Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Center

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1891 by Theodore Thomas and he was its conductor until his death in 1905. His successors have been Frederick Stock (until 1942), Desire Defauw, Artur Rodzinski, Rafael Kubelik, Fritz Reiner, Jean Martinon, Sir Georg Solti and Daniel Barenboim (until 2006). The orchestra has its own concert hall which was completed in 1904 and which now forms part of the Symphony Center Complex in Chicago. The many distinguished guest conductors which the CSO has seen include Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninov, Maurice Ravel, Edward Elgar and Aaron Copland. More recent guest conductors include John Williams, Andre Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado and Pierre Boulez.

Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn (born 1979) is well-known on the international concert circuit, recognized for playing contemporary as well as traditional classical compositions. She was named "America's Best" young classical musician by Time Magazine in 2001, and appears regularly with the world's great orchestras in Europe, Asia, and North America. In her won words, her stylistic choices "honor the traditional violin literature while delving into the unexpected." By a recent count (2017), she has played over 1500 live performances, and has released a large number of albums on DGG and other labels. Although mainly a classical violinist Hilary Hahn is also involved in other music genres. She collaborated with Josh Ritter, a folk-rocker. They made a tour in which she played classical pieces for solo violin, he sang songs from his albums, and they also played together. Hilary Hahn was born in Lexington, Virginia. From ten to seventeen she studied at Curtis with the legendary Jascha Brodsky - the last surviving student of the great Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaÿe - working closely with him until his death at the age of 89. In May of 1999, at the age of 19, Ms. Hahn graduated from Curtis with a bachelor of music degree.