2020-21 Concert Season

Due to the current pandemic, travel challenges for international conductors and soloists, and the need to maintain safety for musicians and audience, our retooled 2020-21 season focuses on intimate, string-dominated music well-suited to social distancing. Each concert will be performed once, last approximately one hour with no intermission, and will be streamed live. We will admit a socially distanced, current subscriber-only audience as city and state requirements permit.

If you are a current subscriber and have questions, please call Audience Services at 312.551.1414 M-F, 10am-5pm.

Read the press release for full details


  • Vivaldi's Four Seasons

    Vivaldi's Four Seasons

    Concertmaster Gina DiBello leads the Music of the Baroque Orchestra in Vivaldi’s iconic Four Seasons, an evocative musical journey through the different times of year. As Chicago Classical Review wrote of Gina DiBello’s last performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, “From top to bottom DiBello was an assured soloist whose personality-plus playing was crucial to [this] reconsideration of these well-known works.” Ryan Opera Center alumnus Christopher Kenney reads the original sonnets composed for these picturesque concertos.

  • Double Trouble—Bach, Vivaldi & More

    Double Trouble—Bach, Vivaldi & More

    The Music of the Baroque Orchestra bands together for a lively and driving program of Baroque instrumental works. Co-directors Kathleen Brauer and Kevin Case team up for Bach and Vivaldi’s thrilling concertos for two violins and orchestra. Inventive and inspiring grand concertos for orchestra by Corelli and his admirer Handel complete this intimate and energetic evening.

  • Barnatan Plays Mozart

    Barnatan Plays Mozart

    In her first appearance this season, Music Director Jane Glover joins forces with Israeli piano virtuoso Inon Barnatan—“one of the most admired pianists of his generation,” according to The New York Times—in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 14. Mozart’s intensely personal Symphony No. 29 and dramatic music by Handel round out a program highlighting the talents of two composers who defined their musical eras. This concert is available On Demand through May 1.

  • Bach's Brandenburg Concertos

    Bach's Brandenburg Concertos

    Bach may have composed the six Brandenburg Concertos to gain employment, but his “musical resume” stands today as one of the great monuments in Baroque orchestral music. Principal Guest Conductor Nicholas Kraemer leads the Music of the Baroque Orchestra in three of the six concertos—the joyful Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 for string orchestra, the maverick Brandenburg No. 5 with its wild harpsichord solo, and the dusky-hued No. 6 featuring violas and viole da gamba. This concert is available On Demand through May 29

  • Plus Fours! Handel, Telemann, Locatelli, Vivaldi

    Plus Fours! Handel, Telemann, Locatelli, Vivaldi

    Baroque invention, contrast, and brilliance is on display as Principal Guest Conductor Nicholas Kraemer leads works by four great Baroque composers for groups of four (and more!) musicians. Vivaldi’s propulsive Concerto for 4 violins and orchestra is set against Telemann’s work for 4 violins alone, while Locatelli throws violas into the mix. Two grand concertos for orchestra by Handel merge dramatic fervor with compositional prowess.

  • Musica Sacra—Bach & Purcell

    Musica Sacra—Bach & Purcell

    Let the power of the human voice transport you as Dame Jane Glover leads two exquisite Bach cantatas, “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen,” BWV 51, and "Ich habe genug," BWV 82, alongside two works for strings by Purcell.