Riccardo Muti and Chicago Symphony Orchestra Open Carnegie Hall's 2023–2024 Season

Carnegie Hall celebrates the start of its 2023–2024 season with an Opening Night Gala concert on Wednesday, October 4 at 7:00 p.m. featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) conducted by Riccardo Muti. Acclaimed violinist Leonidas Kavakos is the soloist for this special evening, performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on a program that also includes Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition (orch. Ravel), a work that Muti conducted at the Ravinia Festival in his 1973 CSO podium debut.

This Opening Night performance will be heard live by listeners around the world, launching the thirteenth annual Carnegie Hall Live broadcast and digital series. Produced by WQXR and Carnegie Hall and co-hosted by WQXR’s Jeff Spurgeon the concert will be broadcast on WQXR 105.9 FM in New York and streamed online at wqxr.org and carnegiehall.org/wqxr.

Mercedes T. Bass and Hope and Robert F. Smith are the Gala Lead Chairmen for Carnegie Hall’s black-tie Opening Night Gala event. Gala Chairmen Committee members include Veronica Atkins; Len and Emily Blavatnik; Maral and Sarkis Jebejian; Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis; Beatrice Santo Domingo; David M. Siegel and Dana Matsushita; Vista Friends of Hope and Robert F. Smith; and Joan and Sanford I. Weill. Gala Co-Chairmen include Bruce and Suzie Kovner; Xiaoshan Ren; Marvin S. Rosen, Shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; Richard A. Rosenbaum, Executive Chairman of Greenberg Traurig; Jean and Melanie Salata; Elizabeth Segerstrom; Tracy Chutorian Semler and Eric Semler; and Georgia Irwin and David S. Winter. PwC is the Opening Night Gala Lead Sponsor for the 20th consecutive season, and Dennis M. Nally, Retired Chairman, PwC; Roy Weathers, Vice Chairman, PwC; and Brad Silver, New York Office Managing Partner, PwC are the Corporate Chairmen for the event. Kirkland & Ellis LLP is the Opening Night Gala Dinner Sponsor. The gala concert benefits Carnegie Hall’s artistic and education and social impact programs and includes a dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street following the concert. For more information about Opening Night, please visit carnegiehall.org/OpeningNight2023.

The following evening, Thursday, October 5 at 8:00 p.m., Muti and the CSO return with an Italian-themed program: Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, “Italian,” and R. Strauss’s Aus Italien alongside the New York premiere of Philip Glass’s The Triumph of the Octagon. Reflecting on the inspiration for the new CSO-commissioned work, Philip Glass offered, “In February 2022, I travelled to Chicago for performances of my Symphony No.11. It was a thrill to hear this great orchestra and conductor in the hall where I would visit as a student in the early 1950s. After those performances, we began conversations about writing a new piece specifically for this orchestra with the initial idea to create an “Adagio for Muti.” The final title of the work came from a suggestion from Mo. Riccardo Muti about Castel del Monte, a 13th century southeastern castle in Italy.”

Riccardo Muti formally concluded his 13-season tenure as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s tenth music director in June 2023. At that time, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association announced his appointment as the Orchestra’s Music Director Emeritus for Life, beginning with the 2023–2024 season. Mr. Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last appeared at Carnegie Hall in November 2019, performing two highly acclaimed concerts.  

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