Civic Orchestra of Chicago: Esa-Pekka Salonen, Conductor February 28, 2011

Celebrating its 92nd season as training orchestra of the CSO, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago is a signature program of The Institute for Learning, Access and Training, which offers a comprehensive sequence of programs intended to transform the lives of young people through active participation in music. Popular conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to the Civic podium to lead music by his Finnish countryman Sibelius--two of the Legends of the Kalevala ("Lemminkainen and the Maidens of Saari" and "Lemminkainen's Return"), based on the national epic of Finland. The luxuriant program closes with Scriabin's mystical, highly charged 'The Poem of Ecstasy.'