Thibaudet & The Mermaid

2026/27 Chicago Symphony Artist-in-Residence Jean-Yves Thibaudet takes on Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto, a beguiling blend of dark Russian Romanticism and Armenian folk music. The concerto “is a giant, Technicolor work that’s a great fit” for Thibaudet’s “flamboyant yet precise playing style” (The Guardian). Zemlinsky’s The Mermaid is a luscious retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale about the mermaid abandoned by her prince. A musical sunrise opens the program, with Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina Prelude, evoking bells tolling over Moscow’s Red Square.