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CHICAGO PHILHARMONIC
e Chicago Philharmonic Society is a musician–governed and driven, Chicago-based, not-for-pro t
organization established in
by the principals of the Lyric Opera Orchestra. As the core group of
Lyric players has expanded over the years, becoming a community of over
professional musicians,
so too have they built up the artistic strength of the Chicago Philharmonic. e orchestra currently
performs four to ve main-stage concerts per season at Northwestern University’s Pick-Staiger Hall in
Evanston in addition to approximately performances each year in downtown Chicago as the o cial
orchestra of
e Jo rey Ballet. Previously a guest conductor with the Chicago Philharmonic, Scott
Speck recently became music director of the orchestra in addition to performing those same duties
with Jo rey, the Mobile Symphony in Alabama, and West Michigan Symphony. Past conductors of
the orchestra have included Zubin Mehta, Andrew Davis, Itzhak Perlman, Jesús López-Cobos, Erich
Kunzel, and its former music director, Larry Rachle . For many years the Chicago Philharmonic has
performed as the Ravinia Festival Orchestra under the batons of former Ravinia music directors James
Conlon and Christoph Eschenbach in addition to other guest conductors at the festival. e orchestra
has also been contracted in the past to perform at Symphony Center and other Chicago-area venues,
and in recent years it initiated two chamber music series under its own auspices in Park Ridge and
Hinsdale. With a central goal of bringing the excitement and engagement of live music performances
to audiences throughout the Chicago area, the Chicago Philharmonic Society actively pursues out-
reach and youth programs, such as Side by Side, a mentoring program geared toward middle- and
high-school students, and NEXT!, which creates an opportunity for young talents to perform before
Chicago Philharmonic concerts and be heard by the ensemble’s patrons, musicians, and conductors.
VIOLINS
David Taylor
Jennifer Cappelli
Renée-Paule Gauthier
Christie Abe
Bernardo Arias
Lori Ashikawa
Eleanor Bartsch
Stephen Boe
Dima Dimitrova
Pauli Ewing
Lisa Fako
Daniela Folker
Karin Andreasen Gambell
Sheila Hanford
Kiju Joh
Carmen Kassinger
Helen Kim
Michèle Lekas
Clara Lindner
Kjersti Nostbakken
Dmitri Pogorelov
Irene Radetzky
Florentina Ramniceanu
Rika Seko
Azusa Tashiro
Paul Vanderwerf
VIOLAS
Carol Cook
Frank Babbitt
Patrick Brennan
Karl Davies
Daniel Golden
Elizabeth Hagen
Amy Hess
Matthew Mantell
Aurelien Pederzoli
Benton Wedge
CELLOS
Barbara Ha ner
Calum Cook
Margaret Daly
Larry Glazier
Mark Lekas
Edward Moore
Walter Preucil
Andrew Snow
BASSES
Collins Trier
Andrew Anderson
Jeremy Attanaseo
Jonathan Cegys
Ian Hallas
Gregory Sarchet
TIMPANI
Robert Everson
PERCUSSION
Joel Cohen
Michael Folker
HARP
Marguerite Lynn Williams
MUSIC LIBRARIAN
Danielle Ray
PERSONNEL DIRECTOR
Terrell Pierce
MICHAEL STERN,
conductor
First completing undergraduate studies in
American history at Harvard, Michael Stern,
the son of violinist Isaac, subsequently earned
a music degree at the Curtis Institute under the
guidance of Max Rudolf, whose textbook
e
Grammar of Conducting
he later co-edited. He
is currently music director of the Kansas City
Symphony and founding artistic director and
principal conductor of the IRIS Orchestra, hav-
ing led each for and seasons, respectively.
Since
, Stern and the Kansas City Sympho-
ny have partnered with the Grammy-winning
label Reference Recordings, recently releasing
new music from former composer-in-residence
Adam Schoenberg. is past season, he led the
ensemble and violinist Anne Akiko Myers in
the premiere of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s
Fanta-
sie
, one of the composer’s last works. With the
IRIS Orchestra, Stern puts special emphasis on
American contemporary music, including on
recordings for the Naxos and Arabesque labels,
having commissioned and premiered works
by such composers as William Bolcom, Chris
Brubeck, Richard Danielpour, Stephen Hartke,
Edgar Meyer, Jonathan Leshno , Ned Rorem,
Huang Ruo, Adam Schoenberg, and Ellen Ta-
a e Zwilich, among others. Having previously
served of the faculty of the Aspen’s American
Academy of Conducting, Stern regularly returns
to the festival as a guest, and he has also led
such ensembles as the Atlanta, Baltimore, Bos-
ton, Chicago, Houston, Indianapolis, National,
Pittsburgh, and Saint Louis Symphony Orches-
tras, the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras,
and the New York Philharmonic. His credits
overseas include guest conducting the London
Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, Royal
Stockholm, Helsinki, Israel, and Moscow Phil-
harmonics, and the Vienna Radio Symphony,
as well as holding titled positions with the Saa-
rbrücken Radio Symphony in Germany and the
Lyon and Lille National Orchestras in France.
Michael Stern simultaneously made his Ravinia
and CSO debuts in
, and he returned to the
festival in
and
.
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