Standing in on the podium for the subscription program will be Alexander Polianichko, a former violinist with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic who studied conducting at that city's conservatory with Ilya Musin and joined the Kirov/Mariinsky Theater's conducting staff in 1988. He has extensive international experience leading opera, including guest-conducting appearances at the major companies of London, Paris, Berlin and Milan; his symphonic work includes stints with, among others, the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Hall_ Orchestra, London Philharmonic and Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

The subscription program remains as previously announced: Beethoven's Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus and Piano Concerto No. 1 (featuring soloist Piotr Anderszewski) and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. The "Beyond the Score" concert exploring Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony remains unchanged as well.

Replacing Chung for the Civic Orchestra concert will be Edwin Outwater, who recently took up a position as music director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra in Ontario. That program, Mahler's Symphony No. 1, remains as announced.

Chung, though he studied at the Mannes and Juilliard Schools in New York City, now performs relatively rarely in the U.S. Much of his career in recent years has been concentrated in France and Italy, where he has served as principal conductor of the Op_ra de Paris-Bastille and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome. He is currently music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.

Though he won't be in Chicago next month, Chung will conduct the San Francisco Symphony as announced in four concerts running January 24-27, that orchestra's management confirmed to PlaybillArts today. In those appearances, his first with the SFS in 25 years, he will conduct Mahler's First Symphony and Messiaen's L'Ascension.