CIVIC PLAYS BEETHOVEN 5
OCT 26 | 2:00 OCT 27 | 7:30
Ken-David Masur conductor
The 2025–26 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation, which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program.
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH SEASON
CIVIC ORCHESTRA OF CHICAGO
KEN-DAVID MASUR Principal Conductor
The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair
Sunday, October 26, 2025, at 2:00
Senn High School
Monday, October 27, 2025, at 7:30 Orchestra Hall
Ken-David Masur Conductor
HABIBI Every Tree Speaks
HINDEMITH
Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Allegro
Turandot: Scherzo
Andantino March
INTERMISSION
BEETHOVEN
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67
Allegro con brio
Andante con moto
Allegro—
Allegro—Presto
The 2025–26 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation, which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program.
The Civic Orchestra of Chicago acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.
IMAN HABIBI
Born September 10, 1985; Tehran, Iran
Every Tree Speaks
COMPOSED
2019–20
FIRST PERFORMANCE
March 12, 2020; Verizon Hall, Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Orchestra; Yannick NézetSéguin conducting
INSTRUMENTATION
2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons and contrabassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones and bass trombone, timpani, strings
APPROXIMATE PERFORMANCE TIME
5 minutes
Iman Habibi is an Iranian Canadian composer and pianist, as well as a founding member of the piano duo ensemble Piano
Pinnacle. He has been commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Prince George Symphony Orchestra, and the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. Habibi has collaborated with the Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Dearborn symphony orchestras, Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra, Hamilton Philharmonic, Kamloops Symphony, conductors
above: Iman Habibi, photo © by Darko Sikman
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Andris Nelsons, Bramwell Tovey, and John Adams, among many others.
He has received numerous awards, including first prize at the SOCAN Foundation’s Award for Young Audio Visual Composers for two consecutive years, the International Composers’ Award at the Esoterics’ POLYPHONOS, Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Artist in Music, Brehm Prize in Choral Music, as well as numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, and British Columbia Arts Council. He also received second prize at the 2008 Vancouver Bach Choir’s national Competition for Large Choir Works for his work Erroneous Kudos and first prize for his work Black Riders at the 2009 Guelph Chamber Choir National Competition. His music and interviews are broadcast regularly and have been heard on CBC Radio One, CBC Radio Two (Canada), NPR, South Carolina Public Radio, WRTI, and WQXR.
As a pianist, Habibi’s recent appearances included a performance of SaintSaëns’s Carnival of the Animals with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as well as the premiere of Habibi’s concerto for two pianos and orchestra, Amesha Spenta, with Ann Arbor Camerata. He has performed his own piano concerto
with the Atlantic Music Festival and the Prince George Symphony Orchestra and has also appeared with the Dearborn Symphony and Dexter Community Orchestra, among others. Habibi was a finalist at the Inaugural Knigge National Piano Competition and is well-known for his collaborations with his wife, pianist Deborah Grimmett. The two formed the duo Piano Pinnacle in 2010, which won first prize at the United States International Duo Piano Competition, second prize at the North West International Piano Ensemble Competition, and has twice attained the audience choice award at the latter.
Iman Habibi on Every Tree Speaks
Commissioned in celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Every Tree Speaks is an unsettling rhapsodic reflection on the climate catastrophe, written in dialogue with Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth symphonies. The piece shifts focus rapidly and attempts to
achieve its goal time and time again through different means, only to be faced with similar obstacles. Like much of Beethoven’s music, this piece accompanies an unspecific narrative and imagery and ends with a sense of resolve, one that I hope can drive our collective will toward immediate, impactful change. Beethoven perceived nature as an image of the divine, if not divinity itself. Jeder Baum spricht durch dich (every tree speaks through you) is a phrase I encountered in his writings, leading me to wonder how Beethoven, clearly an activist himself, would have responded to today’s environmental crisis. Given that both the Fifth and Sixth symphonies were likely, at least in some capacity, inspired by nature, I am hoping that Every Tree Speaks can allow us to listen to these monumental works with a renewed perspective: that is, in light of the climate crisis we live in and the havoc we continue to wreak on the nature that inspired these classic masterpieces.
—Courtesy of imanhabibi.com
PAUL HINDEMITH
Born November 16, 1895; Hanau, Germany
Died December 28, 1963; Frankfurt, Germany
Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
COMPOSED 1940–43
FIRST PERFORMANCE
January 20, 1944, New York. Artur Rodzinski conducting
INSTRUMENTATION
2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes and english horn, 2 clarinets and bass clarinet, 2 bassoons and contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba, timpani, tambourine, snare drum, tenor drum, tom-toms, bass drum, triangle, cymbals, tam-tam, tubular bells, woodblock, glockenspiel, strings
APPROXIMATE PERFORMANCE TIME
21 minutes
In March 1940, choreographer and dancer Léonid
Massine wrote to Paul Hindemith asking if he would be interested in composing a ballet based on music by Carl Maria von Weber. Hindemith had always taken an unusually serious interest both in the music of the past and in the musical heritage of his native Germany, so paying homage to Weber naturally appealed to him. And, perhaps because Hindemith was in the process
of building a new life for himself in a strange country, he was particularly taken with the idea of maintaining his German musical roots.
A political refugee, Hindemith had left Germany in 1937, living in Switzerland before moving to the United States in February 1940, the month before he received Massine’s request. While he was in Switzerland, Hindemith had worked with Massine on Nobilissima visione, a ballet on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi based on the famous frescoes by Giotto in the church of Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. For that score, Hindemith had at first considered borrowing music from medieval composers, and, although he gave up on that idea, the prospect of writing a new ballet indebted to Weber, to whom he felt considerably closer, not just in time but in sensibility as well, was irresistible.
In the spring of 1940, when Hindemith had a temporary teaching position at the University of Buffalo and the dancer was on tour in the United States, the two sat down together to discuss the Weber project. But between Massine’s invitation and their meeting, Hindemith went to see a performance of Massine’s production of the Bacchanale from Wagner’s Tannhäuser, which he dismissed as above: Paul Hindemith
“simply stupid.” When he learned that Massine wanted to commission sets and costumes for the new Weber ballet from Salvador Dalí, whose contribution to the Bacchanale Hindemith had particularly hated, the composer quickly withdrew from the project. In the meantime, however, Hindemith had already begun studying Weber’s music and sketching ways to treat his predecessor’s themes. Three years later, he realized that although he had shelved the Weber project, he hadn’t dismissed the composer’s music from his thoughts, and so he wrote this Symphonic Metamorphosis on themes by Weber to fulfill one of his first American commissions, from the New York Philharmonic.
Hindemith settled on the idea of a four-movement symphonic work, although it is clearly not a symphony in the classical sense, but a symphony of variations—a set of transformations of four Weber themes. Hindemith didn’t choose familiar Weber material, but instead picked lesser—or at least slighter—pieces that would most benefit from the kind of “metamorphosis” that he had in mind.
Hindemith begins with an exotic and noisy Allegro, originally a piano duet, which gains
immeasurably in both color and atmosphere from the translation for full orchestra. The second-movement scherzo is drawn from incidental music that Weber wrote in 1809 for Schiller’s translation of Carlo Gozzi’s play Turandot—the same play that, in the years between Weber’s and Hindemith’s treatments, served as the source for Puccini’s last opera. The vaguely oriental principal melody itself is one that Weber had lifted from a collection of “genuine” Chinese tunes in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Dictionaire de musique. Like many oriental fantasies by Western European composers through the ages, it is colored by bright and busy percussion.
The third-movement Andantino is drawn from a set of piano duets that Weber composed for his employer’s daughters, the princesses Maria and Amalia of Württenberg. A florid flute obbligato is an especially felicitous addition to Weber’s unassuming theme. Hindemith closes with a march, also originally composed for piano duet, which is a genuine transformation, not just in sonority and color, but in character as well, turning Weber’s solemn music into a rousing and exuberant finale.
—Phillip Huscher
COMMENTS
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Born December 16, 1770; Bonn, Germany
Died March 26, 1827; Vienna, Austria
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67
COMPOSED
1804–08
FIRST PERFORMANCE
December 22, 1808; Vienna, Austria
INSTRUMENTATION
2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons and contrabassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, strings
APPROXIMATE PERFORMANCE TIME
36 minutes
This is the symphony that, along with an image of Beethoven, looking agitated and disheveled, has come to represent greatness in music. In fact, many people know only the very opening seconds, just as they may remember vividly and accurately no more than the Mona Lisa’s smile, or the first ten words of Hamlet’s soliloquy. It’s hard to know how so few notes, so plainly strung together, could become so popular. There are certainly those who would argue that this isn’t even Beethoven’s greatest symphony, just as the Mona Lisa isn’t Leonardo’s finest painting—Beethoven himself preferred
his Eroica to the Fifth Symphony. And yet, it’s hardly famous beyond its merits, for one can’t easily think of another single composition that, in its expressive range and structural power, better represents what music is all about.
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony has spoken forcefully and directly to many listeners—trained and untrained—over the years; we each listen and understand in our own way. We can probably find ourselves somewhere here, among the characters of E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End:
Whether you are like Mrs. Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come—of course not so as to disturb the others; or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music’s flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint and holds the full score open on his knee; or like their cousin, Fräulein Mosebach, who remembers all the time that Beethoven is “echt Deutsch”; or like Fräulein Mosebach’s young man, who can remember nothing but Fräulein
above: Ludwig van Beethoven, portrait on ivory by Christian Horneman (1765–1844), 1803. Hans Conrad Bodmer Collection, Beethovenhaus-Bonn, Germany
Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings.
That is why we still go to concerts, and whether we see shipwrecks or hear dominant sevenths, we may well agree when caught up in a captivating performance, “that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man.”
For a while, this piece was somewhat overshadowed by the Ninth Symphony, which seemed to point the way to the rest of the nineteenth century and emboldened generations of composers to think differently of the symphony, or of music in general. But the Fifth has never really lost its appeal. Robert Schumann, whose musical predictions have often come true, wrote that “this symphony invariably wields its power over men of every age like those great phenomena of nature. . . . This symphony, too, will be heard in future centuries, nay, as long as music and the world exist.” It is surely no coincidence that Theodore Thomas, the first music director of the Chicago Symphony, included this symphony on the Orchestra’s inaugural concert in 1891, as well as the concert given in 1904 to dedicate Orchestra Hall. “I care not from what the station in life come the thousands who sit before me,” Thomas once told a reporter. “Beethoven will teach each according to his needs.”
A familiarity earned by only a handful of pieces in any century has largely blunted much of the work’s wild power for our ears today. And, knowing the many works that couldn’t have been written without this as their example has blinded us to the novelty of Beethoven’s boldest strokes: the cross-reference between the famous opening and the fortissimo horn call in the scherzo, the way the scherzo passes directly—and dramatically—into the finale, and the memory of the scherzo that appears unexpectedly in the finale—all forging the four movements of the symphony into one unified design. The idea of a symphony tracing the journey from strife to victory is commonplace today, but Beethoven’s Fifth was an entirely new kind of symphony in his day.
There’s no way to know what the first audience thought. For one thing, that concert, given at the Theater an der Wien on December 22, 1808, was so inordinately long (even by nineteenth-century standards) and jammed with so much important new music that no one could truly have taken it all in. Johann Friedrich Reichardt, who shared a box with Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz, later wrote: “There we sat from 6:30 till 10:30 in the most bitter cold and found by experience that one might have too much even of a good thing.”
Reichardt and Lobkowitz stayed till the end, their patience frequently tried not by the music—to which these two brought more understanding than most—but by the performance,
COMMENTS
which was rough and unsympathetic. Surely some in the audience that night were bowled over by what they heard, though many may well have fidgeted and daydreamed, uncomprehending, or perhaps even bored. Beethoven’s was not yet the most popular music ever written, and even as great a figure as Goethe would outlive Beethoven without coming to terms with the one composer who was clearly his equal. As late as 1830, Mendelssohn tried one last time to interest the aging poet in Beethoven’s music, enthusiastically playing the first movement of the Fifth Symphony at the piano. “But that does not move one,” Goethe responded, “it is merely astounding, grandiose.”
Take the celebrated opening, which Beethoven once, in a moment he surely regretted, likened to Fate knocking at the door. It is bold and simple, and like many of the mottoes of our civilization, susceptible to all manner of popular treatments, none of which can diminish the power of the original. Beethoven writes eight notes, four plus four—the first ta-ta-ta-TUM falling from G down to E-flat, the second from F to D. For all the force of those hammer strokes, we may be surprised that only strings and clarinets play them. Hearing those eight notes and no more, we can’t yet say for certain whether this is E-flat major or C minor. As soon as Beethoven continues, we hear that urgent knocking as part of a grim and driven music in C minor. But when the exposition is repeated, and we start over from the top with E-flat major chords still ringing in our ears, those same ta-ta-ta-TUM
patterns sound like they belong to E-flat major. That ambiguity and tension are at the heart of this furious music—just as the struggle to break from C minor, where this movement settles, into the brilliance of C major—and will carry us to the end of the symphony.
If one understands and remembers those four measures, much of what happens during the next thirty-odd minutes will seem both familiar and logical. We can hear Fate knocking at the door of nearly every measure in the first movement. The forceful horn call that introduces the second theme, for example, mimics both the rhythm and the shape of the symphony’s opening. (We can also notice the similarity to the beginning of the Fourth Piano Concerto—and, in fact, ideas for both works can be found in the same sketchbooks, those rich hunting grounds where brilliance often emerges in flashes from a disarray matched by the notorious condition of the composer’s lodgings.)
Although the first movement is launched with the energy and urgency of those first notes, its progress is stalled periodically by echoes of the two long-held notes in the first bars; in the recapitulation, a tiny but enormously expressive oboe cadenza serves the same purpose. The extensive coda is particularly satisfying, not because it effectively concludes a dramatic and powerful movement but because it uncovers still new depths of drama and power at a point when that seems unthinkable.
The Andante con moto is a distant relative of the theme and variations that often turn up as slow movements in classical symphonies. But unlike the conventional type, it presents two different themes, varies them separately, and then trails off into a free improvisation that covers a wide range of thoughts, each springing almost spontaneously from the last. The sequence of events is so unpredictable, and the meditative tone so seductive, that in the least assertive movement of the symphony, Beethoven commands our attention to the final sentence.
Beethoven was the first to notice his scherzo’s resemblance to the opening of the finale of Mozart’s great G minor symphony—he even wrote out Mozart’s first measures on a page of sketches for this music—but while the effect there is decisive and triumphant, here it is clouded with half-uttered questions. Beethoven begins with furtive music, inching forward in the low strings, then stumbling on the horns, who let loose with their own rendition of Fate at the door. At some point, when Beethoven realized that the scherzo was part of a bigger scheme, he decided to leave it unfinished and move directly, through one of the most famous passages in music—slowly building in tension and drama, over the ominous, quiet pounding of the timpani—to an explosion of brilliant C major. Composers have struggled ever since to match
the effect, not just of binding movements together—that much has been successfully copied—but of emerging so dramatically from darkness to light. The sketchbooks tell us that these fifty measures cost Beethoven considerable effort and, most surprisingly, that they weren’t even part of the original plan. Berlioz thought this transition so stunning that it would be impossible to surpass it in what follows. Beethoven, perfectly understanding the challenge— and also that of sustaining the victory of C major once it has been achieved— adds trombones (used in symphonic music for the first time), the piccolo, and the contrabassoon to the first burst of C major and moves forward toward his final stroke of genius.
That moment comes amid general rejoicing, when the ghost of the scherzo quietly appears, at once disrupting C major with unexpected memories of C minor and leaving everyone temporarily hushed and shaken. Beethoven quickly restores order, and the music begins again as if nothing had happened. But Beethoven still finds it necessary to end with fifty-four measures of the purest C major to remind us of the conquest, not the struggle.
—Phillip Huscher
Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
PROFILES
Ken-David Masur Conductor
Ken-David Masur celebrates his seventh season as music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
Masur’s tenure in Milwaukee has been notable for innovative thematic programming and bridge building, including a festival celebrating the music of the 1930s, when the Bradley Symphony Center was built; the Water Festival, which highlighted local community partners whose work centers on water conservation and education; and a new annual citywide Bach Festival, celebrating the abiding appeal of J.S. Bach’s music in an ever-changing world. He has also instituted a multi-season artist-in-residence program and led highly acclaimed performances of major choral works, including a semi-staged production of Peer Gynt.
In 2025–26 Masur will lead celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus. He and the MSO will reunite with longtime collaborators Augustin Hadelich, Orion Weiss, Stewart Goodyear, Nancy Zhou, and Bill Barclay and Concert Theatre Works to celebrate America’s 250th birthday with a program interweaving the music of Aaron Copland with the words of Mark Twain.
Masur is passionate about contemporary music and has conducted and commissioned numerous new works, such as Wynton Marsalis’s Harold Haller and Hallelujah, Augusta Read Thomas’s Bebop Kaleidoscope—Homage to Duke Ellington, and Unsuk Chin’s Mannequin.
Masur has recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra and with the Stavanger Symphony, whose album was named WQXR’s Best New Classical Release. He received a Grammy nomination from the Latin Recording Academy for Best Classical Album of the Year for his work as a producer of Salon Buenos Aires
Masur and his wife, pianist Melinda Lee Masur, are founders and artistic directors of the Chelsea Music Festival, an annual summer festival in New York City, which celebrated its sixteenth anniversary in 2025. Its programs range from baroque and classical to contemporary and jazz, with an emphasis on intersecting with the culinary and visual arts.
Born and raised in Leipzig, Germany, Masur was trained at the Mendelssohn Academy in Leipzig, the Gewandhaus Children’s Choir, Detmold Academy, and the Hanns Eisler Conservatory in Berlin. While an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York, Masur became the first music director of the Bach Society Orchestra and Chorus.
Civic Orchestra of Chicago
The Civic Orchestra of Chicago is a training program of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Negaunee Music Institute that prepares young professionals for careers in orchestral music. It was founded during the 1919–20 season by Frederick Stock, the CSO’s second music director, as the Civic Music Student Orchestra, and for over a century, its members have gone on to secure positions in orchestras across the world, including over 160 Civic players who have joined the CSO. Each season, Civic members are given numerous performance opportunities and participate in rigorous orchestral training with its principal conductor, Ken-David Masur, distinguished guest conductors, and a faculty of coaches comprised of CSO members. Civic Orchestra musicians develop as exceptional orchestral players and engaged artists, cultivating their ability to succeed in the rapidly evolving music world.
The Civic Orchestra serves the community through its commitment to present free or low-cost concerts of the highest quality at Symphony
Center and in venues across Greater Chicago, including annual concerts at the South Shore Cultural Center and Fourth Presbyterian Church. The Civic Orchestra also performs at the annual Crain-Maling Foundation CSO Young Artists Competition and Chicago Youth in Music Festival. Many Civic concerts can be heard locally on WFMT (98.7 FM), in addition to concert clips and smaller ensemble performances available on CSOtv and YouTube. Civic musicians expand their creative, professional, and artistic boundaries and reach diverse audiences through educational performances at Chicago public schools and a series of chamber concerts at various locations throughout the city.
To further expand its musician training, the Civic Orchestra launched the Civic Fellowship program in the 2013–14 season. Each year, up to twelve Civic members are designated as Civic Fellows and participate in intensive leadership training designed to build and diversify their creative and professional skills. The program’s curriculum has four modules: artistic planning, music education, social justice, and project management.
A gift to the Civic Orchestra of Chicago supports the rigorous training that members receive throughout the season, which includes coaching from musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and world-class conductors. Your gift today ensures that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association will continue to enrich, inspire, and transform lives through music.
Civic Orchestra of Chicago
Ken-David Masur Principal Conductor
The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair
VIOLINS
Naomi Powers
Hobart Shi
Maria Paula Bernal
Kimberly Bill+
Carlos Chacon
Adam Davis
Alyssa Goh
Rose Haselhorst
Alba Layana Izurieta
Hojung Christina Lee
Mona Mierxiati
Sean Qin
Yulia Watanabe-Price
Lina Yamin
Abigail Yoon
Sage Chen
Keshav Srinivasan
Natalie Boberg
Evan Chen
Jenny Choi*
Kaylin Chung
Ebedit Fonseca
John Heo
Pavlo Kyryliuk
Ben Koenig
June Lee
Matthew Musachio
Mia Smith
Justine Jing Xin Teo*
Jingjia Wang
VIOLAS
Sava Velkoff*
Matthew Nowlan**
Lucie Boyd
Eugene Chin
August DuBeau
Elena Galentas
Judy Huang
Iris Ingelfinger
Yat Chun Justin Pou
Teddy Schenkman+
Mason Spencer*
Roslyn Green+
CELLOS
Buianto Lkhasaranov
Ashley Ryoo
David Caplan
Krystian Chiu
J Holzen*
Henry Lin
Nick Reeves
Somyong Shin
Brandon Xu
Shun-Ming Yang
BASSES
Alexander Wallack
Gisel Dominguez
Albert Daschle
Walker Dean
Bennett Norris
Jonathon Piccolo
Jared Prokop
Tony Sanfilippo Jr.
FLUTES
Xander Day
Daniel Fletcher
Hanna Oyasu
PICCOLOS
Xander Day
Hanna Oyasu
OBOES
Orlando Salazar*
Guillermo Ulloa
ENGLISH HORN
Hannah Fusco
CLARINETS
Elizabeth Kapitaniuk
Henry Lazzaro
Max Reese
BASS CLARINET
Elizabeth Kapitaniuk
BASSOONS
Peter Ecklund
William George
CONTRABASSOON
Jason Huang
HORNS
Layan Atieh
Emmett Conway
Erin Harrigan
Micah Northam
Eden Stargardt*
TRUMPETS
Hamed Barbarji*
Sean-David Whitworth
Abner Wong
TROMBONES
Arlo Hollander
Dustin Nguyen
BASS TROMBONE
Timothy Warner
TUBA
Chrisjovan Masso
TIMPANI
Kyle Scully
PERCUSSION
Adriana Harrison
Amy Lee
Cameron Marquez*
Tae McLoughlin
LIBRARIAN
Andrew Wunrow
* Civic Orchestra Fellow + Civic Orchestra Alumni ** NMI Arts Administration Fellow
NEGAUNEE MUSIC INSTITUTE AT THE CSO
The Negaunee Music Institute connects people to the extraordinary musical resources of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Institute programs educate audiences, train young musicians, and serve diverse communities across Chicago and around the world.
Current Negaunee Music Institute programs include an extensive series of CSO School and Family Concerts and open rehearsals; more than seventy-five in-depth school partnerships; online learning resources; the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a prestigious ensemble for earlycareer musicians; intensive training and performance opportunities for youth, including the Percussion Scholarship Program, Chicago Youth in Music Festival, Crain-Maling Foundation CSO Young Artists Competition, and Young Composers Initiative; social impact initiatives, such as collaborations with Chicago Refugee Coalition and Notes for Peace for families who have lost loved ones to gun violence; and music education activities during CSO domestic and international tours.
the board of the negaunee music institute
Leslie Burns Chair
Steve Shebik Vice Chair
John Aalbregtse
David Arch
James Borkman
Jacqui Cheng
Ricardo Cifuentes
Richard Colburn
Charles Emmons
Judy Feldman
Toni-Marie Montgomery
Rumi Morales
Mimi Murley
Margo Oberman
Gerald Pauling
Kate Protextor Drehkoff
Harper Reed
Melissa Root
Amanda Sonneborn
Eugene Stark
Dan Sullivan
Paul Watford
Ex Officio Members
Jeff Alexander
Jonathan McCormick
Vanessa Moss
negaunee music institute administration
Jonathan McCormick Managing Director
Katy Clusen Associate Director, CSO for Kids
Katherine Eaton Coordinator, School Partnerships
Carol Kelleher Assistant, CSO for Kids
Anna Perkins Orchestra Manager, Civic Orchestra of Chicago
Zhiqian Wu Operations Coordinator, Civic Orchestra of Chicago
Rachael Cohen Program Manager
Charles Jones Program Assistant
Kevin Gupana Associate Director, Education & Community Engagement Giving
Frances Atkins Director of Publications and Institutional Content
Kristin Tobin Designer & Print Production Manager
Petya Kaltchev Editor
civic orchestra artistic leadership
Ken-David Masur Principal Conductor
The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair
Coaches from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Robert Chen Concertmaster
The Louis C. Sudler Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor
Baird Dodge Principal Second Violin
Teng Li Principal Viola
The Paul Hindemith Principal Viola Chair
Brant Taylor Cello
The Blickensderfer Family Chair
Alexander Horton Assistant Principal Bass
William Welter Principal Oboe
Stephen Williamson Principal Clarinet
Keith Buncke Principal Bassoon
William Buchman Assistant Principal Bassoon
Mark Almond Principal Horn
Esteban Batallán Principal Trumpet
The Adolph Herseth Principal Trumpet Chair, endowed by an anonymous benefactor
Michael Mulcahy Trombone
Charles Vernon Bass Trombone
Gene Pokorny Principal Tuba
The Arnold Jacobs Principal Tuba Chair, endowed by Christine Querfeld
David Herbert Principal Timpani
The Clinton Family Fund Chair
Cynthia Yeh Principal Percussion
Justin Vibbard Principal Librarian
CIVIC ORCHESTRA OF CHICAGO SCHOLARSHIPS
Members of the Civic Orchestra receive an annual stipend to offset some of their living expenses during their training. The following donors have generously helped to support these stipends for the 2025–26 season.
Ten Civic members participate in the Civic Fellowship program, a rigorous artistic and professional development curriculum that supplements their membership in the full orchestra. Major funding for this program is generously provided by Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation
Nancy A. Abshire
Darren Carter, viola
Dr. & Mrs. Bernard H. Adelson Fund
Elena Galentas, viola
Robert & Isabelle Bass Foundation, Inc.
Timothy Warner, bass trombone
Fred and Phoebe Boelter
Keshav Srinivasan, violin
John and Leslie Burns**
Matthew Nowlan, viola
Robert and Joanne Crown Income Charitable Fund
Alyssa Goh, violin
John Heo, violin
Pavlo Kyryliuk, violin
Buianto Lkhasaranov, cello
Matthew Musachio, violin
Mr. † & Mrs. David Donovan
Chrisjovan Masso, tuba
Charles and Carol Emmons^
Will Stevens, oboe
David and Janet Fox^
Daniel Fletcher, flute
Ellen and Paul Gignilliat
Naomi Powers, violin
Mr. & Mrs. Joseph B. Glossberg
Adam Davis, violin
Richard and Alice Godfrey
Ben Koenig, violin
Jennifer Amler Goldstein, in memory of Thomas M. Goldstein
Alex Chao, percussion
Chet Gougis and Shelley Ochab
Peter Ecklund, bassoon
Mary Winton Green
Walker Dean, bass
Jane Redmond Haliday Chair
Mona Mierxiati, violin
Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation
David Caplan, cello
Orlando Salazar,* oboe
League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association
Kari Novilla,* harp
Leslie Fund, Inc.
Cameron Marquez,* percussion
Lester B. Knight Charitable Trust
Tricia Park, violin
Jonathon Piccolo, bass
Brandon Xu, cello
Shun-Ming Yang, cello
Mr. Philip Lumpkin and Mr. William Tedford
Mason Spencer,* viola
Mr. Glen Madeja and Ms. Janet Steidl
Erin Harrigan, horn
Maval Foundation
Arlo Hollander, trombone
Dustin Nguyen, trombone
Sean-David Whitworth, trumpet
Judy and Scott McCue and the Fry Foundation
Cierra Hall, flute
Dr. Leo and Catherine †
Miserendino
Sava Velkoff,* viola
Ms. Susan Norvich
Yulia Watanabe-Price, violin
Margo and Michael Oberman
Hamed Barbarji,* trumpet
Bruce Oltman and Bonnie McGrath†^
Alexander Wallack, bass
Sandra and Earl Rusnak, Jr. †
Ebedit Fonseca, violin
Barbara and Barre Seid Foundation
Emmett Conway, horn
Micah Northam, horn
The George L. Shields Foundation, Inc.
Abigail Yoon, violin
Yat Chun Justin Pou, viola
Guillermo Ulloa, oboe
Dr. & Mrs. R. Solaro
Sanford Whatley, viola
David W. and Lucille G. Stotter Chair
Mia Smith, violin
Ruth Miner Swislow
Charitable Fund
Rose Haselhorst, violin
Ms. Liisa Thomas and Mr. Stephen Pratt
Nick Reeves, cello
Ksenia A. and Peter Turula
Abner Wong, trumpet
Lois and James Vrhel
Endowment Fund
Albert Daschle, bass
Paul and Lisa Wiggin
Eden Stargardt,* horn
Dr. Marylou Witz
Justine Jing Xin Teo,* violin
Women’s Board of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association
Elizabeth Kapitinuk, clarinet
Anonymous
Layan Atieh, horn
Anonymous
J Holzen,* cello
Anonymous
Carlos Chacon, violin
Anonymous
Hojung Christina Lee, violin