Grant Park Music Festival announces 2025 season
The Grant Park Music Festival (GPMF) announced its 2025 season on Tuesday, the first one led by new Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero.
The festival's 10-week series featuring the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus, the latter under the leadership of chorus director Christopher Bell, will run June 11 to August 16 in Millennium Park.
“Since this one-of-a-kind festival is free and welcomes all, our programming reflects the rich and multi-faceted culture of Chicago,” said Guerrero via the announcement. "Well-known works by the giants of classical music will be presented on the same programs as music from spectacular contemporary composers whose pieces deserve to be heard alongside those legendary composers. Presenting newer voices together with those from the past makes those masterworks sound new again, offering listeners a sense of discovery and newness. This is what motivates me."
The six-time Grammy Award-winning Guerrero is no stranger to the classical music scene here, having conducted several concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2021 and 2024, as well as three concerts last summer with the Grant Park Orchestra. Other collaborations include the Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra, and orchestras throughout Europe and across the globe.
Highlights of the 2025 season will include 10 Illinois premieres, two Chicago premieres and a world premiere work commissioned by the GPMF from Chicago composer Stacy Garrop for the 2025 String Fellow Quartet, as well as the Midwest premiere of "Mycelialore" by Wisconsin-born composer Chelsea Komschlies. In addition, festivalgoers can take in "The Magic of Rodgers and Hammerstein" (July 25-26), Gustav Holst's "The Planets" (June 14-15), Ravel's "Bolero" (July 23), Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto (July 18-19) and Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" (Aug. 15-16).
Concerts are free and most take place Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings at the Pritzker pavillion. Concerts will be held June 26 and 30 at the South Shore Cultural Center; and June 27-28 and Aug. 1-2 at the Harris Theater.
The season's complete schedule can be found at grantparkmusicfestival.com.
Free seating to all concerts is available on the Great Lawn and the back-half of the Seating Bowl at at the pavilion on a first-come, first-served basis. Music lovers can also consider memberships to the GPMF starting at $103 per person now on sale at the fest website. Memberships include reserved pavilion seating to all concerts and discounted parking.