Ravinia 2021 - Issue 4

“IN ACTUAL PERSON LIVE FOR REAL” —equal parts quirky and on-the- nose, the name Ben Folds chose for his first domestic tour since the onset of the pandemic nevertheless captures one of the main appeals of his return to Ravinia on September 18. Another is that, although it’s the sixth date on the tour, it’s the multi-platinum selling singer-songwriter’s first of the lot where his solo piano is backed by an orchestra, and he has been increasingly wont to do since creating a piano concerto in 2014 and becoming an artistic advisor to the Kennedy Center in 2017. Connecting by phone with Ravinia Magazine from his home in Nashville before the start of the tour, he said he anticipates performing will feel like “the normal thing to do” when he takes the stage with the Ravinia Festival Orchestra. “I just finished up a tour in Australia. Having been playing shows for my whole adult life, I just kind of walked back out, played, and it felt fine. It is like riding a bike; I skimmed my knee for the first 20 minutes.” Life was anything but normal when Folds chose to quarantine in Australia. To make the best out of this horrible situation gripping the world, Folds threw him- self into the creative process. He broadcast a live weekly online show, he worked on a new album, he invited people to submit rhyming couplets from which he would create a song, and he launched Lightning Bugs , a podcast about creativity in which he talks to his guests about their creative processes. Guests have in- cluded Oscar winner and Late Show with Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste; Emmy, Tony and Grammy-nominated singer Sara Bareilles; comedian Bob Saget; and children’s author and illustrator Mo Willems. He also wrote a piano ballad, “2020,” that, in less than three minutes—and in waltz time, no less—encapsulates a tragically epochal year (“We’re not repeating history / Just the parts that sucked / 2020, what the actual fuck?”) Folds does not talk in what he calls “snack-sized” sound bites. He speaks expansively about creativity, a mercurial process. We spoke about why waltzes are incredible, the pitfalls of writing a song about Rudy Giuliani’s disastrous Four Seasons Landscaping press conference, and why arts education is essential to our post-pandemic restart. Do you consider this a moment to reintroduce yourself to the audience after more than a year of not being able to play in front of them? I tend toward the understated. Life has been dramatic, and that will probably come through. I always just try to do what feels right in the moment. If someone dies, you play a song differently than you would have if a child was born, you play it differently if you’re hungry. We’re going to get in a space and that situation and make it. I’ve played gigs in my adult career at Starbucks. I dressed up like a barista and I sat in a corner on the piano and played. That didn’t feel different to me from playing with a symphony orchestra in a classic space. And that’s weird, but it’s all the same to me. Playing the show the day after 9/11, yeah, that was weird. Playing the day after Trump was elected; that was weird. Things happen that change the world and you feel it, but we’re still just there making music. I noticed in Australia differences I wouldn’t have thought about. After a certain amount of time of no live concerts, audiences were rusty. For the first 20 minutes, they were like, ‘How did we act again?’ Some of the apprehension was, one, they were spread out a little bit and were wearing masks. That creates a little bit of a muted atmosphere. Second, they seemed quieter than normal. But I was playing with orchestras, and the orchestra members felt like the audience was listening intently and taking in the moment. In Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play programs, it’s never been clearer that music matters. By Wynne Delacoma FOR MOST OF US , the word “Ravinia” conjures up images of a specific tiPe and place The time, summer; the place, Highland Park, 36 acres of lush lawns and towering trees with an open-air pavilion offering concerts ranging from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to King Crimson and The Zappa Band. But for decades, the Ravinia Festival’s reach has extended far beyond summertime and its north suburban campus. Every year Ravinia sends hundreds of musicians into Chicago Public Schools as well as classrooms in Highland Park, Waukegan, and North Chicago. What began in 1965 with the Women’s Board’s program of making lawn passes available to low-in- come music lovers has grown into Reach Teach Play, a year- round operation that reaches 75,000 children annually through a dozen distinct programs. While both Ravinia’s concert ticket sales and the annual support of its donors help underwrite those music education and engagement programs, each of the festival’s three boards hold signature fundraising events to further contribute to their oper- ation. For over a half-century, the gala hosted by the Women’s Board has been a visible fête at a CSO concert each summer; this year, the young professionals of the Associates Board bring their Music Matters Eenefit to the festivalȅs Jrounds for Must the second time. Normally a springtime event, the live fundraiser takes place on SeptePEerb Eefore the perforPance E\ Ben Folds with the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, where all attendees will be adding their support to Ravinia and Reach Teach Play. After an exceptionally challenging year and a half with classrooms convened remotely, the teachers and teaching artists involved with Reach Teach Play are an especial focus of the event. The teaching artists—musicians engaged by Ravinia to work in partner schools—take on a variety of roles. Some of them focus on gifted students, becoming mentors and leading master classes in jazz or classical music. Others belong to chamber ensembles that bring a unique performance to many schools. But some of the musicians devote their time to one Chi- cago elementary school. Working over a three-year period in a school that otherwise has no music program, these artists spend an hour every week in each kindergarten through third-grade RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 23