Mead Composer-Curator Jimmy López hosts CSO MusicNOW spring program: “Inner Dialogues” (March 23)
(March 2025) — The acclaimed contemporary music series CSO MusicNOW continues this spring with a diverse program from Mead Composer-Curator Jimmy López (March 23). “One of the hottest contemporary musical forces around” (Arts Atlanta), López curates a diverse program featuring his compositions and works by composers Pierre Boulez, Quinn Mason and Adam Schoenberg.
López comments:
“I am excited to curate ‘Inner Dialogues’, for the 2024–25 MusicNOW season, with a program that points toward renewal and rebirth. This concert follows a trajectory that grows from a single player to an ensemble of 16 performers and features all four instrumental groups of the orchestra. The program invites listeners to explore the musical content and inspiration of each work, which range from intellectual rigor and stylistic exploration to personal loss and spiritual symbolism.”
López’s La Caresse du Couteau (“The Caress of the Knife”), written in 2004 for string quartet, is a work inspired by a graphic that can be traced back to ancient Greek and Sufi spiritual traditions. The piece journeys through different textures and juxtaposes, toward the end, a slow tonal counterpoint in two parts with a piercing, quick-paced atonal texture in the outer voices, representing an inner struggle between two forces. Guardian of the Horizon is written for violin, cello, and strings and is meant to be a metaphor for the journey of the soul to the afterlife guarded by the Sphinx.
In celebration of the centenary of Pierre Boulez – former CSO principal guest conductor and conductor emeritus — the program opens with his Domaines, a landmark 20th-century work for solo clarinet, performed by CSO Assistant Principal Clarinet John Bruce Yeh. Quinn Mason’s dynamic Weapon Wheel, composed in 2018 for three bass drums, and Adam Schoenberg’s poignant Reflecting Light, for brass quintet, complete the program.
López’s program is presented in collaboration with the CSO Latino Alliance, an affiliate group established in 2013 that connects the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Chicago’s diverse communities by creating awareness, sharing insights, and building relationships for generations to come. The CSO Latino Alliance hosts a postconcert “Nuestras noches” event for all concertgoers immediately following the March 23 performance.
Tickets & Patron Information
Patron services representatives are available to assist with ticket packages by web chat at cso.org, by calling 312-294-3000 (Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.), or by emailing [email protected]. Individual tickets can be purchased here.
All artists and programs are subject to change.
Leadership support for CSO MusicNOW is provided by the Zell Family Foundation, Sargent Family Foundation, Sally Mead Hands Foundation and the Julian Family Foundation.
About Jimmy López
An “undeniably exciting composer” (Opera News), Jimmy López displays “a brilliant command of orchestral timbres and textures” (Dallas Morning News) and “a virtuoso mastery of the modern orchestra” (The New Yorker) through his music. His works have been performed around the world by leading orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.
In the 2024–25 season López is a Mead Composer-Curator with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for which he curates an evening of chamber music for the CSO MusicNOW series. A new orchestral work, written for and dedicated to conductor Christian Reif, will be premiered by commissioners the Cincinnati, Detroit and Gävle Symphony Orchestras. Elsewhere, his works will be performed by orchestras including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Naples Philharmonic, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, and Sarasota Orchestra.
During the 2023–24 season, the first part of López’s Symphony No.4: Eclipse received its world premiere by the Houston Symphony and Andrés Orozco-Estrada; tenor Michael Fabiano premiered a new song cycle entitled Quiet Poems at Arizona’s Tucson Desert Song Festival; and López’s new trombone concerto, Shift, was premiered by soloist Jörgen van Rijen, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Tarmo Peltokoski. Further performances will take place during the 2025–26 season with co-commissioners the San Francisco Symphony and San Diego Symphony.
Additional highlights include the orchestral work Loud (2023), which received its world premiere in San Francisco by the International Pride Orchestra conducted by Christine Brandes. Loud was co-commissioned by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. López’s critically acclaimed orchestral tone poem Aino (2022) was commissioned and premiered by the Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Klaus Mäkelä, and has since been performed in the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic and the USA. In December 2022, mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges and the Catalyst Quartet gave the world premiere of López’s song cycle Airs for Mother at 92NY Center for Culture & Arts in New York. López’s piano concerto Ephemerae (2021), commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado, and Philadelphia Orchestra, continues to receive performances by its dedicatee, Javier Perianes. López’s Symphony No. 3 Altered Landscape (2020), a project in collaboration with the Nevada Museum of Art, was premiered in May 2022 by the Reno Philharmonic conducted by Laura Jackson; the work received its UK premiere in 2023 by the BBC Concert Orchestra and Anna-Maria Helsing.
Among López’s earlier orchestral output is Perú Negro (2012), which received its BBC Proms debut in 2023 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Klaus Mäkelä. The much-loved Fiesta! (2007) has received over 130 performances worldwide, making it one of the most-performed contemporary works in the orchestral repertoire.
López has also written works for the stage, with the oratorio Dreamers receiving its world premiere in California in 2019 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra. In 2015, Lyric Opera of Chicago commissioned López’s debut opera Bel Canto, based on Ann Patchett’s novel of the same name. It became the bestselling opera of the company’s 2015-2016 season, was broadcast by PBS and was nominated at the 2016 International Opera Awards.
López’s discography includes four portrait albums dedicated to his works, notably 2022’s Aurora & Ad Astra, released by Pentatone and featuring Andrés Orozco-Estrada, violinist Leticia Moreno, and Houston Symphony. Aurora was nominated for a 2022 Latin GRAMMY award in the category of Best Classical Contemporary Composition. The same year, his song Where Once We Sang with lyrics by Mark Campbell was also recorded on Pentatone by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and pianist Kirill Kuzmin.
A native of Lima, López studied at the city’s National Conservatory of Music before graduating with a Master of Music degree from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and with a PhD from University of California, Berkeley. López currently lives in California.
About the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: cso.org
Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is consistently hailed as one of the world’s great orchestras. In April 2024, Klaus Mäkelä was named the Orchestra’s 11th music director, and he will begin an initial five-year tenure as Zell Music Director with the 2027–28 Season. Riccardo Muti, the Orchestra’s distinguished 10th music director from 2010 until 2023, became Music Director Emeritus for Life at the beginning of the 2023–24 Season. Daniil Trifonov is CSO Artist-in-Residence for the 2024/25 Season.
The CSO commands a vast repertoire, from Baroque through contemporary music. Its renowned musicians perform more than 150 concerts annually, in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center in downtown Chicago and each summer at the Ravinia Festival in suburban Highland Park. The ensemble regularly tours nationally, and since 1892, has made 64 international tours, performing in 29 countries on five continents.
Patrons around the globe enjoy weekly radio broadcasts of CSO concerts and recordings via the WFMT Radio Network and online at cso.org/radio. Launched in 2007, CSO Resound is the ensemble’s Grammy Award–winning independent record label, featuring live performances with world-class conductors and guest artists. Since 1916, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have amassed an extensive discography that has earned 65 Grammy awards from the Recording Academy.
The CSO is part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association (CSOA), which also includes the Chicago Symphony Chorus, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Symphony Center Presents, and the Negaunee Music Institute. The Chicago Symphony Chorus, founded by Margaret Hillis in 1957, is the country’s largest professional chorus. Founded by second music director Frederick Stock during the 1919–20 season, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago is a training ensemble for emerging professionals with Ken-David Masur serving as its principal conductor. Symphony Center Presents features guest artists and ensembles across an expansive array of genres, including classical, jazz, world and contemporary. The Negaunee Music Institute offers community and educational programs that annually engage more than 200,000 people of diverse ages and backgrounds throughout the Chicagoland area.
Through the Institute and numerous other activities – including annual free community concerts in Chicago neighborhoods – the CSO is committed to using the power of music to strengthen bonds with its longtime patrons and create connections with new audiences.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association is supported by thousands of patrons, volunteers and institutional and individual donors. The Negaunee Foundation provides generous support in perpetuity for the work of the Negaunee Music Institute.
MusicNOW presents Jimmy López: Inner Dialogues
March 23
Chicago, IL
Jimmy López, Mead Composer-Curator
John Bruce Yeh, clarinet
Stephanie Jeong, violin
Karen Basrak, cello
Musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
BOULEZ: Domaines
Quinn MASON: Weapon Wheel
Jimmy LÓPEZ: La Caresse du Couteau
Adam SCHOENBERG: Reflecting Light
Jimmy LÓPEZ: Guardian of the Horizon