography: First the Music, Then the Words, has been published in several languages.

Riccardo Muti's vast catalog of recordings, numbering in the hundreds, ranges from the traditional symphonic and operatic repertoires to contemporary works. His debut recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of Verdi's Messa da Requiem, released in 2010 by CSO Resound, won two Grammy Awards. His second recording with the CSO and Chorus, Verdi's Otello, released in 2013 by CSO Resound, won an International Opera Award.

During his time with the CSO, Muti has won over audiences in greater Chicago and across the globe through his extraordinary music making as well as his demonstrated commitment to sharing classical music. His first annual free concert as CSO music director attracted more than 25,000 people to Millennium Park. He regularly invites subscribers, students, seniors and people with low incomes to attend, at no charge, his CSO rehearsals. Muti's commitment to artistic excellence and to creating a strong bond between an orchestra and its communities continues to bring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to ever higher levels of achievement and renown.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra: www.cso.org and www.csosoundsandstories.org

Founded in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra 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, and Mason Bates and Anna Clyne are the CSO's Mead Composers-in-Residence.

From baroque through contemporary music, the CSO commands a vast classical repertoire. The renowned musicians of the CSO annually perform more than 150 concerts, most at Symphony Center in Chicago and, each summer, at the suburban Ravinia Festival. They regularly tour nationally and internationally; since 1892, the CSO has made 57 international tours, performing in 28 countries on five continents.

Listeners around the globe enjoy weekly radio broadcasts of CSO concerts and recordings on the WFMT network and online at cso.org/Radio. Recordings by the CSO have earned a total of 62 Grammys, including two in 2011 for the first recording Muti released with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Verdi's Messa da Requiem.

The parent organization for the CSO is the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. It includes the Chicago Symphony Chorus and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a training ensemble. Through its Symphony Center Presents series, the CSOA presents guest artists from a variety of genres-classical, jazz, pop, world, and contemporary.

The Negaunee Music Institute at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra offers a variety of community and education programs that engage more than 200,000 people of diverse ages, incomes and backgrounds. Through the Institute and other activities, including a free annual concert with Riccardo Muti and the CSO, the CSO promotes the concept of Citizen Musicianship™: using the power of music to create connections and to build community.

The CSO is supported by tens of thousands of volunteers, patrons and corporate, foundation, government, and individual donors. The CSO's music director position is endowed in perpetuity by a generous gift from the Zell Family Foundation. The Negaunee Foundation provides generous support in perpetuity for the work of the Negaunee Music Institute at the CSO. Bank of America is the Global Sponsor of the CSO.

Photo Courtesy of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra