Opening Measures

THE PARTY Big anniversaries deserve big parties, and the festivities surrounding the launch of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 125th season achieved grand scale. VIP patrons arrived early for a reception that included a special exhibit designed by CSO archivist Frank Villella, which featured such items as a bronze life mask of Beethoven and the score for Wagner’s Faust Overture, used by founding Music Director Theodore Thomas at the symphony’s first performance. THE PEOPLE Linda Wolfe, great-granddaughter of the CSO’s second music director, Frederick Stock, rubbed elbows with co-chairs Raj Fernando and Shelley Ochab, while trustee Bill Adams and his wife, Liz, a women’s board member, enjoyed the celebration. THE PINNACLE Before the guests arrived at the Palmer House Hilton to be greeted by a floral wall of the CSO’s anniversary logo surrounded by thousands of roses, there was, of course, a spectacular concert—Maestro Muti led the orchestra in a program that concluded with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, a work (almost) epic enough for the occasion. –Photos by Todd Rosenberg and Robert Carl