Grant Park Music Festival Opens 2025 Season with "Rhapsody in Blue" June 11

Summer in Chicago begins this evening with opening concert of the Grant Park Music Festival at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 11 at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park featuring George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with guest conductor and pianist Andrew Litton, former Music Director of the Dallas Symphony and current Music Director of New York City Ballet

Litton conducts the Grant Park Orchestra in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, for which he’ll also serve as featured pianist. (June 11). The program also includes Gabriela Lena Frank’s Three Latin American Dances, and Manuel de Falla’s Suite from The Three-Cornered Hat.

Also in June:

• Grant Park Chorus Director Christopher Bell makes his season debut conducting the award-winning Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus in Holst’s The Planets, Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 24 and the Illinois premiere of Jake Runestad’s Earth Symphony (June 13 & 14).
• Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero makes his first appearance in the Festival’s 2025 season leading the Grant Park Orchestra in a performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, performed by Grant Park Orchestra concertmaster Jeremy Black (June 18). That program also includes Adolphus Hailstork – An American Port of Call, and Leonard Bernstein – Suite from On the Waterfront.
• Guerrero conducts three more programs in June including Mahler Symphony No. 1 (June 20 & 21); Mozart Paris Symphony (June 25), and Shostakovich Symphony No. 10 (June 27 & 28.) The June 27 & 28 concerts will take place indoors at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance (205 E. Randolph).
• On June 26 & 30, Chorus Director Christopher Bell leads the Chorus in a live recording session Grant Park Chorus Holiday Classics at the South Shore Cultural Center, (7059 S. South Shore Dr.) The program will include classic Holiday carols including Silent Night, Carol of the Bells and Go Tell It on the Mountain alongside choral masterworks related to the season, including Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium and Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque.
• The Festival partners with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras to present the CYSO’s celebratory Tour of Spain Launch Concert in Millennium Park on June 12. This free program will begin with a performance by the CYSO Steel Orchestra at 5:30 p.m. at the Chase Promenade South Tent and the CYSO's award-winning Symphony Orchestra at 6:30 p.m. at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion.

Grant Park Music Festival's full 10-week series runs through Aug. 16. Most concerts are Wednesdays and Fridays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.

For every Grant Park Music Festival concert, complimentary seats are available to the public in the Seating Bowl and on the Great Lawn on a first-come, first-served basis. However, you can support the Festival by becoming a member through one of the following options: One Night Member Passes and Season memberships. For more information visit gpmf.org.

The City of Chicago requires that all patrons attending any concert at the Pavilion enter from either Randolph or Monroe Streets or the Millennium Park Garage. Security gates open 90 minutes before our concert start time. For more information visit gpmf.org.