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ORCHESTRA CONCERTS
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R A V I N I A F A M I L Y F U N G U I D E
8:00 p.m. Thursday, August 9
Pavilion
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
James Conlon,
conductor
Garrick Ohlsson,
piano
Igor Stravinsky:
Suite from
Pulcinella
Richard Strauss:
Suite from
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Piano Concerto No. 20
Even though Richard Strauss and
Igor Stravinsky lived during the 20th
century, around the same time as
your grandparents, the music of
theirs you’ll hear tonight might sound
older—
a lot
older. That’s because they
wrote the music for stories that were
from more than 200 years before
either of them were born! In fact, to
get inspiration, they looked over a lot
of music from that time, but they had
very different experiences doing so.
Strauss thought the music he was
trying to mimic was really boring, so
he just borrowed parts of the style
and mostly wrote in his own famous
type of storytelling music. (Strauss
wrote a lot of operas, which like musi-
cals tell stories with songs, and he’s
also famous for “tone poems” like Don
Juan on the previous concert, which
tell stories with only instrumental
music.) Stravinsky, on the other hand,
loved the music he was research-
ing, and it ended up changing the
way he wrote music for the rest of
his life. Can you imagine something
new to you changing your life like
that? Maybe after hearing a few CSO
concerts, you’ll want to be a musician
like them!
7:30 p.m. Saturday, August 11
Pavilion
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
James Conlon,
conductor
Nadine Sierra,
soprano
Matthew Polenzani,
tenor
Gioachino Rossini:
Overture to
The Barber of Seville
Gaetano Donizetti:
“Lucia, perdona”
from
Lucia di Lammermoor
Gioachino Rossini:
Overture to
Semiramide
Act I ballet from
William Tell
Gaetano Donizetti:
“Il dolce suono”
from
Lucia di Lammermoor
“Tombe degli avi miei”
from
Lucia di Lammermoor
Gioachino Rossini:
Overture to
William Tell
Tonight’s conductor, James Conlon,
has spent a lot of his career leading
operas. He has done it all around the
world, including at Ravinia while he
was the music director of the CSO’s
concerts here for 11 years. He is still
the music director of one of the most
important opera houses in the world
(in Los Angeles, California), and he
also frequently conducts orchestra
concerts in Italy. Those two parts of
his life come together on this pro-