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Table of Contents
S U M M E R 2 0 1 8
PROGRAM NOTES
musicians are onstage for its per-
formance, including the orchestra,
a marching band, two choirs, and
almost two dozen vocal soloists. So
it might not surprise you that this
will be the first time that the CSO has
played it as well as the first time that
it has been performed at Ravinia.
But the style of the music and some
of the things the choirs and solo-
ists are singing about might seem
familiar. If you saw a performance of
the musical
Jesus Christ Superstar
on
TV or at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
this spring,
Mass
could remind you of
that because it was written around
the same time, when the rock music
that became popular in the late 1960s
started to also become popular on
Broadway and in other theatrical
music. And like a lot of music from
that time,
Mass
questioned what
was normal in our culture, especially
about religious faith. In the middle of
Mass
, the main character (called the
Celebrant), who is leading a religious
service at a church, starts wondering
if he needs his faith. How hard would
that be, to wonder if you should keep
doing something that you’ve been
doing for your whole life?
(Want some more fun facts?
Mass
was written almost 50 years ago
for the opening of one of the most
important theaters in the world, the
Kennedy Center (named for former
president John F. Kennedy) in our
country’s capital, Washington, DC.
And some of the original lyrics were
written by Stephen Schwartz, who
later became famous as the compos-
er and lyricist for the record-breaking
musical
Wicked
.)
8:00 p.m. Wednesday, August 1
Pavilion
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Emil de Cou,
conductor
E.T.
:
The Extra-Terrestrial
8:00 p.m. Thursday, August 2
Pavilion
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Emil de Cou,
conductor
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Sometimes, for reasons that can’t be
simply explained, two people just
naturally work well together. You’ll
have seen it earlier this year when
Gustavo Dudamel and Yuja Wang
take the stage together with the CSO.
But one combination that has been
going on for even longer than either
of them have been alive is the com-
poser John Williams writing music for
movies directed by Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg practically invented
what we call “blockbusters” (mean-
ing movies with a lot of action that
people would see many times and
often talk about for weeks, months,