Ravinia 2021 - Issue 2

SARAH BLESENER (DICHTER); ERIC RYAN ANDERSON (MARSALIS) MISHA DICHTER, piano Misha Dichter was born in Shanghai in 1945—his Polish parents having fled Europe at the outbreak of WorldWar II—and grew up in Los Angeles, where he began piano lessons at age 6. In addition to concentrated studies in the German Classical style with Aube Tzerko, a pupil of Artur Schnabel, Dichter also delved into the Russian Romantic tradition under the tutelage of Rosina Lhevinne at Juilliard. At age 20 he won Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competi- tion with repertoire reflecting these dual influ- ences—Schubert and Beethoven, Rachmani- noff and Stravinsky—catapulting him into an international performing career. Within two years Dichter had performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with both Erich Lein- sdorf and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood (broadcast live on NBC) and Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philhar- monic, and appearances with such top Euro- pean ensembles as the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the principal London orchestras, as well as many more leading American orchestras, soon fol- lowed. In addition to collaborations with his wife, Cipa, on piano duo recitals, Misha fre- quently performs chamber music alongside the likes of the Argus, Cleveland, Emerson, Guarneri, Harlem, and St. Petersburg String Quartets, as well as violinists Itzhak Perlman and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and cellists Lynn Harrell and Yo-Yo Ma. Dichter’s dis- cography reflects his broad musical interests, from the complete piano concertos of Brahms and Liszt to Brahms’s solo works, Beethoven’s piano sonatas, and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapso- dies, plus major scores by Chopin, Mussorg- sky, Schubert, Schumann, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky. He won the Grand Prix Interna- tional du Disque Liszt in 1998 for his album of the composer’s piano transcriptions, and his first recording with Cipa, a three-disc set of Mozart’s complete works for four-hands pia- no, was named a 2005 Record of the Year by Music Web International . Off the performance stage, Dichter regularly holds master classes at such institutions as Juilliard, Curtis, East- man, Yale, Harvard, and the Aspen Festival. Tonight marks Misha Dichter’s 48th season and 75th performance at Ravinia, where he first appeared in 1968. 7:30 PM SUNDAY, JULY 25, 2021 JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA featuring special guest BRANFORD MARSALIS BRANFORD MARSALIS, special guest, tenor saxophone TED NASH, alto saxophone SHERMAN IRBY, alto saxophone VICTOR GOINES, tenor saxophone WALTER BLANDING, tenor saxophone PAUL NEDZELA, baritone saxophone RYAN KISOR, trumpet KENNY RAMPTON, trumpet MARCUS PRINTUP, trumpet JACOB MELSHA, trombone VINCENT GARDNER, trombone CHRIS CRENSHAW, trombone DAN NIMMER, piano CARLOS HENRIQUEZ, bass OBED CALVAIRE, drums PAVILION Don’t miss the performance by the Ravinia Jazz Scholars and Mentors from 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. at the Carousel Stage! The Ravinia Jazz Scholars are talented Chicago high school students who have a passion for jazz, mentored by an ensemble of the city’s finest musicians in the field to deepen their skills for performances, future professional studies, and music careers. JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA The resident ensemble of Jazz at Lincoln Center since 1988, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra comprises 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today. Led by Wynton Marsalis, who has been managing and artistic director since 1991, the orchestra performs a vast repertoire, rang- ing from original and commissioned works to rare, historic compositions by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Thelonious Monk, May Lou Williams, Billy Strayhorn, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus, Chick Corea, Oliver Nelson, and many others. Alongside symphony orchestras, ballet companies, local students, and an ever-expanding roster of guest artists, the JLCO has toured to over 300 cities across six continents—recently winning “Best Big Band” honors in the DownBeat Readers’ Poll for four years running—and regularly performs and leads educational events at its home in New York, across the United States, and around the globe. The JLCO is featured on over a dozen recordings, including Portraits by El- lington (1992), The Fire of the Fundamentals (1994), Big Train (1999), Don’t Be Afraid: The Music of Charles Mingus (2005), Congo Square (2007), and Vitoria Suite (2010). Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Blue Engine Records has made a deep archive of recorded concerts widely available since its launch in 2015 with Live in Cuba , featuring the JLCO’s historic performance in Havana. Subse- quent releases have included Big Band Holidays (2015), The Abyssinian Mass (2016), The Music of John Lewis and the JLCO’s Handful of Keys (2017), Una Noché con Ruben Blades (2018), and Betty Carter’s The Music Never Stops (2019), as well as the official soundtrack to Bolden and a recording of Marsalis’s Swing Symphony with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and JLCO. The ensemble has been instrumental in presenting many of Marsalis’s classical works, including his oratorios Blood on the Fields (which won a Pulitzer Prize) and All Rise , as well as his ballet scores Jump Start and Jazz , Sweet Release , and Ghost Story . The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra first performed at Ravinia in 1998 and tonight makes its sixth appearance at the festival. BRANFORD MARSALIS From his initial recognition as a young lion of jazz, Branford Marsalis has spent four de- cades in the spotlight as an instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and educator. In addi- tion to winning three Grammys, among many other awards, he has been honored as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. Growing up in New Orleans, the eldest son of pianist Ellis Marsalis, Branford was quickly drawn into music alongside siblings Wynton, Delfeayo, and Jason. He formed the Branford Marsalis Quartet in 1986, and for more than 30 years the ensemble has been his primary canvas, boasting a broad stylistic range across numerous albums, most recently The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul . For just as long, Marsalis has also extended his musicianship into classical contexts, fre- quently appearing as a soloist with such or- chestras as the Chicago, Detroit, Düsseldorf, and North Carolina Symphonies and the Boston Pops, performing works by Copland, Debussy, Ibert, Mahler, Milhaud, Rorem, Vaughan Williams, and Villa-Lobos. Collab- orations with Sting and guest performances with the Grateful Dead are highlights across other genres, and Marsalis has earned Dra- ma Desk and Tony Award nominations work his work creating or curating music for the acclaimed Broadway revivals of Children of a Lesser God (2018), A Raisin in the Sun (2014), and Fences (2010). His screen credits include original music composed for Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues , The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks , and most recently Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom , the Netflix film adaptation of Pulit- zer Prize winner August Wilson’s play. In ad- dition to leading workshops throughout the United States and internationally, Marsalis regularly shares his experience at Michigan State, San Francisco State, and North Caroli- na Central Universities, where he has formed extended teaching relationships. After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. established the “Musi- cians’ Village” residential community in New Orleans, where the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music serves youth and musicians battling poverty and social injustice. Branford Marsa- lis first played Ravinia in 1989 and is return- ing for his fifth concert at the festival. RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 24 – AUGUST 15, 2021 34 I ; I I