Grant Park Music Festival
The Grant Park Music Festival is a ten-week classical music concert series held annually in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It features the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Grant Park Chorus along with guest performers and conductors, and claims to be the only free outdoor classical-music concert series in the US. The Festival is a non-profit organization. The Festival has been a Chicago tradition since 1931, when mayor Anton Cermak suggested free concerts to lift spirits of Chicagoans during the Great Depression. The tradition of symphonic Grant Park Music Festival concerts began in 1935.
July 5, 2008
Jay Pritzker Pavilion Great Lawn on the August 14, 2009 final weekend Beethoven's 9th Symphony Festival performance
The Petrillo Music Shell hosted the Music Festival until 2004
Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser was performed at the first Music Festival on July 1, 1935.
Jay Pritzker Pavilion, also known as Pritzker Pavilion or Pritzker Music Pavilion, is a bandshell in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located on the south side of Randolph Street and east of the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. The pavilion was named after Jay Pritzker, whose family is known for owning Hyatt Hotels. The building was designed by architect Frank Gehry, who accepted the design commission in April 1999; the pavilion was constructed between June 1999 and July 2004, opening officially on July 16, 2004.
The Pavilion in October 2022
The Great Lawn, trellis and pavilion with the adjoining Harris Theater, within Millennium Park
Grant Park Music Festival night view of Frank Gehry's Pritzker Pavilion
The pavilion and Chicago skyline in October 2012