CSO + Marin Alsop with Augustin Hadelich

Mendelssohn’s hit violin concerto, played by RSMI alum Augustin Hadelich, is in the spotlight as Chief Conductor Marin Alsop returns to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Pavilion. “Music feels like an intimate conversation when Augustin Hadelich is at work,” said The Philadelphia Inquirer of the Grammy Award winner. Also featured on the program are Bernstein’s joyous Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, particularly special for Bernstein student Alsop. “One of the most valuable things I learned from him,” she says, “was this idea of telling stories through music. He was a great storyteller. If he didn’t know the story of a piece, he’d make it up. He was always inventing stories because he understood that we, as human beings, needed a story. We need a beginning, we need a middle, we need an end; most important, we need a moral to the story.” Closing this sparkling program is Stravinsky’s timeless Firebird Suite.