Chicago Symphony Orchestra

“As is so often the case with the CSO’s music director designate, not a bar felt routine under Mäkelä’s organic, focused direction. Balancing was most impressive with each line of Sibelius’s tightly wrought polyphony audible in an unusually impactful way—the performance tracing a through-line in this work and culminating in a coda that felt invested with cumulative weight and a dramatic inevitability.”

Chicago Classical Review, Lawrence A. Johnson, 25 September 2026


“We’re starting to get a better understanding of the kinds of repertoire that appeals to Mäkelä, especially his enthusiasm for less frequently heard music by famous composers, like the choice of (Shostakovich) Symphony No. 4. It is hardly unknown but had not been played by the CSO for nearly two decades … Mäkelä was clearly the musicians’ choice as their new music director, and it’s exciting to watch the rapport between them deepen, to see him mature and develop before our eyes and to find out how this musical marriage ultimately plays out.”

Chicago Sun Times, Kyle MacMillan, 28 September 2026


“This symphony uses the largest orchestra of any of Shostakovich’s symphonies … Mäkelä was adept with contrasts and keen to emphasize the punchiness, bitterness and extravagances in the score, while never losing the sense that much about the work remains enigmatic, leaving each listener to form their own view of what it all means.”

Hyde Park Herald, M.L.Rantala, 28 September 2026


“Throughout the concert, I was reminded of Pierre Boulez and the crystalline clarity he brought to whatever music he conducted in Chicago … Boulez’s clarity was not a matter of sharp corners or surface sparkle. It was more a sense of sweeping away cobwebs, of digging deeply into the heart of the sound and letting it emerge organically, in full, mesmerizing bloom. Mäkelä created that same effect, illuminating hidden musical corners with a warm yet persistent light.”

Musical America, Wynne Delacoma, 29 September 2026

PROGRAMME:
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 7
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4