The 2019-2020 Chicago Symphony Orchestra season was announced via e-mail on one of our crazy cold Chicago days last week.  When I started paging through the PDF guide I could barely contain my glee – the season is a tribute to Beethoven, my favorite, who, in 2020, will turn 250 years old. The CSO has lined up a Beethoven bonanza – they’re mounting all of the symphonies and all of the piano sonatas, some piano concertos, some violin sonatas, the violin concerto, some piano trios, and many other works.

I had a failure last spring that helped break down my symphony subscription reluctance this year – I missed out on tickets to Yo-Yo Ma, Leonidas Kavakos, and Emanuel Ax.  So when I again saw the ensemble on the 2019-20 Chamber Concert series subscription, that was all I needed to pull the trigger.  In addition to Ax/Ma/Kavakos doing three of Beethoven’s Piano Trios, the Chamber series features Lars Vogt and Christian Tetzlaff doing Sonata for piano and violin No. 6, Anne Sophie Mutter and Lambert Orkis doing Sonatas 4,5 (Spring), and 9 (Kreutzer), and, finally, the fabulous Soprano Joyce DiDonato with Baroque ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro in a Beethoven-free program.

Another huge reason to subscribe is that it gives you access to add-on tickets for any other CSO concert prior to single-ticket sales becoming available in August.  While I’ve got my eyes on many others (to reiterate – they are doing:  All the symphonies.  All the sonatas.  The Violin Concerto), for now I’ve only added on one concert, but it’s a biggie.  It’s my biggest dream-come-true-of a concert, in fact – the CSO’s 250^th Beethoven Bash Season finale – The  9^th Symphony.

But it’s not until June 20, 2020.  Be still my heart.  Life is good.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan