The Grant Park Orchestra was formed in 1944 when the Chicago Park District assembled a single resident orchestra under the direction of Principal Conductor Nikolai Malko to perform at the Grant Park Music Festival (which began in 1935 and featured a series of visiting orchestras). Since then, other prestigious conductors have held the position, including Irwin Hoffman, Leonard Slatkin, David Zinman, Zdnek Macal and Hugh Wolff. In 2000, Carlos Kalmar was named the Festival’s Principal Conductor.

Today, the Grant Park Orchestra draws its musicians from different orchestras and musical institutions throughout the United States. Each summer, all of the orchestra members gather in Millennium Park for a ten-week long season consisting of intensive rehearsals and performances. During the year, the musicians can be found across the country performing with major orchestras, teaching at numerous universities and appearing frequently in concert stages across the country. Some organizations represented by Grant Park Orchestra musicians include the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, the Buffalo, Colorado, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Milwaukee, New Mexico, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Richmond, San Antonio, Seattle, and Utah Symphonies. The Grant Park Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy award for its recording entitled Robert Kurka: Symphonic Works.

American conductor, Anthony Parnther, has forged a singularly unique career that melds his love for the music of all genres with his prowess as a conductor, bassoonist, opera singer, producer, storyteller, comedian, and activist.

Anthony is the Music Director of the San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra in San Bernardino, California. He has conducted a long list of the world's greatest artists in virtually every genre, including Joshua Bell, Jessye Norman, Yundi Li, Lynn Harrell, Frederica von Stade, Roderick Williams, The Canadian Brass, Rihanna, Jennifer Holliday, Kanye West, Imagine Dragons, Omar Apollo, Ry X, Zedd, and Alan Walker.

Parnther is in demand to conduct symphonic, opera, contemporary, avant-garde, popular music, and film scores, internationally. He has led many of the preeminent orchestras in North America with recent performances with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony. In the upcoming season, Anthony will lead the New York Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Sydney Symphony, and Vancouver Symphony.

Dedicated to music education, Parnther has served in residency, guest conducted, and lectured at conservatories and music festivals nationally, including Cleveland Institute of Music, Music Academy of the West, Indiana University, California State University - Long Beach and San Bernardino,  University of California - Los Angeles, and the University of California - Berkeley's Young Musician's Program. He is a co-founder of the Rise Diversity Project at Musicians at Play, which provides inner-city students the opportunity to mentor side by side with professional session musicians on the scoring stages of Hollywood.

He has premiered and recorded works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Anthony Davis, George Walker, and Anne Lanzilotti, in addition to the works of Jon Batiste, Kris Bowers, Tamar-kali Brown, Florence Price, Adolphus Hailstork, Zenobia Powell Perry, Errollyn Wallen, John Wineglass, Gary Powell Nash, Marian Harrison, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, James Wilson, Phillip Herbert, Daniel Kidane, Chanda Dancy, and James Newton. In 2015, Los Angeles' KCET/TV profiled Anthony as a "Local Hero" for his extensive community outreach and advocacy for performing works by Black, Latino, and Women artists.

On the scoring stages of Los Angeles, London, Nashville, Budapest, and San Francisco, Anthony has led and conducted recording sessions for many of the world's most beloved film, television, and game franchises. Recent film projects include Avatar: The Way of Water, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Creed III, Ghostbusters: Afterlife,  Nope, Tenet, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. His animation credits include Encanto, Diaries of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules, Ice Age: Adventures of Buck Wild, and Turning Red. He has also led the scores for such beloved TV series as American Dad, Arcane, Fargo, Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Star Wars: Book of Boba Fett, and games like League of Legends, Guild Wars, and Lamplighters League.

Now celebrating its 60th anniversary season, the 80+ member Grant Park Chorus was formed in 1962 by Thomas Peck, who led the group until his death in 1994. His protégé, Michael Cullen, then led the chorus until 1997, after which a series of guest conductors worked with the ensemble until 2002 when an international search identified current chorus director, Christopher Bell. 

Winners of the 2006 Margaret Hillis Award for artistic excellence, the Grant Park Chorus is a fully professional ensemble and the majority of the vocalists reside in Illinois. In addition to frequent solo appearances and teaching careers, members of the Grant Park Chorus perform with ensembles such as Chicago a cappella, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Chicago Symphony Chorus. 

Lauded for leading performances of "pure magic" (Washington Post), conductor Eugene Rogers is at the vanguard of American musicians, recognized as a musical leader and teacher across North America and, increasingly, around the globe. 

Animated by a commitment to championing timely new works, bringing historically overlooked music to life, and supporting next-generation talents, Rogers brings wide-ranging artistic vision as a conductor for orchestra, chorus, and opera; as a teacher and arranger; and as an industry thought leader.  

He is a two-time Michigan Emmy Award winner, a 2017 Sphinx Medal of Excellence recipient, and was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2015. Musical America magazine has named him one of the top music industry professionals, and his work has been profiled on CNN, PBS, and on radio stations and in print and online publications across the world. 

Rogers was announced in February of 2020 as the fifth Artistic Director of The Washington Chorus (TWC), one of America’s leading choral music ensembles. As Artistic Director, Rogers has brought forth a compelling new vision for TWC rooted in fresh interpretations of choral-orchestral masterworks, a bold commitment to commissioning and premiering new music, and a strong connection to community. Rogers leads TWC’s live performances on the podium and in collaboration with leading conductors at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Music Center at Strathmore, Live! at 10th and G, and National Presbyterian Church. 

A recent program led from the podium by Rogers with TWC in collaboration with The National Philharmonic, “Anhelos Universales,” elicited a rave review from Michael Brodeur in The Washington Post, writing: 

“... Rogers delivered a powerhouse turn at the podium leading a fighting-shape Phil in a potent two-part program: the Washington-area premiere of composer James Lee III’s ‘Breaths of Universal Longings,’ a suite in four parts for chorus and orchestra, and an absolutely gripping rendition of Venezuelan composer Antonio Estévez’s ‘Cantata Criolla,’ featuring a pair of blazing performances… Rogers led the works with confidence and clarity,” noting the program was “a fine use of this formidable chorus.”  

Brodeur later named the performance one of the ten best in classical music of the year for 2023. The program was one of many expressions from Rogers’ visionary “Mahogany” initiative with the Chorus - a multi-year, multi-genre commitment to celebrating and supporting artists and creators of color. Other expressions under his leadership have included TWC’s commissioning, premiering, and recording the world premiere of Damien Geter’s “Cantata for a More Hopeful Tomorrow” and the co-commission and premiere of Geter’s “Justice Symphony,” leading a rare performance of Undine Smith Moore’s landmark oratorio “Scenes from the Life of a Martyr” with chorus and orchestra, serving as chorus master for the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s “A Knee on the Neck” requiem (noted by the Washington Post as one of the ten best performances of 2022), and an upcoming performance: an immersive new staging of Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” with The Washington Chorus and orchestra at The Kennedy Center with acclaimed baritone Will Liverman in the title role.  

In addition to his work on the podium, he has proudly served as chorus master to leading conductors including Gianandrea Noseda, Marin Alsop, Joe Hisaishi, and James Conlon for works including Beethoven Symphony no. 9, the Verdi Requiem, the Bernstein Kaddish Symphony, and many others. 

Rogers is increasingly active as a guest conductor for orchestra, chorus, and opera. Recent highlights have included guest conductor engagements with the Flint Symphony Orchestra, Eugene Concert Choir and Orchestra (Oregon), the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra’s critically acclaimed 25th anniversary concert tour of Michigan and Washington, D.C., the Charleston Gospel Choir in a program for gospel chorus and orchestra, and for leading youth ensembles across the globe. In 2015, a new recording of Darius Milhaud's monumental opera L'Orestie d'Eschyle, on which Rogers served as a chorus master, was nominated for a GRAMMY Award. 

In 2015, Rogers founded EXIGENCE, a professional vocal ensemble affiliated with the world-renowned Sphinx Organization, founded by Aaron Dworkin. EXIGENCE is a professional vocal ensemble highlighting artistry within Black and Latinx communities, comprised of vocal artists including solo performers, educators, conductors and composers. As Founding Director, Rogers has toured EXIGENCE to festivals, concerts, and conferences, and the ensemble remains an important part of his artistic and community practice. 

Additionally active as an arranger, Mark Foster Publishing began the Eugene Rogers Choral Series in 2015, a series featuring emerging composers who specialize in contemporary classical and folk music traditions, and the EXIGENCE Choral Series in 2018 which features folk and contemporary works by Black and Latinx composers. 

Rogers serves as Associate Professor of Music and Director of University Choirs at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, where he teaches and trains the next generation of conductors and collaborates with composers and across departments on major artistic initiatives for the University. 

Rogers holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in choral music education from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in choral conducting from U-M. He currently serves on the board of Chorus America and is the former national chair of the Diversity Initiatives Committee for the American Choral Directors Association. 

American soprano, Janai Brugger, the 2012 winner of Operalia and of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, made her television debut last season when she sang a specially-written requiem composed by Laura Karpman for an episode of HBO’s renowned ‘Lovecraft Country.’ She returned to Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra, and revived a favourite role, Pamina Die Zauberflote for performances at Palm Beach Opera’s first Outdoor Opera Festival. More recently she appeared as Michaela Carmen at Cincinnati Opera and returned to Dutch National Opera for their acclaimed Missa in tempore Belli (Haydn) conducted by Lorenzo Viotti and directed by Barbora Horáková.

In a recent season, the artist appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in the role of Clara in their celebrated new production of Porgy and Bess in which she’d previously appeared at Dutch National Opera. At Lyric Opera of Chicago she sang the role of Ilia Idomeneo and at Cincinnati Opera she appeared as Susanna Le nozze di Figaro. In her artistic home at Los Angeles Opera, she sang the role of Servilia La Clemenza di Tito, a role she previously sang at Dutch National Opera.  Miss Brugger travelled to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden for revival performances of Pamina Die Zauberflöte and sang the role of Liù Turandot at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Source: Arbour Artists.

“Mr. Harouna is a supremely talented Apprentice Artist, and his rolling, mature baritone was invested with beautiful phrasing, controlled delivery and commendable character delineation.” – Opera Today

Sankara Harouna’s musical journey began in the traditional arts of West African culture, music, and drumming. He has also performed across the United States, singing in a variety of styles including jazz, gospel, and classical.

A native of the southside of Chicago, Mr. Harouna recently made a triumphant debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, double cast as Benny “Kid” Paret and his son Benny Jr. in Terence Blanchard’s Champion: “considering he was a last-minute replacement announced from the stage, baritone Sankara Harouna is nothing short of spectacular as Paret and his son.” – Chicago Sun Times

Upcoming, Mr. Harouna joins the prestigious Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

This season, Mr. Harouna joined Portland Opera as a Resident Artist where he was seen in Le nozze di Figaro (Antonio) and The Snowy Day (Daddy). He also joined Greensboro Opera in David Conte’s The Gift of the Magi (Jim). At Des Moines Metro Opera, as part of the Frank R. Brownell III Apprentice Artist Program, Mr. Harouna performed in Carmen (Moralès) and Redler’s The Falling and the Rising (Homecoming Soldier).

In previous seasons, Mr. Harouna joined the Atlanta Opera for Il barbiere di Siviglia (Fiorello) and The Pirates of Penzance (Samuel); Dayton Opera for L’elisir d’amore (Belcore) and Charlie Parker’s Yardbird (Dizzy Gillespie); Kentucky Opera for La Cenerentola (Dandini cover), Dead Man Walking (1st Prison Guard), and Amahl and the Night Visitors (Page); and Cincinnati Opera for Il barbiere di Siviglia (Officer) and Blind Injustice (Derrick Wheatt). In concert, he performed in Stained Glass Concerts and the Mozart Missa Brevis with Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mr. Harouna was awarded a Career Development Grant in the 2023 William Matheus Sullivan Musical Foundation. He was previously a member of both the Glynn Studio Artist with Atlanta Opera and the Barbara & Halsey Sanford Studio Artist with Kentucky Opera; and an Artist-in-Residence with Dayton Opera. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Music in Vocal Performance at Kentucky State University. He is a proud member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated.