Maron Alsop, Gustavo Dudamel, Valentina Peleggi will be on the podium for classical music season at Ravinia

Marin Alsop, who was recently named principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, returns this summer for her fourth season as the Ravinia Festival’s chief conductor, leading six Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts, it was announced Thursday.

The orchestra will be featured in its 88th summer at the Highland Park series with a residency that runs July 12-Aug. 18. Guest conductors include Carolyn Kuan, music director of the Hartford (Connecticut) Symphony (July 28) and Valentina Peleggi, music director of the Richmond (Virginia) Symphony (Aug. 2).

As in the past two seasons, the centerpiece of Alsop’s time with the orchestra will be the annual Breaking Barriers Festival. This latest edition July 26-27 will celebrate women leaders in music and space and will include performances, panel discussions and a composer workshop.

Alsop will lead the July 26 main event: a CSO concert inspired by astronomy. It will showcase “The Planets,” a popular piece by Gustav Holst featuring the Apollo Chorus of Chicago, and a symphonic-edition edition of “The Moons Symphony” by Amanda Lee Falkenberg with visual effects.

Other notable CSO programs will include:

• Aug. 9-11, James Conlon, conductor. Conlon, Ravinia’s music director in 2005-15, returns for two Mozart programs. He will lead an instrumental lineup Aug. 10 with violinist James Ehnes and semi-staged performances Aug. 9 and 11 of the composer’s opera “Idomeneo,” with a cast that includes tenor Matthew Polenzani in the title role.
• Aug. 18, Jonathan Rush, conductor, Rachel Barton Pine, violinist. Rush, former assistant and associate conductor of the Baltimore Symphony, will lead a program that includes the overlooked Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor by Cuban-French composer José White Lafitte (1836-1918), with the Chicago-based Barton Pine as soloist. 

Another major highlight of the summer will be the appearance of conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who will take over as music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026-27. The 43-year-old Venezuelan conductor has served as music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 2009. Dudamel, who last conducted the CSO in 2018 at Ravinia, will lead a Aug. 6 performance of the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela in its festival debut. The program will feature works by such South American composers as Antonio Estévez and Alberto Ginastera.

Other highlights of Ravinia’s 2024 classical offerings, which run June 11-Nov. 16, include a June 13 celebration of the 50th anniversary of the influential Kronos Quartet; a July 3 performance by the King’s Singers, a popular male a cappella group, and “African Queens,” an Aug. 1 ode to seven unheralded historical rulers and warriors featuring music by an array of contemporary composers.

The full summer schedule and ticketing information can be found at ravinia.org.