Riccardo Muti, music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, recently sat down with Dennis Polkow, music critic of NewCity Chicago, to talk about the CSO’s fall tour to Kansas City and the West Coast, as well as the Maestro’s Paths of Friendship concerts this summer in Iran, his conducting of Verdi’s Aida at Austria’s Salzburg Festival and his Italian Opera Academy at Italy’s Ravenna Festival. Muti gave a preview of the works programmed for the tour and also emphasized the importance of “orchestras serving as cultural ambassadors for their cities.”

To hear the entire interview, recorded as part of the CSO Radio Broadcast Series, distributed through the WFMT Radio Network, click on the audio clip below.

For more details about the tour, go to the tour page on cso.org and be sure to check for updates here on Sounds & Stories, the CSO’s Facebook page and other social media outlets, including Twitter and Instagram.

TOP: Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 on the first stop of the 2017 U.S. Fall Tour. | ©Todd Rosenberg Photography 2017

The CSO’s music director position has been endowed in perpetuity by a gift from the Zell Family Foundation.