Grant Park Music Festival announces 2023 summer season with Beethoven, Broadway and a new work by Jessie Montgomery

Take heart, Chicago music fans, the Earth is tilting us toward summer, and lest you need a reminder, the Grant Park Music Festival on Tuesday announced its 2023 season in Millennium Park. Concerts are slated to begin June 14 under the baton of principal conductor Carlos Kalmar in his penultimate season with the festival he’s led since 2000.

Highlights from the calendar: Two world premieres by American composer Xavier Foley: a string quartet written for the Festival String Fellows and a work for double bass and piano featuring the composer with pianist Joyce Yang. Foley and Yang both are named artists-in-residence, a position new to the festival this year.

The Grant Park Orchestra will also play the Illinois premiere of a work by Jessie Montgomery, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence. Her viola concerto titled “L.E.S. Characters” was co-commissioned by the festival in 2020, according to the announcement, and has been on hold from 2021 until this summer.

The season also is slated to include classical favorites such as the Beethoven Symphony No. 7, the Brahms “Requiem,” “Pictures at an Exhibition” and the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1. Programs on a lighter note include “Rhapsody in Blue” — for the annual “American Salute” concert for Independence Day weekend — a Broadway tribute and “Cirque Returns,” accompanied by the aerialist team Troupe Vertigo.

Additionally, guest conductor debuts include Canadian conductor Jordan de Souza; Italian conductor Valentina Peleggi (currently music director of the Richmond Symphony); French conductor Ludovic Morlot (formerly of the Seattle Symphony); German conductor Kevin John Edusei; Ken-David Masur (music director of the Milwaukee Symphony); Broadway veteran Gerald Steichen; and Eric Jacobsen (co-founder of The Knights).

The Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus will present a 10-week series through Aug. 19 at Millennium Park’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion, unless noted at other venues including the Harris Theater. Christopher Bell returns as festival chorus director.

Schumann Symphony No. 4 (June 14, 6:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Kalmar, conductor; Jeremy Black, violin. Program also includes Robert Muczynski “Symphonic Dialogues,” Camille Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto No. 3.

Dvořák Stabat Mater (June 16, 6:30 p.m. and June 17, 7:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus and Kalmar, conductor; Olivia Boen, soprano; Siena Licht Miller, mezzo-soprano; John Matthew Myers, tenor; Joseph Beutel, bass.

Brahms “Academic Festival Overture” (June 21, 6:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Kalmar, conductor; Xavier Foley, double bass. Program also includes Nino Rota Divertimento Concertante, Robert Fuchs Symphony No. 2.

Mendelssohn “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Harris Theater (June 23, 6:30 p.m. and June 24, 7:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Kalmar, conductor. Program also includes Carl Maria von Weber Overture to “Oberon,” Ralph Vaughan Williams “Serenade to Music,” Tchaikovsky “Hamlet Fantasy Overture after Shakespeare,” Shostakovich music to “Hamlet.”

Beethoven Violin Concerto (June 28, 6:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and de Souza, conductor; Stefan Jackiw, violin. Program also includes Leonard Bernstein Overture to “Candide,” William Grant Still Symphony No. 1, “Afro-American Symphony.”

Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 (June 29, 6:30 p.m. as well as June 30 at South Shore Cultural Center) with Grant Park Orchestra and Peleggi, conductor; Stewart Goodyear, piano. Program also includes Valerie Coleman “Umoja,” Camille Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2.

“An American Salute: Rhapsody In Blue” (July 5, 6:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Bell, conductor; Michelle Cann, piano. Along with Gershwin, program also includes Joan Tower “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman,” Edmond Dédé “Chicago, Grande valse à l’Américaine,” Leonard Bernstein from “West Side Story.”

Wynton Marsalis Violin Concerto (July 7, 6:30 p.m. and July 8, 7:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Morlot, conductor; Tai Murray, violin; Lindsey Reynolds, soprano. Program also includes Mozart Ave verum corpus, Gabriel Fauré “Cantique de Jean Racine,” Francis Poulenc’s Gloria.

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 (July 12, 6:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Gemma New, conductor; Yang, piano. Program also includes Vivian Fung “Aqua,” Samuel Barber Symphony No. 1.

Sergei Prokofiev “Romeo and Juliet” (July 14, 6:30 p.m. and July 15, 7:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Edusei, conductor; Yang, piano. Program also includes Anna Clyne “This Midnight Hour,” Franz Liszt “Totentanz.”

Modest Mussorgsky “Pictures at an Exhibition” (July 19, 6:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Masur, conductor; Esther Yoo, violin. Program also includes Carlos Simon “Profiles,” Alexander Glazunov Violin Concerto.

Brahms “Requiem” (July 21, 6:30 p.m. and July 22, 7:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Kalmar, conductor; Maeve Höglund, soprano; Hugh Russell, baritone. Program also includes Joel Thompson “Seven Last Words of the Unarmed.”

Edward Elgar Cello Concerto (July 26, 6:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Kalmar, conductor; Zlatomir Fung, cello. Program also includes Samuel Coleridge-Taylor “The Bamboula,” William Dawson “Negro Folk Symphony.”

“Bravo Broadway” (July 28, 6:30 p.m. and July 29, 7:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Steichen, conductor; Scarlett Strallen, LaKisha Jones and Hugh Panaro, vocals. Program of music from “Rent,” “Les Misérables,” “The Wiz,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Cabaret” and others.

Beethoven Symphony No. 7 (August 2, 6:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and David Danzmayr, conductor; Aniello Desiderio, guitar. Program also includes Unsuk Chin “subito con forza,” Joaquín Rodrigo “Concierto de Aranjuez.”

Ottorino Respighi “Pines of Rome” at the Harris Theater (August 4, 6:30 p.m. and August 5, 7:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Jacobsen, conductor; Masumi Per Rostad, viola. Program also includes Antonín Dvořák “Carnival Overture,” Montgomery “L.E.S. Characters,” Aaron Copland “Quiet City.”

“Cirque Returns” (August 9, 6:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Stephen Alltop, conductor. Program with Troupe Vertigo and the sounds of Bizet’s “Carmen,” Falla, Piazzolla and more.

Hadelich Plays Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 (August 11, 6:30 p.m. and August 12, 7:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Kalmar, conductor; Augustin Hadelich, violin. Program also includes Shostakovich Symphony No. 8.

Hough Plays Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1 (August 16, 6:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Kalmar, conductor; Stephen Hough, piano. Program also includes Moritz Moszkowski “From Foreign Lands,” Franz Liszt “Les préludes.”

Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances (August 18, 6:30 p.m. and August 19, 7:30 p.m.) with Grant Park Orchestra and Kalmar, conductor; Corinne Wallace-Crane, alto; Miles Mykkanen, tenor; Alex Desocio, baritone; David Govertsen, bass. Program also includes Mussorgsky “Night on Bald Mountain,” Mendelssohn “The First Walpurgis Night.”

All concerts are free with more information at gpmf.org. Memberships to the 2023 season (now available, from $99) include reserved access seating. Also see gpmf.org for information about free lunchtime rehearsals from June 13 to August 18 (typically Tuesdays through Fridays between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.), as well as about Grant Park Chorus in the Neighborhoods, the Festival Connect and Festival Next programs, and more.

dgeorge@chicagotribune.com