Ravinia 2019, Issue 4, Week 8

8 RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 15 – JULY 28, 2019 MISSION STATEMENT OF THE RAVINIA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION Ravinia is an internationally renowned, not-for-pro t music festival that presents outstanding performances by the world’s greatest artists. Ravinia’s principal objectives are • to present performances of a full range of classical music in its open-air Pavilion and enclosed recital halls, by the world’s greatest composers and musicians, along with a variety of other kinds of light classical, jazz, and popular music; • to maintain a beautiful park that is welcoming to all and attractive to families in which the music experience is enhanced by a beautiful environment and excellent dining opportunities; • to enable gi ed young performers to study under great teachers and perform in concert settings; and • to develop broader and more diverse audiences for classical music through education and outreach programs and by maintaining a ordable ticket prices. Jennifer W. Steans Chairman Welz Kau man President & CEO We’re thrilled to welcome you to Ravinia , boasting events through September , including our continuing celebration of arguably America’s greatest musician, Leonard Bernstein. No argument here. We began our celebration of Bernstein in all his guises— composer, conductor, pianist, activist, father, television star, teacher—last season for his th birthday. So, a year later, we’re calling the series “Bernstein ,” for the pun of his age and the way schools label their “basic” or “introductory” classes. Not that Bernstein needs an introduction. If someone had written only West Side Story , that would be a big career. e classic movie is cer- tainly a great way to introduce symphonic mu- sic to new listeners, and Ravinia is showing the Best Picture winner with the Chicago Sympho- ny Orchestra, kicking o its annual summer residency, performing the score live. We are thrilled that the CSO, continuing to be as vital as ever to the cultural landscape of Chicago, is also entering a new eight-year extension of its more than -year relationship with Ravinia. In fact, the “basic” appeal of Ravinia is that it’s the perfect place for everyone to step out of their comfort zones to experience genres they haven’t tried before. With new concerts almost nightly, Ravinia seems tailor-made for today’s omnivorous audiences that have grown accus- tomed to curating their musical tastes across all genres through streaming services and the in-pocket jukeboxes we used to call phones. Curating Bernstein , the legend’s own nal (and only female) protégé Marin Alsop heads a veritable master class of great works, from the “Symphony of a ousand”—the outsized opus from Mahler, whose works were resuscitated by Bernstein—to Ravinia’s rst full presentations of Candide , which opens with the most treasured overture in music theater, and Trouble in Tahiti , his entertaining, one-act opera that reveals the cracks in the veneer of perfect suburbia, as well as his Songfest celebra- tion of American verse for the US Bicentennial and a showing of On the Waterfront , with the CSO performing his lone, Oscar-nominated score with the lm. Central to our celebration is a command encore of Bernstein’s massive missive Mass , which maneuvers artists onstage, from the Highland Park High School Marching Band to the great CSO—which played the piece for the rst time at Ravinia last year in what the Chicago Tribune hailed as one of the best concerts of . Equaling the redemptive power of Mass , a second concert from the Tribune ’s Top , Con- sidering Matthew Shepard , will also return—to mark the th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising—just months a er the body of the gay martyr’s remains have been laid to rest in the National Cathedral, more than years a er his brutal murder hastened Congress to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Ravinia will also present more than festi- val debuts, including Tash Sultana, Morrissey, Queen Latifah, Nickelback, and a man who so perfectly lls the bill of a Ravinia headliner, Lionel Richie, that people think he’s one of the longtime favorites returning this year, like Itzhak Perlman, Tony Bennett, and Sting, or the back-to-back pairings of Emanuel Ax and Ye m Bronfman with the CSO and Rafael Pa- yare for Brahms concertos. We’re also investing in more than premiere pieces, including the nal composition of the multi-media giant André Previn, performed by the legendary vocalist he composed it for, Renée Fleming. Nothing can be more Ravinia than the fact that this premiere occurs the same day as the festival debut of “Weird Al” Yankovic. And for the annual Ravinia Women’s Board Gala, the festival will host yet another addition to the CSO’s roster of illustrious guests, Oscar- and Grammy-winning stage and screen star Jennifer Hudson Bernstein also lends itself to the Ravin- iaMusicBox Experience Center, which will open in stages, beginning with our exciting new gathering place, the BMO Club, a roo op eatery and bar connecting the Experience Center to the rejuvenated Dining Pavilion via an observation bridge. In late July, the building’s Winnie and Bob Crawford Foyer and Ravinia Associates Board Gallery will open with the Grammy Museum’s Bernstein exhibit, featuring such priceless artifacts as the composer’s childhood piano, the desk where he wrote West Side Story , and the hair curling ma- chine that his father invented (with the hope that Leonard would use it to later steward the family business). e last phase, an immersive -D theater, will open this fall for students from Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play education programs, which serve , people in Cook and Lake Counties every year. One of our part- ner schools, Catalyst Circle Rock, will honor our decades-long dedication to the students on Chicago’s West Side by naming their newly rebuilt theater the Sistema Ravinia Auditori- um. It’s at Circle Rock that Ravinia piloted its El Sistema–based method of music education. Ravinia’s dedication to education does not end with graduation. We run our own post-graduate conservatory on campus, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute (RSMI), where the best young professional musicians immerse themselves in study and performances with the great artists who headline at Ravinia. is year we lost one of the titans who made RSMI possible, Ravinia Life Trustee Harrison Steans, to whose memory Ravinia is dedicating the season. Harrison, and his widow, Lois, exemplify the reason we call the supporters of North America’s oldest music festival “ e Ravinia Family.” Harrison introduced his own family to concerts at Ravinia, and now one of his three daughters, Jennifer, is chairman of the board. We thank all of our supporters who make it possible for families to introduce new listeners to live music at Ravinia, and we thank the mu- sic lovers who leave the house to support live music in an era when worlds of entertainment options are available with the push of a button. Nothing beats that social experience of thou- sands of people enjoying something together. at’s Ravinia . A MESSAGE FROM RAVINIA