Ravinia 2019, Issue 1, Week 2

LINCOLN TRIO Borrowing the nickname of its home state, the Lincoln Trio was formed in 2003 by violinist De- sirée Ruhstrat, cellist David Cunliffe, and pianist Marta Aznavoorian—each an internationally recognized performer. Ruhstrat has performed throughout the United States and Europe, ap- pearing at the White House and with the Berlin Radio Orchestra on worldwide broadcasts, Cun- liffe has toured as a member of the Balanescu Quartet and performed with the BBC and Royal Scottish Orchestras, and Aznavoorian has ap- peared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and at the Kennedy Center and Sydney Opera House. The trio has performed across the United States on the Indianapolis Beethoven Chamber Music, Lane Concert, and Dame Myra Hess Me- morial Concert Series; Music in the Loft; and at Le Poisson Rouge and Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in addition to frequent appearances on clas- sical radio stations, including a live broadcast on WFMT of a world premiere in commemoration of the station’s 60th anniversary. A number of works have been written specially for the Lincoln Trio, including Ravinia-commissioned works for the Lincoln Bicentennial, seven works by mem- bers of the Chicago Composers Consortium, and most recently an award-winning work by AS- CAP award winner Conrad Tao. This passion for new music inspired the trio’s debut album, Nota- ble Women , featuring works by Joan Tower, Lera Auerbach, Stacy Garrop, Augusta Read Thomas, Laura Schwendinger, and Grammy- and Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Jennifer Higdon. For the Naxos label, the trio collaborated on a criti- cally acclaimed recording of the chamber version of James Whitbourn’s Annelies , the choral setting of the diary of Anne Frank, which they gave the Chicago premiere of at Ravinia in 2013. The trio’s most recent album, Trios from Our Homelands , featuring works by Rebecca Clarke, Arno Baba- janian, and Frank Martin, was nominated for the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance, and the trio is in the midst of performing all of Beethoven’s piano trios at Ravinia, completing the cycle in 2020 for the composer’s 250th. The Lincoln Trio made its Ravinia debut in 2008 and returns tonight for its 12th season. 7:00 PM SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 2019 PAVILION RICHARD MARX –Intermission– RICK SPRINGFIELD † † Ravinia debut RICHARD MARX As a performer, songwriter and producer, Rich- ard Marx has had innumerable highlights over his nearly three-decade-long career. The Chica- go native has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide, starting with his eponymous debut, which charted up to number eight and spawned four top-five singles, including the number-one smash “Hold on to the Nights,” with “Don’t Mean Nothing” earning him a Grammy nomi- nation for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. Its follow-up, 1989’s Repeat Offender, was even more successful, reaching the summit of Bill- board ’s top 200 albums chart and going qua- druple-platinum on the strength of its two number-one singles, “Satisfied” and “Right Here Waiting.” When both Rush Street (1991), with the number-one adult contemporary chart darlings “Keep Coming Back” and “Hazard,” and Paid Vacation (1994), also featuring a number-one AC hit in “Now and Forever,” went platinum, Marx achieved a seven-year string of triumphs that rivaled any in pop-rock music history. For many artists, that might have been enough to rest laurels on, but Marx then launched into a second successful career as a song- writer and producer with songs like “To Where You Are,” the first hit single from Josh Groban’s debut album, and the N*Sync smash “This I Promise You.” He earned a Song of the Year Grammy in 2004 for co-authoring Luther Vandross’s “Dance with My Father,” and he has also written with such artists as Jennifer Nettles, Sara Bareilles and Vince Gill. All told, Marx has been party to 14 number-one singles, including Keith Urban’s “Long Hot Summer,” across his guises as a performer and songwriter/ producer, making him one of only a handful of artists who have had chart-topping hits in each of the past four decades. Marx’s last album of all new material, My Own Best Enemy (2004), featured the hits “When You’re Gone” and “Ready to Fly,” and his 2010 hits compilation Stories to Tell produced a top-20 AC hit in “When You Loved Me.” He most recently released Beautiful Goodbye (2014), with “Whatever We Started” charting as a single. Richard Marx first played Ravinia in 1998 and tonight makes his first return to the festival. JUNE 10 – JUNE 16, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 95