Music of the Baroque (MOB) opens 2023 with “Montero Plays Mozart, conducted by MOB Music Director Dame Jane Glover and featuring the critically acclaimed pianist and human rights activist Gabriela Montero. Performances are 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 21 at the Harris Theater | Millennium Park, and 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 22 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie. Montero makes her MOB debut with these performances.
Venezuelan-born “La Divina del Piano” Montero will be showcased in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21. The program will also include the Symphony No. 1 in G Major by 18th-century Black virtuoso violinist and composer Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Finally, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 hints at what might have been if its creator’s life had not been cut tragically short. This concert is sponsored by The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation.
“We are so excited to welcome the dynamic and inventive Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero to our stage” says MOB Executive Director Declan McGovern. “Her recordings include ‘Bach and Beyond’ and ‘Baroque,’ but for our annual Mozart birthday concert this January she will play one of his most recognizable piano concertos: No.21 with its famous slow movement, forever immortalized in the 1967 film ‘Elvira Madigan.’ I can’t wait to hear what Gabriela will play for her encore. She often improvises on an audience request! Will it be Bach? Who knows! This is one of the reasons why her concerts are so exciting.”
Music of the Baroque presents “Montero Plays Mozart:”
• 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 21 at the Harris Theater | Millennium Park, 205 E. Randolph (www.harristheaterchicago.org)
• 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 22, at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, 9501 Skokie Blvd. (www.northshorecenter.org)
Tickets: $25-$100. Visit www.baroque.org or call 312.551.1414
Students Go For Free at the Harris Theater: Students are able to attend any of Music of the Baroque’s seven performances at the Harris Theater during the 2022-2023 season free of charge. Students can reserve up to two complimentary tickets per valid student ID by visiting www.baroque.org or calling 312.551.1414. Student tickets will also be available at the Harris Theater box office starting two hours prior to the performance.
About Music of the Baroque
Long recognized as one of the region’s top classical groups, Music of the Baroque’s professional chorus and orchestra is one of the leading ensembles in the country devoted to the performance of eighteenth-century works. The 2022-2023 season marks the 20th anniversaries of Music Director Dame Jane Glover and Principal Guest Conductor Nicholas Kraemer. Andrew Megill was named Chorus Director in April 2022.
Over the past four decades, Music of the Baroque has presented premiere performances of many early masterpieces, including Monteverdi’s operas and 1610 Vespers, Georg Philipp Telemann’s “Day of Judgment,” Mozart’s “Idomeneo,” and numerous Handel operas and oratorios. The ensemble has drawn particular praise throughout its history for its performances of the major choral and orchestral works of J. S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Haydn.
Opera News calls Music of the Baroque “one of Chicago’s musical glories” and the Chicago Sun-Times writes, “Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra may be the big guys on the local classical music scene, but in terms of sheer quality of performance…Music of the Baroque inhabits the same stratosphere.”
Music of the Baroque draws audiences from across the Chicago metropolitan area, performing regularly at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park in downtown Chicago and the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, as well as at intimate Chicago and suburban churches.
Listeners across the country enjoy Music of the Baroque’s work through radio broadcasts and recordings on 98.7WFMT Radio.
Music of the Baroque's available recordings include "Messiah—Live in Chicago" recorded live in November 2021; "Bach's Mass in B Minor" recorded live during the 2019-2020 season; and "On This Night," recorded live during the ensemble's 2017 and 2014 holiday concerts and conducted by William Jon Gray.
Through its "Strong Voices" program, Music of the Baroque conducts arts education to support and enhance music education programs at Chicago public high schools.
For more information about Music of the Baroque, visit www.baroque.org.
About Gabriela Montero
Gabriela Montero’s visionary interpretations and unique compositional gifts have garnered her critical acclaim and a devoted following on the world stage. Anthony Tommasini remarked in The New York Times that “Montero’s playing had everything: crackling rhythmic brio, subtle shadings, steely power…soulful lyricism…unsentimental expressivity.” Montero makes her Music of the Baroque debut in "Montero Plays Mozart."
Recipient of the prestigious 2018 Heidelberger Frühling Music Prize, Montero’s recent and forthcoming highlights include debuts with the San Francisco Symphony (Edward Gardner), New World Symphony (Michael Tilson Thomas), Yomiuri Nippon Symphony in Tokyo (Aziz Shokhakimov), Orquesta de Valencia (Pablo Heras-Casado), and the Bournemouth Symphony (Carlos Miguel Prieto), the latter of which featured her as Artist-in-Residence for the 2019-2020 season.
Montero also recently performed her own “Latin” Concerto with the Orchestra of the Americas at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and Edinburgh Festival, as well as at Carnegie Hall and the New World Center with the NYO2. Additional highlights include a European tour with the City of Birmingham Symphony and Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla; a second tour with the cutting edge Scottish Ensemble, this time with Montero’s latest composition “Babel” as the centerpiece of the program; her long-awaited return to Warsaw for the Chopin in Europe Festival, marking 23 years since her prize win at the International Chopin Piano Competition; and return invitations to work with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony, Jaime Martin and the Orquestra de Cadaqués for concerts in Madrid and Barcelona, and Alexander Shelley and the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada.
Celebrated for her exceptional musicality and ability to improvise, Montero has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras to date, including: the New York, Los Angeles, Royal Liverpool, Rotterdam, Dresden, Oslo, Vienna Radio, and Netherlands Radio philharmonic orchestras; the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Zürcher Kammerorchester, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and Australian Chamber Orchestra; the Pittsburgh, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta, Toronto, Baltimore, Vienna, City of Birmingham, Barcelona, Lucerne, and Sydney symphony orchestras; the Belgian National Orchestra, and Württembergisches Kammerorchester.
A graduate and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London, Montero is also a frequent recitalist and chamber musician, having given concerts at such distinguished venues as the Wigmore Hall, Kennedy Center, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Cologne Philharmonie, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Herkulessaal, Sydney Opera House, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Luxembourg Philharmonie, Lisbon Gulbenkian Museum, Manchester Bridgewater Hall, Seoul’s LG Arts Centre, Hong Kong City Hall, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, and at the Barbican’s "Sound Unbound," Edinburgh, Salzburg, SettembreMusica in Milan and Turin, Lucerne, Ravinia, Gstaad, Saint-Denis, Violon sur le Sable, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Rheingau, Ruhr, Trondheim, Bergen, and Lugano festivals.
Montero is also an award-winning and bestselling recording artist. Her most recent album, released in autumn 2019 on the Orchid Classics label, features her own “Latin” Concerto and Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, recorded with the Orchestra of the Americas in Frutillar, Chile. Her previous recording on Orchid Classics features Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and her first orchestral composition, “Ex Patria,” winning Montero her first Latin Grammy® for Best Classical Album (Mejor Álbum de Música Clásica). Others include “Bach and Beyond,” which held the top spot on the Billboard Classical Charts for several months and garnered her two Echo Klassik Awards: the 2006 Keyboard Instrumentalist of the Year and 2007 Award for Classical Music without Borders. In 2008, she also received a Grammy® nomination for her album “Baroque,” and in 2010 she released “Solatino,” a recording inspired by her Venezuelan homeland and devoted to works by Latin American composers.
Gabriela Montero made her formal debut as a composer with “Ex Patria,” a tone poem designed to illustrate and protest Venezuela’s descent into lawlessness, corruption, and violence. The piece premiered in 2011 by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Montero’s first full-length composition, Piano Concerto No. 1, the “Latin” Concerto, was first performed at the Leipzig Gewandhaus with the MDR Sinfonieorchester and Kristjan Järvi, and subsequently recorded and filmed with the Orchestra of the Americas for the ARTE Konzert channel.
Winner of the 4th International Beethoven Award, Gabriela Montero is a committed advocate for human rights, whose voice regularly reaches beyond the concert hall. She was named an Honorary Consul by Amnesty International in 2015, and recognized with Outstanding Work in the Field of Human Rights by the Human Rights Foundation for her ongoing commitment to human rights advocacy in Venezuela. She was invited to participate in the 2013 Women of the World Festival at London’s Southbank Centre, and has spoken and performed twice at the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters. She was also awarded the 2012 Rockefeller Award for her contribution to the arts and was a featured performer at Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Inauguration.
Born in Venezuela, Montero started her piano studies at age four with Lyl Tiempo, making her concerto debut at age eight in her hometown of Caracas. This led to a scholarship from the government to study privately in the USA and then at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Hamish Milne.