CSO's new music director meets with press, musicians
Riccardo Muti, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's new music director, jokes that because he's a musician -- not a politician -- he doesn't want to make too many promises.
But in his first trip to Chicago since being appointed the CSO's 10th music director last month, Muti said Monday that concertgoers can expect a repertoire that spans everything from Baroque to contemporary music, including works of non-American contemporary composers.
He also said he plans to reach out to Chicagoans who previously have not attended the symphony for cultural or economic reasons, mentioning hospitals, schools and prisons as places he'd like to perform.
And he said while he could make "great music" as a guest conductor, he took on the responsibilities of being a music director because it allows him to "reach something more important."
"Music is today the most important ambassador around the world," he said, citing concerts he's conducted in regions torn by cultural and religious strife.
Muti's five-year contract with the CSO will begin in September of the 2010-2011 season. He'll take the role of CSO's music director designate beginning in January.
The post has been vacant since Daniel Barenboim left in 2006.
Born in Naples, Italy, Muti served as music director of Milan's La Scala opera house for 19 years before resigning in 2005. He served as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1980 to 1992 and he has had a long relationship with the Salzburg Festival.
The contract calls for Muti, 66, to conduct a minimum of 10 weeks of CSO subscription concerts each season, plus lead the orchestra in domestic and international tours.
During a 24-hour stay in Chicago, Muti was to meet with CSO trustees and staff and have lunch with the orchestra.
He also charmed the press during an hourlong news conference at Symphony Center, with one answer in his Italian-accented English lasting for longer than eight minutes.
He touched on everything from his until-recent belief that an iPod was the name of a horse, the futility in trying to lie about his age, and his willingness to meet with potential CSO donors.
"If the food is good, why not?" he said, drawing huge laughs from the crowd.
On a more serious note, he repeatedly praised the CSO, saying it is "already technically one of the most incredible ensembles in the world." He told of rehearsing one particularly difficult passage for violins in Prokofiev's Symphony No. 3.
With every other group he's conducted, that passage required much work, Muti said. But when he rehearsed it last fall for the first time with the CSO, "It was like a miracle. The passage was perfect, clean from the beginning to the end ... They give you everything. You just have to respond in the same way."
Muti first conducted the CSO at the Ravinia Festival in 1973. During a monthlong residency in September 2007 he conducted subscription concerts, a sold-out opening night gala and a successful European tour.
Deborah Rutter Card, president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, said during that residency, Muti displayed "fantastic chemistry" with the orchestra that she and other members of the search committee felt the next music director must possess.
"Many of us who were here for the first rehearsals felt something special happening," she said, "and then for the remaining four weeks ... we saw that blossom into something really unparalleled."