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.

Five-time winner of the Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award, Lee Mills is internationally recognized as a passionate, multifaceted and energetic conductor. In naming Mills as the ‘New Artist of the Month’ for March 2022, Musical America praised Mills’ ‘omnivorous musical temperament eager to try out highly contrasting musical styles and approaches.’

During the pandemic, Mills was an invaluable asset to the Seattle Symphony, giving dozens of performances, including the 2020 Season Opening Gala on Seattle Symphony Live, and recording multiple albums with the orchestra. Mills also was the ‘hero of the hour’ (Seattle Times) when he stepped in at the last minute to replace Thomas Dausgaard for a performance of Hanna Lash’s world premiere double-harp concerto The Peril of Dreams and Amy Beach’s epic Gaelic Symphony in November 2021, about which Thomas May wrote in Musical America, ‘Mills emerged in his element here, showing an obvious fondness for this epic, unjustifiably neglected score. Along with a compelling dramatic arc, he elicited characterful playing for the many solos that enrich it.’

In the fall of 2022, Mills was the Solti Foundation U.S. Resident at Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he worked with maestro Enrique Mazzola on the Lyric's production of Verdi's Don Carlos. The League of American Orchestras selected Mills for the 2018 Bruno Walter National Conductors Preview where he conducted the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and in 2017 Mills was selected as a semi-finalist in both the Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition and the Opera Royal de Wallonie-Liege International Opera Conducting Competition. In addition, he conducted alongside David Robertson in the highly acclaimed U.S. Premiere of John Cage’s Thirty Pieces for Five Orchestras with the Saint Louis Symphony.

In addition to his work with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony, he has led concerts with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Naples Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra (USA), Rochester Philharmonic, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony and São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra. In 2014, Mills was the Assistant Conductor to David Robertson for Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the USA.

Through his project Vibe Sinfônica, initiated in 2018 in partnership with nightlife producer The Week Group in São Paulo, he has brought classical music to thousands of new listeners through performances in unusual settings. In their inaugural performance, Vibe Sinfônica performed music of Vivaldi at The Week Group’s 14th anniversary in São Paulo, playing to a crowd of over 10,000 EDM fans and opening for DJ Offer Nissim. This project was also featured in a video clip of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, created to commemorate the 15th anniversary of The Week.

​At the invitation of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director Marin Alsop, he received the prestigious BSO-Peabody Institute Conducting Fellowship in 2011. Under the tutelage of Gustav Meier and Marin Alsop, Mills received his Graduate Performance Diploma and Artist’s Diploma in Orchestral Conducting at the Peabody Institute. He was a conducting fellow at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen during the summers of 2012 and 2013, working closely with Larry Rachleff, Robert Spano and Hugh Wolff. Mr Mills graduated cum laude from Whitman College, where he studied with Robert Bode.

22 year old American pianist Maxim Lando was lauded by Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times for his “brilliance and infectious exuberance.” He is hailed as “one of the most brilliant and imaginative young pianists to emerge in recent years” (Gower Festival), “a total musical being” (National Review), and “a dazzling fire-eater” (ARTS San Francisco). 

Maxim first made international headlines performing together with Lang Lang, Chick Corea, and The Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin at Carnegie Hall’s 2017 Opening Night Gala. Since then, he has performed with major orchestras around the world including Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Mariinsky Theater Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony, and over 50 other orchestras across the United States and Europe. 

Recent and upcoming highlights of 2025/26 include a 9-city-USA tour with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra; appearances with the Arizona Musicfest Festival Orchestra, Frankfurt Opera Museum Orchestra, Orquesta Clásica Santa Cecilia, Belgrade Philharmonic, and the Baltimore, Columbus, Charleston, Anchorage, and Princeton Symphony Orchestras; recitals featuring Lowell Liebermann’s brilliant new masterpiece Frankenstein; and a recording with the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna.

Awarded the 2025 Khaledi Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Classical Music from Festival Napa Valley, Maxim is also winner of the 2022 New York Franz Liszt International Competition, 2022 Vendome Grand Prize, and top prizes at both the 2024 Cleveland International Piano Competition and 13th International German Piano Award. Maxim is the recipient of a Gilmore Young Artist Award, and won the Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions at age 16. His following recital debuts at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall and Kennedy Center Terrace Theater were hailed by the New York Times as concerts “You Won’t Want To Miss!” Dedicated to making classical music accessible to his own generation, Maxim has been featured on CNN, NPR, BBC, WQXR, Bavarian Radio, Euroradio’s Top Young Performers, Israel’s “Intermezzo with Arik”, and Russia’s TV Kultura.

Maxim’s concerts include venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Beijing National Center for Performing Arts, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Louis Vuitton Foundation and Salle Cortot in Paris, Symphony Hall in Shenzhen, Kulturpalast Dresden, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, and Chicago’s Millennium Park. A frequent Guest Artist on the music festival scene, recent appearances have included The Gilmore, Aspen, Caramoor, Dresden Music Festival, Kissinger Sommer, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Stars and Rising Stars Munich, Musical Olympus International Festival in Russia, Vilnius Piano Festival, Gower Festival in Wales, and Lednice-Valtice Music Festival in Czech Republic. He was invited by Lang Lang to perform for the historic opening of Steinway and Sons in Beijing.

Maxim partners frequently with violinist Daniel Hope, and is passionate about chamber music and unusual repertoire. He has collaborated with Lynn Harrell, Julian Rachlin, and the Danish String Quartet among others, and plays regularly with Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in New York City. Together with his German friend and violinist Tassilo Probst, his album Into Madness, recorded by Bavarian Radio on Berlin Classics, was awarded a 2023 International Classical Music Award (ICMA) as best chamber music recording of the year. It also received a double nomination for Opus Klassik, and the duo was honored at the National Forum of Music in Wroclaw, Poland.

Maxim is a Laureate of Artemisia Foundation since 2019, an alumnus of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, and studies with long-time mentors Hung- Kuan Chen and Tema Blackstone at The Juilliard School.

(March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937) The French composer Maurice Ravel was also a pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with Claude Debussy, although neither composer was particularly fond of the label. Ravel wrote almost all his music as piano pieces first, and later orchestrated them. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest, most innovative orchestrators of all time. Although he was an extremely private man, he was part of a glittering society of writers, painters, musicians and thinkers in Paris before World War I. When war broke out in 1914, 39-year-old Ravel attempted to enlist, but repeatedly failed his physical. Eventually he was allowed to serve as an ambulance driver and was sent to the front lines, and nearly died from a series of health complications including dysentery, a heart condition, frostbite, and what was in all likelihood PTSD. Ravel later toured the United States and famously visited the jazz clubs of Harlem with George Gershwin as his guide. He incorporated the sounds of American jazz into his later works.

(23 November 1876 – 15 November 1946) Manuel de Falla is one of Spain's most important composers. His most famous works include The Three-Cornered Hat, Nights in the Gardens of Spain and El amor brujo.

(1792-1868) Born in Pesaro along the Adriatic Sea, Gioachino Rossini is considered one of the greatest of the Italian opera composers. He was extremely prolific, writing 39 operas between 1812 and 1829. His comic operas are especially popular, including The Barber of Seville (1816), Cinderella (1817), and Semiramide (1823). His last opera, William Tell (1829), is considered a masterpiece. Throughout his adult life, he suffered from complications of syphilis. As a result, Rossini made his money while still a young man and quit composing at the height of his popularity at the age of 37. He lived another 40 years.

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor, renowned for his profound influence on the world of classical music. Born in Raiding, Hungary, Liszt displayed extraordinary musical talent from a young age, leading him to study in Vienna under the tutelage of prominent musicians. His early career was marked by dazzling performances across Europe, where he captivated audiences with his technical prowess and innovative compositions.

Liszt's contributions to music extended beyond performance; he was a pioneering figure in the development of the symphonic poem and made significant strides in piano music. His piano works showcased his ability to blend technical brilliance with deep emotional expression. Additionally, Liszt was dedicated to music education, founding the Budapest Academy of Music and mentoring many students, thereby shaping the next generation of musicians.

In his later years, Liszt sought solace in Rome, where he continued to compose and teach, despite personal challenges in his relationships. His commitment to Hungarian culture and music remained steadfast, as he incorporated national themes into his compositions. Today, Liszt is celebrated not only for his musical genius but also for his role in elevating the status of the piano and expanding the boundaries of classical music.