“Very often the women are better than the men”

(Financial Times) — Riccardo Muti could conduct any orchestra of his choice. But when the pandemic decimated his last season as music director of the Chicago Symphony, he decided to continue commuting from Italy to the US Midwest for another two years, extending his contract until the summer of 2023.

The 80-year-old maestro is making up for lost time. This month, he leads a programme pairing Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 11 with works by Beethoven as well as performances of the latter’s Ninth Symphony. Highlights this spring include two world premieres by young American women, the former Chicago composer-in-residence Missy Mazzoli and the current resident composer Jessie Montgomery. The season concludes in June with concert performances of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, both at Symphony Center and in a free event at Chicago’s Millennium Park.

Speaking by Zoom from Chicago, where he began his tenure in 2010, Muti describes his relationship with the orchestra as one based on “love at first sight”: “It has remained not only beautiful, but has continued to grow.”

Full article avaiable here.