Ravinia 2026 Issue 1

CHICAGOSYMPHONYCHORUS e Chicago Symphony Chorus regularly performs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Orchestra Hall and at Ravinia. e history of the CSC began in , when sixth music director Fritz Reiner invited Margaret Hillis to establish a chorus to equal the quality of the orchestra. Hillis accepted the challenge, and the chorus rst performed in March and April , in Mozart’s Requiem under Bruno Walter and Verdi’s Requiem under Reiner. Hillis served the chorus for years. In , ninth music director Daniel Barenboim appointed Duain Wolfe, who served as the chorus’s director and conductor until his retire- ment in . Donald Palumbo was appointed the third director in . e CSC has performed many times at Carnegie Hall as well as internationally in London, Salzburg, and Berlin. World premieres featuring the chorus have included Ned Rorem’s Goodbye My Fancy , John Harbison’s Four Psalms, and Bernard Rands’s apókryphos . With visiting orchestras, the chorus has collaborated with the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and Staatskapelle Berlin. Since rst recording commercially in —Proko ev’s Alexander Nevsky under Reiner—the CSC has amassed a discography that includes hallmarks of the choral repertoire and several complete operas. e chorus most recently received a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance for Verdi’s Requiem, led by Riccardo Muti on CSO Resound. e chorus has received an additional nine Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance. e CSC also has appeared on two movie soundtracks with the CSO: Fantasia and John Williams’s score for Lincoln , conducted by the composer. DONALD PALUMBO, director CHERYL FRAZES HILL, associate director JENNIFER KERR BUDZIAK and BENJAMIN RIVERA, assistant directors The chorus was prepared for this performance by Donald Palumbo. SOPRANOS Kimberly Gunderson Katelyn Lee Kristin Lelm Suzanne Ma-Ebersole Cari Plachy Angela Presutti Korbitz ALTOS Melissa Arning Leah Dexter Miya Higashiyama Sarah Ponder Emlynn Shoemaker Elizabeth Vaughan TENORS Michael Brauer Ace T. Gangoso Klaus Georg James Judd Nathan S. Oakes Nicholas Pulikowski BASSES Christopher Filipowicz Ian Murrell Ian R. Prichard Leo Radosavljevic Scott Uddenberg Jonathan Wilson Chorus Manager Melissa Hilker Asst. Manager/Librarian Olive Haugh Rehearsal Pianist John Goodwin JEFFERSONMAYS Je erson Mays is a Tony Award-winning actor best known for his one-man adaptation of A Christmas Carol directed by Michael Arden and his performances on Broadway in I AmMy Own Wife , A Christmas Carol , Oslo , e Music Man , Journey’s End , e Best Man , e Front Page , and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder . He recently starred as Salieri in Amadeus at the Pasadena Playhouse. On screen, he appears in Joel Coen’s Macbeth , the Coen Brothers’ e Ballad of Buster Scruggs , Al e , and Inherent Vice . His television credits include Julia , Hacks , Perry Mason , I Am the Night , e Americans , e Knick , Law & Order: SVU , and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt . He holds a BA from Yale and an MFA from University of California–San Di- ego. Je erson Mays is makin ghis Ravinia and Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts. DONALD PALUMBO Donald Palumbo was born in Rochester, NY, and received a bachelor of arts degree from Boston University. His career was launched in the s at the Dallas Opera, where he served as assistant to Roberto Benaglio, the renowned Italian chorus master of La Scala. Following a -year tenure as chorus director at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, from to , Palumbo assumed the same position at the Metropolitan Opera. ere, he was responsible for the Met Chorus’s participation in more than produc- tions each season, and his work was honored with seven Grammy Awards for Best Opera Re- cording. Palumbo’s appointment as the third chorus director of the Chicago Symphony Cho- rus was announced in June , and he began his initial three-year tenure that July. As director, he works with the chorus each year to prepare multiple programs across the Chicago Symphony Orches- tra’s downtown season and the annual summer residency at the Ravinia Festival. Palumbo was music director of the Chorus pro Musica of Boston and has also served as chorus master of the Canadian Op- era Company, Dallas Opera, Ban School for the Arts Summer Opera Program, the Opera Company of Boston, and Opera eatre of Saint Louis. In Europe, he has held chorus master positions at Opéra de Lyon, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, éâtre du Châtelet, and the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. From to , Palumbo was chorus director of the Salzburg Festival, the rst American to hold that position. Palumbo has been a vocal coach for the apprentices of the Santa Fe Opera since and a faculty member of the Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at the Juilliard School in New York since . RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JULY 11 – JULY 19 , 2026 82 TODDROSENBERG(PALUMBO)