One of these will be Chicago’s next maestro

The successor to Riccardo Muti needs to emerge from next season’s guest conductors. But the list rolled out last night is hardly rich in promise. We’ve starred the current front-runner:

Guest conductor Michael Tilson Thomas returns to conduct the CSO’s first performances of his Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind on December subscription concerts. British conductor and composer Thomas Adès makes his CSO podium debut and conducts the first CSO performances of his Concerto for Piano featuring Kirill Gerstein.

Debut appearances for conductors Jane Glover, music director of Music of the Baroque; Lahav Shani, chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and music director designate of the Israel Philharmonic; Constantine Kitsopoulos, who directs the Festival of the Arts Boca, Chatham Opera and New York Grand Opera; and Fabien Gabel, music director of the Orchestr Symphonique de Québec.

Return appearances by renowned guest conductors Marin Alsop, Herbert Blomstedt, Adam Fischer, Edward Gardner, *Manfred Honeck, Marek Janowski, Philippe Jordan, Simone Young and Xian Zhang, as well as Edo de Waart in a program with three young prize-winning violinists.