A Sneak Peek of Our 2026 Season

In early February, the Grant Park Music Festival welcomed nearly 150 Festival Friends to a special season‑preview event held on the stage of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosted by Festival President and CEO Paul Winberg and featuring Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, with a musical performance by guest cellist Oliver Herbert.

Festival President and CEO Paul Winberg opened the evening by reflecting on the significance of the upcoming season. “As many of you know, 2026 marks the United States’ semi quincentennial — the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence,” he said. “And as a summer music festival founded in a great American city, built on the belief that great music should be free and accessible to everyone — and with a long history of celebrating American music and the ever‑evolving American sound — embracing America 250 as the inspiration for this season just made sense for us.”

Winberg added that one local critic has already called the upcoming season “one of the Festival’s most ambitious yet,” noting that this year’s programming explores two fundamental questions: What is America? and What does it mean to be American? “We hope the Festival can offer our city a place to gather — to celebrate, to reflect, and to come together as a community — as we consider our shared heritage and our shared future,” he said.

Just weeks earlier, Festival Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero had announced the 2026 season, underscoring the Festival’s longstanding commitment to American composers. “As always, we will present works by American composers,” he said, noting that the America 250 celebration also allows the Festival to highlight “those who have found refuge in the United States and those who wrote significant repertoire here.”

At the preview event, Guerrero guided the audience through musical highlights of the coming summer. He began with Czech-born composer Antonín Dvořák, whose transformative years in the United States helped shape a distinctly American sound. His celebrated Symphony No. 9, From the New World—inspired by African American spirituals and Native American melodies—will serve as a cornerstone of the Festival’s America 250 programming.

Guerrero also shared insights and musical excerpts from contemporary composers featured this summer. The season opens with the GRAMMY Award–winning Made in America by Joan Tower, followed by Gabriela Lena Frank’s Conquest Requiem, rooted in Latin American folklore. Later in the season, he will conduct John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, a searing reflection on the AIDS crisis, paired with Mozart’s Requiem. Guerrero highlighted additional living composers central to the Festival’s mission, including Jimmy López, Jessie Montgomery, Reena Esmail, and Jennifer Higdon.

In addition to a performance from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3, the evening concluded with a captivating performance of Gaspar Cassadó’s Requiebros by guest artist Oliver Herbert, who will return in June to make his Grant Park Orchestra debut performing Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1.

“It was wonderful getting a sneak peek of the upcoming season,” said Festival board member Amber Carpenter. “I’m looking forward to another summer of music as a unifying force for the city.”