Nancy Malitz

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 2024-25 season concluded June 19-24 with four performances of Verdi’s Requiem Mass, a signature work of conductor Riccardo Muti, CSO Music Director Emeritus for Life. (Todd Rosenberg Photography) Commentary: In concerts preceding the Requiem, Riccardo Muti spotlighted the CSO’s stellar principal trumpet, Esteban Batallán.

BREAKING NEWS — Hannah Edgar, a freelance writer, editor, researcher, and radio producer based in Chicago, is the winner of the 2026 William Littler Prize for Music Criticism. Established in 2024, the prize is awarded annually by the Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA) in recognition of excellence in writing by younger critics in the areas of concert music and opera.

Commentary: Pianist Yevgeny Kissin offered two encores after his typically astonishing recital program May 17 at Orchestra Hall. We’ll get to the first one in due course. The second, which can still be heard and seen, was unprecedented for this beloved pianist and very possibly unexampled anywhere ever: a video apology that Kissin posted to explain to his “dear listeners, dear friends” why he had played just one encore when he’s famous for lavishing them by the double handful.