Review: Music of the Baroque presents ‘Fathers & Sons,’ crowned by one of Chicago’s own musical sons

_{Music director Dame Jane Glover conducts Music of the Baroque and flute soloist Demarre McGill at the Harris Theater in Chicago on Jan. 24, 2026. (Elliot Mandel)}

Fathers. We all rail against ours at some point.

The great composers were no exception. The contrapuntal richness we love in Johann Sebastian Bach’s music was abandoned by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, whose more streamlined style helped usher in the Classical era. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his father Leopold both absorbed C.P.E. Bach’s influence, but their rupture point was more emotional than aesthetic: Mozart wanted to try his luck in European capitals, while the busybody Leopold wanted his son to stay with him in Salzburg.

Braving Saturday’s extreme cold and snow flurries, Music of the Baroque and music director Dame Jane Glover explored both pairs of contrasting kinsmen in “Fathers & Sons,” a lively and musically rewarding program at the Harris Theater.

Headlining was flute soloist Demarre McGill — who, along with his brother, clarinetist Anthony McGill, grew up in city music programs like the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and Merit School of Music. (Speaking of keeping it all in the family.) Both McGills now play at classical music’s highest level: Demarre as principal flute of the Seattle Symphony, Anthony as principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic.

Even so, soloists with the sensitivity, color palette and élan McGill demonstrated in Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 2 and C.P.E. Bach’s Flute Concerto in G are a rare breed in any echelon of classical music. He was a consummate soloist on Saturday, actively partnering with the orchestra and leading with wide-eared curiosity. His tone is his secret weapon — soft-daubed and lyrical, its edges melting into the air around it.

Both Mozart and C.P.E. Bach’s concertos are works of adaptation — Mozart’s from his oboe concerto, and C.P.E.’s from an organ concerto written around the same time. Mozart’s adaptation, made around the time he and his father were quarreling about all things Salzburg, suits the flute nicely. Bach’s bravura opus, less so: The solo line can usually be found somersaulting over the orchestra in arpeggios or squaring off against it in rowdy fisticuffs.

McGill adroitly met the latter challenge, his virtuoso performance of the G major concerto scratching the same itch that an encore might. But the way his tone ripens over time, or assumes sumptuous new shadings across his range, as it did in the Mozart? That needs space and time to savor, both of which were in short supply in the younger Bach’s busy, keyboard-like flute writing.

The second movement was a welcome exception, flute and orchestra trading off mournful descending lines. With McGill and the Music of the Baroque orchestra, these sounded like a reluctant parting of lovers, their points of overlap tenderly clinging to one another.

McGill’s captivating double-header served as a reminder that there may soon be an open seat at the Chicago Symphony, should principal flutist Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson remain in the Berlin Philharmonic. This homegrown talent’s hat absolutely deserves to be tossed into that exclusive ring.

The Music of the Baroque orchestra already shares personnel overlap with the CSO, which was wrapping up a West Coast tour on Saturday. But even without a few core players — including concertmaster Gina DiBello — the instrumental unit sounded of one mind. They responded alertly in Leopold Mozart’s Symphony in F, with silky pianos and snappy unison rhythms. That finesse carried over into Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 4, with contoured strings and intricate double-reed quartets emerging against the ensemble in the early movements. (A special shout-out to bassoonist Galina Kiep, who heroically carried the dastardly bassoon part in the Bourrée movement.)

_{Music director Dame Jane Glover conducts Music of the Baroque and flute soloist Demarre McGill at the Harris Theater in Chicago on Jan. 24, 2026. (Elliot Mandel)}

Watching Glover in this repertoire is a masterclass in gesture and phrasing. Leading batonless, the Mozart specialist and scholar proved just as sympathetic an interpreter of the elder Leopold’s symphony. She made a hearty meal out of the ten-minute diversion, bringing out the inner energy of the finale so that its repeated material was made new with each statement. In the accompanimental mode for Mozart and C.P.E. Bach’s concertos, Glover’s brushwork-like beats were elegance par excellence — just gently sweeping from her wrist or elbows, rather than beating through bars.

Her expansive tempo to the Overture saw some slight tempo disagreement. Once that cinched up within a matter of bars, Glover’s promenade pace offered profound interpretive rewards. Later easings in the strings, then an organic return to the top tempo, gave this suite a truly symphonic outlook, anticipating not Leopold Mozart’s morsels but the epic essays of future centuries. Glover’s perspicacious view of this repertoire alone is well worth braving any weather.

Hannah Edgar is a freelance critic.