Ravinia 2021 - Issue 1

THERESA WAY (ALSOP); ERIC RUDD (MCGILL); TODD ROSENBERG (OSORIO); TIMOTHY GREENFIELD-SANDERS (MIDORI); TERRELL MULLIN (ERIVO) Among the guest soloists joining Marin Alsop onstage during her first season as chief conductor and curator are (counterclockwise from below) Anthony McGill, July 23, aligning with Alsop’s experience with jazz and contemporary classical music in Copland’s Clarinet Concerto; Jorge Federico Osorio, July 9, with the Mexican-American pianist welcoming Alsop’s return to his adopted hometown in the opening of the residency; violinist Midori, July 16, taking a night during her week on the Ravinia Steans Music Institute faculty to share the artistry that earned her the Kennedy Center Honors; and Tony/ Grammy/Emmy winner Cynthia Erivo, July 18, with songs made famous by Legendary Women’s Voices. [ Ed.: This illustrates the volume of program- ming iterations between last and this summer— an evening with the Requiem was at one time planned to replace a program that could not be shifted to the 2021 season. This program was never publicly announced. Additionally, a week before going to press, the originally announced chamber version of the Mahler symphony was replaced by the composer’s full score. ] While some frustration and even a little anger over the need for changes would have been perfectly under- standable, Alsop, who is known for her artistic flexibility, simply chuckled about them and called it an “accep- tance process.” “You hang on to those pieces that you are dying to do with the Chicago Symphony,” she said, “and then you realize, ‘Okay, this is not happening. How can I—the famous COVID word—pivot? How can we save a great season and do some- thing exciting?’ ” In shuffling and reshuffling the programs, Alsop worked closely with Haydon and two other members of Ravinia’s artistic staff, senior artistic producer Erik Soderstrom and asso- ciate producer Hinano Ishii. Haydon and Alsop had not met previously, but the Ravinia president said he has long followed her career and has been a big fan. Even though he often had to be the bearer of bad news, such as a soloist who couldn’t get a visa to trav- el, Haydon said the two worked well together, communicating via phone, Zoom, and email. “She’s a very collab- orative, creative partner,” he said. “She has a lot of great ideas, and she is also a great listener.” ALSOP’S RAVINIA POST is not her only new title. She has undergone several transitions in the past cou- ple of years. She took over as chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in the fall of 2019, and was recently named music director of National Orchestral In- stitute at the University of Maryland, a summer program for elite young musicians with concerts at the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, VA. Her 14-year music director- ship with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the longest and arguably the most visible position of her career so far, wrapped up at the end of the 2020–21 season. She will become music director laureate, leading three sets of concerts each year. “I’ve got- ten a lot accomplished that I hoped to do,” she said. “And I think the orchestra—well, before COVID—was sound- ing fantastic. I’m happy to be leaving the orchestra in a very good place.” In addition, she stepped down as music director of the São Paulo State Symphony in Brazil at the end of 2019, overlapping her Vienna post by several months. “So, for one minute, I was doing three orchestras, which is insane,” she said. While Alsop, in her career that stretches back to the 1980s, has always made a point of spending quality time in each conducting post she has held, she has also been conscious of not wanting to stay too long. “Change is both exciting and challenging—always,” she said. “For me, connecting so deeply to a community, connecting so deeply to an orchestra, it just doesn’t go away overnight. I can’t let go of those relationships right away.” To help ease the departures, she often has taken a title like “laureate conductor” and returned regularly for at least the first few years. As for starting a new job, she deals with each situation differently. Adding a challenge in Vienna, for example, has been the language. She begins each re- hearsal in German but inevitably ends up in English. “That’s how it goes,” she said with a chuckle. A handful of the musicians do not speak English, so makes a point of speaking to them in German, a language she studied in her 30s while music director of the Colorado Symphony. Because German was the first language of so many im- portant composers, she thought it was a good for a conductor to know, and that decision has proved helpful now. “I’ve been working on my German,” she said, “and it has been coming back. It’s so much fun. I absolutely love learning languages. I’m hopeful in a year or two, I’ll be pretty fluent.” The transition into her position at Ravinia is much easier, because she al- ready has a considerable history at the festival. After her first appearances in 2002–5, she returned in 2018 and 2019 to serve as curator of the extended celebration of the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth. “I know the orchestra well,” she said, “and I have so much admiration and respect for them. I know the venue. I love the setting. It’s so idyllic. So, I have that advantage already going into it.” After a one-year layoff because of the intercession of COVID-19 and all the challenges in getting ready for 2021, she is raring to raise her baton July 9 on the Chicago Symphony’s opening night. “It’s going to be so wonderful to be live again,” she said, “and sharing music outdoors.” Kyle MacMillan served as classical music critic for the Denver Post from 2000 through 2011. He currently freelances in Chicago, writing for such publications and websites as the Chicago Sun- Times , Early Music America , Opera News , and Classical Voice of North America . RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 1 – JULY 23, 2021 16