As the United States heads toward its 250th birthday, Giancarlo Guerrero is getting ready to throw a long, loud musical party on Chicago's lakefront. He will lead the Grant Park Music Festival's 2026 season with a lineup built around the question of what really counts as "American music." The free series opens in early June and runs through mid August, pairing familiar U.S. staples with lesser heard voices and a handful of premieres. It will be Guerrero's first full season as the festival's artistic director and principal conductor.
June 10 Opening Night
The festival is set to kick off June 10 at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion with Joan Tower's Made in America, Leonard Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story and Samuel Barber's Symphony No. 1, according to Grant Park Music Festival. The site lists the 2026 season as running June 10 through August 15, with concerts split between the Jay Pritzker Pavilion and the Harris Theater. Framed as a kind of mission statement, the opening night program is designed to set up a summer that foregrounds U.S. composers while also placing them in a wider international context.
Guerrero's Question: What Is "American Music"?
Guerrero has described the season as an attempt to rethink who and what belongs in the category of American music, saying the festival will mix the "usual suspects" with composers who were inspired by or came to the United States, according to Chicago Classical Review. "The question that I was asking myself is, What is 'American music'?" he told the outlet. Guerrero, who noted he was born in Nicaragua, grew up in Costa Rica and is now a U.S. citizen, said the programming is meant to nudge listeners into hearing familiar works through fresh historical and cultural frames.
Season Highlights
The announced lineup mixes long-standing U.S. touchstones with contemporary voices. Programs feature names like George Gershwin and Aaron Copland alongside special events that include a headline appearance by Ben Folds, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The season also includes two world premieres, several Chicago and Illinois premieres, and an assortment of shorter works slotted next to large scale symphonies. Put together, the choices are meant to sketch a broader, more inclusive portrait of the country's musical life as it marks the semiquincentennial.
Guest Conductors And Soloists
Two former festival principals will be back on the podium this summer. Carlos Kalmar leads programs on July 1, 3 and 8, and Leonard Slatkin conducts a July 10-11 program that pairs Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony with Slatkin's own Schubertiade and Joseph Schwantner's violin concerto, which features soloist Yevgeny Kutik, per Chicago Classical Review. Guest conductors on the roster include Christopher Bell, Kalena Bovell, Jeri-Lynne Johnson, Edwin Outwater and Kedrick Armstrong. The list of soloists runs from Anne Akiko Meyers and Olga Kern to Garrick Ohlsson and Stewart Goodyear, reinforcing Guerrero's aim of setting canonical works alongside rarities and contemporary responses.
How To Attend
All Grant Park Music Festival concerts remain free, with general seating available on the lawn, while reserved seats and other benefits are offered through memberships that are on sale now, according to Grant Park Music Festival. Membership tiers include reserved seating, discounted parking and invitations to member only events, with several price points and package options. Full details on packages and member benefits are listed on the festival's membership page.
