What's your favorite summer music memory? Grant Park Music Festival, Ravinia, and summer street festivals are now in full swing and summer begins (officially) this week. We'll be sharing your stories of summer all day today, Tuesday, June 18 on air. Chime in below!

Tonight at 10 on Critical Thinking: Andrew shares a new conversation with Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director Riccardo Muti recorded just yesterday at Orchestra Hall. Maestro Muti discusses his current and future relationship with the CSO as well as the season closing program this week featuring the CSO Chorus in works of Verdi, Mozart and Vivaldi.

Bernie Sahlins, co-founder and longtime head of The Second City, has died at 90. The Chicago native and 1943 U of C graduate died at his Gold Coast home after a brief illness. Many Chicagoans first heard The Second City on the Midnight Special, and we express our condolences to Bernie's wife, theatre producer and visionary Jane Nicoll Sahlins, and his brother, noted U of C anthropologist Marshall Sahlins. Sahlins once said that “art is not a matter of life and death, it's much more important than that.”City co-founder Bernard Sahlins dies at 90 - Chicago Sun-Timeswww.suntimes.comThe Chicago native created an empire, helped shape his hometown as a hub of comedy and nurtured comic greats including Alan Arkin, John Belushi and Bill Murray.

At 8pm we present Music of the Baroque's April performance of Handel's "Israel in Egypt," conducted by Jane Glover from the Harris Theater for Music and Dance. Water turns to blood, flies buzz, and hailstones rain down as Handel leads us through the ten plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the drowning of Pharaoh’s armies. The great biblical drama of liberation comes alive, as Jane Glover conducts a choral tour de force by one of music history’s most imaginative storytellers.

Within the next 48 hours, we're broadcasting a concert from this theater. Do you know which it is?

Starting at 8 this morning, join us for "Breakfast with Carl!" The Morning Program will move next door to the Levin Performance studio and dozens of WFMT members will join us for breakfast from Tre Kronor. We'll also hear from special guests on-air throughout the morning. Here's a photo of Critic-at-Large Andrew Patner with Carl from a previous breakfast. We invite you to participate by submitting your comments and questions below.

We regret to announce that tonight's Grant Park Music Festival concert has been canceled due to the weather.http://profile-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ash3/158047_92436131471_847822850_q.jpgGrant Park Music FestivalDue to severe weather conditions, the City of Chicago has cancelled all outdoor events in Millennium Park, including Opening Night of the Grant Park Music Festival.

Live from the Pritzker Auditorium at 6:30pm, it's opening night of the Grant Park Music Festival! The 2013 Season opens with Carlos Kalmar conducting Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony and young violinist Stefan Jackiw makes his Festival debut with Mozart's Turkish Concerto. The concert is free and open to the public either in person or on WFMT, rain or shine (concerts are only canceled if weather is severe and unsafe. Check grantparkmusicfestival.com for updates).

How does one define the beginning of summer in Chicago? Critic-at-Large Andrew Patner has some musical answers to that question:

Today we begin an occasional series of Facebook posts looking at WFMT program guides of the past. The June, 1970 issue featured "critics on criticism" and Claudia Cassidy, then critic-at-large for the Tribune and a host of WFMT's "Critic's Choice" wrote: "If after 40 years on the Chicago beat I say that newspaper criticism as I once knew it may soon be a thing of the past, it could sound like Aprés-moi le dèluge. But I never thought of myself as a bastion, or even as a finger in the dike, so never mind that. The fact is that as the newspaper world shrinks, and as what people painfully new to it so perilously call culture totters to perdition, the scene becomes unrecognizable. "...I have always believed that Chicago, like any other city worth calling home, needs a triple thrust to a sound foundation in the performing arts: a magnificent orchestra with adventurous leaders, a brilliantly exciting opera house, a resident theater of richest imaginable range. These are the roots from which splendor can spring. I cherish Bruno Walter's phrase, adapted from Hugo von Hofmannstahl, 'The roots must be more splendid than the foliage.' "

Tonight on the Tuesday Night Opera: In 1847, after "Tannhäuser" and before "Lohengrin," Richard Wagner created . . . a new, *German* version of Gluck's 1774 "Iphigénie en Aulide" -- "Iphigenia in Aulis." Peter van de Graaff presents the 1972 Eurodisc recording with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Trudeliese Schmidt, Anna Moffo, and Ludovic Spiess; Kurt Eichhorn conducts his Munich Radio Orchestra. Even Riccardo Muti has admired aspects of Wagner's edition. 8 to 10 p.m. Enjoy!

Live at 5:45pm: Rush Hour Concerts @ St. James Cathedral continue with music of JS Bach plus the world premiere of Mischa Zupko's "Parables of Zion." Fulcrum Point New Music Project, Stephen Burns (trumpet) and David Schrader (organ) invite you to join them "as they explore the depths of human tragedy and idealism in this 12 minute work." Rush Hour concerts are free and open to the public, either in person or on WFMT! (Photo: CSO cellist Brant Taylor in conversation with host Dave Schwan)

In honor of the rich tradition of Russian music and Russian Independence day tomorrow, June 12, we're featuring Russian music in our daily programming all month long. We're celebrating both the staples of the repertoire and little known works. In that spirit, help us out: Name a Russian composer and/or piece of music that deserves more attention and tell us why. Responses and names may be read on air today, Tuesday, June 11 until 7pm. (Photo: Kazan Cathedral, Moscow by Cydne Gillard)

Live at 8pm: Soprano Patrice Michaels performs Jazzical Songs with piano, violin, and cello in our Levin Performance Studio. Then at 10 on "Critical Thinking," Andrew Patner shares newly released recordings of the piano concertos of Elliott Carter and Carlos Chávez played by the late Charles Rosen and by Jorge Federico Osorio. Enjoy!

Boy, do we have an operatic double bill from Lyric Opera of Chicago for you today! Richard Strauss's 1909 "Elektra" and Humperdinck's 1893 "Hansel and Gretel," both from the 2012-2013 season. The Strauss features Christine Goerke (pictured) in the title role, Emily Magee, Jill Grove, Alan Held, Roger Honeywell, and Sir Andrew Davis conducting. The Humperdink stars Elizabeth DeShong and Maria Kanyova, Jill Grove (again), and Julie Makerov and Brian Mulligan. Ward Stare is in the pit. 12 noon to 4 p.m. CDT. Enjoy!

Happy birthday Gwendolyn Brooks! On July 21, 1964 Studs Terkel spoke with the American poet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950 and named Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968. We rebroadcast this program tonight at 10 on what would have been Ms. Brooks's 96th birthday.

We're wishing George the best of luck right now in the Levin Performance Studio!

Friday we bid a bittersweet adieu to our friend and colleague George Preston, who joined us in 2009 as our afternoon announcer, co-host and producer of the Lyric Opera of Chicago broadcasts and many, many other broadcasts and projects here at WFMT. Please join us in wishing him the best as he moves with his family to Colorado Springs to become General Manager of KCME Classical Music Radio!

No, we won't be featuring this group. But the New York Philharmonic presents two Bach keyboard concertos with Andras Schiff (conducting and playing) tonight at 8, plus Mendelssohn's String Symphony #9 in C and Schumann's Symphony #4 in d, Op 120 on "The New York Philharmonic This Week."

Live tonight at 7:30 we bring you the opening concert of the North Shore Chamber Music Festival from The Village Presbyterian Church in Northbrook. An all-Russian program including the Chicago premiere of American Israeli violist Atar Arad's string quartet arrangement of Prokofiev's Toccata op. 11. Plus Prokofiev's Overture on Hebrew Themes, Glinka's Grand Sextet in E flat major, and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence.

Live at 5:45pm: We bring you the season premiere of Rush Hour Concerts @ St. James Cathedral with CSO cellist Brant Taylor and pianist Kuang-Hao Huang of Roosevelt U in Rachmaninoff's Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor, Op. 19. The brief, free concerts continue through August and are open the public -- in person or on WFMT!

At 6PM: On this season’s final The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center Recital we celebrate our city of Chicago. Music about Chicago, or set in this city, is found in operettas, musicals and both classic and popular song. Our program opens with “The Sports of Gay Chicago” from Jerome Kern’s Showboat. And we’ll also hear two duets from The Duchess of Chicago (did you know there was a duchess in Chicago?) by the Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman. Serious art songs by Chicago composers, two important arias from William Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge and much more. The recital ends-as it must-with a rousing rendition of “Bear Down, Chicago Bears.”

Today on the Lyric Opera of Chicago 2012-2013 season encore broadcast series: Donizetti's comic masterwork "Don Pasquale" with a fine young cast: Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, Marlis Petersen, René Barbera, and Corey Crider. Stephen Lord is the excellent conductor. 12 noon to 3 pm. Enjoy! Photo: Dan Rest

Tonight at 10, we bring you part 2 of 2 of Studs Terkel's wonderful conversation with his friend, film critic Roger Ebert, recorded in December 1996. They talk about silent movies, favorite movies, movie soundtracks, the impact of videocassette and rentals on movies, great writers and thinkers of film and Ebert’s recently published book, Roger Ebert's Book of Film. We rebroadcast this program in remembrance of Ebert, who died in April.

Live at 4pm: Pianist David Fray is in town performing the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 25 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Jaap van Zweden, and he'll join us in the studio for a live "Impromptu" this afternoon with material from “Bach David Fray,” his latest CD on Virgin Classics.

Tonight at 9, we bring you a special "Rite of Spring" anniversary documentary. The ballet's 100 year shock-wave is traced from its initial explosion on May 29th 2013 right up to the present time. First-hand recollections of the famous first night from Dame Marie Rambert, who was one of the dancers, and Igor Stravinsky, who was in the audience, lead through to comments on the work's enduring power from performers of today -- dancer Dame Monica Mason, dancer Deborah Bull, choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot, and conductors Valery Gergiev, the late Sir Colin Davis, and Bernard Keeffe -- as well as dance re-constructionist Millicent Hodson and musicologist and historian Geoffrey Norris. Narrated and produced by Jon Tolansky.

Music from the New Mariinsky at 2:30pm: On May 2, St. Petersburg's newly-expanded Mariinsky Theater opened with a gala concert of operatic and ballet highlights conducted by theater director Valery Gergiev. Joined by luminaries including Placido Domingo and Anna Netrebko, Gergiev and the Mariinsky orchestra drew heavily, though not exclusively, on Russian scores by Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. The concert features the Coronation Scene from "Boris Godunov," portions of "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Rite of Spring," and scenes from some Tchaikovsky operas that are little known in the West. Made available vie the European Broadcasting Union, the concert is being aired today to herald the new performance venue and as a highlight of our Russian-music month.

Did you miss seeing Anna Netrebko as Mimi and Joseph Calleja as Rodolfo in Lyric Opera of Chicago's "La bohème" this season? Hear Puccini's masterpiece during today's Lyric Opera broadcast 12 noon to 2:30 p.m., conducted by Emmanuel Villaume, following a live "Introductions" from our own studio featuring 18-year-old Music Institute of Chicago and Adlai E. Stevenson High School recent graduate Michaela Wellems! As the opening night live broadcast from Lyric was with a different lead cast, this is the *first* broadcast with Netrebko and Calleja. Enjoy! Joseph Calleja (Rodolfo), Anna Netrebko (Mimì), and Lucas Meachem (Marcello) wine and dine at Café Momus Photo: Dan Rest/Lyric Opera of Chicago

Did you miss Anna Netrebko as Mimi in Lyric Opera of Chicago's La Bohème this season? Hear Puccini's masterpiece again during today's Lyric Opera rebroadcast at 12pm, followed by a live Introductions from our own studio featuring 18 year old Music Institute of Chicago and Adlai E. Stevenson High School recent graduate Michaela Wellems! Puccini's LA BOHÈMEJoseph Lim (Schaunard), Andrea Silvestrelli (Colline), Joseph Calleja (Rodolfo), Anna Netrebko (Mimì), and Lucas Meachem (Marcello) wine and dine at Café Momus Photo: Dan Rest/Lyric Opera of ChicagoWhether it's your first opera or you've seen it a hundred times before, Puccini's magic never fails to cast its entrancing spell! Onstage now through March 28:or 312-332-2244