Ravinia 2021 - Issue 4

STEPHANIE ALVAREX EWENS (NOYA) PAVILION 8:00 PM SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2021 IN ACTUAL PERSON LIVE FOR REAL TOUR BEN FOLDS RAVINIA FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA FRANCISCO NOYA, conductor † † Ravinia debut BEN FOLDS After stints with the band Majosha, as a ses- sion drummer in Nashville, and as a theater troupe actor in New York between the late ’80s and early ’90s, Ben Folds found himself back in his native North Carolina signing a record deal with bassist Robert Sledge and drummer Darren Jessee as the Ben Folds Five. Breaking from the mold of the pre- vailing angst-ridden rock of the rock of the time, the trio instead conjured up the power pop of the likes of Billy Joel and Elton John with punk-rock energy. The Ben Folds Five made their eponymous debut in 1995, catch- ing ears with the cult hit “Underground.” Among the rapt listeners was Epic Records, which released their breakthrough follow-up Whatever and Ever Amen in 1997. The single “Brick” emerged as the biggest hit from the internationally platinum-selling album, with “Battle of Who Could Care Less” and “Song for the Dumped” also finding fans widely. The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (1999) marked the last Ben Folds Five album until 2012’s top-10 record The Sound of the Life of the Mind . In the interim, Folds began work on solo recordings, issuing Rockin’ the Suburbs in late 2001. Over 2003–4 he created a trio of EPs (compiled in 2006 as Supersun- nyspeedgraphic: the LP ) and then revisited the piano trio format on the introspective top-20 hit Songs for Silverman (2005). After a staged online “leak” of Folds’s Way to Nor- mal in 2008, the disc became his best chart performer to date at number 11, catching ears with “You Don’t Know Me” (featuring Regina Spektor). The prank inspired his 2010 collab- orative album with Nick Hornby, Lonely Ave- nue . Folds’s most recent disc, So There (2015), featured his Concerto for Piano and Orches- tra alongside new pop songs. He has regularly performed with orchestras for more than a decade, and since 2017 he has been an artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. Folds published his first book, A Dream About Lightning Bugs , in 2019 and began a companion podcast se- ries, Lightning Bugs: Conversations With Ben Folds , earlier this year. Ben Folds first played Ravinia in 2004 and tonight makes his fourth appearance at the festival. FRANCISCO NOYA, conductor Currently music director of the Boston Civ- ic Symphony, Francisco Noya is a prominent figure in the New England music scene well versed in both symphonic and operatic rep- ertoire. He previously held the same position with the Longwood Symphony Orchestra in Boston, Symphony by The Sea in Manches- ter, and the New Philharmonia Orchestra in Newton, and between 1996 and 2020 he was the resident conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic. As a guest conductor, Noya has appeared with the Boston Pops and the Baltimore, Cape Cod, Nashville, Omaha, and San Antonio Symphonies, among oth- er American ensembles, as well as with or- chestras in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Spain, Italy, and Russia. In Venezuela, he has been a regular collaborator with El Sistema, leading both master classes and orchestral performances throughout the country, including frequent guest appearanc- es leading the Orquesta Académica of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Noya began his pro- fessional career in his native Venezuela as conductor of the Youth Orchestra of Valencia, one of the original ensembles of El Sistema. After earning advanced degrees in composi- tion and conducting from Boston University, he was appointed the assistant conductor of the Caracas Philharmonic and assistant to the music director of the Teatro Teresa Carreño, one of the top theaters in Latin America. Noya extended his career in the US as music director of the Empire State Youth Orchestra in Albany, NY, for 10 seasons, leading the en- semble on two European tours as well as in concerts at Carnegie Hall and Tanglewood. In addition to his extensive work as a conductor, he is also currently a faculty member of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where from 2008 to 2018 he was music director of the Berklee Contemporary Symphony Or- chestra, with which he was actively engaged in the exploration of cutting-edge orchestral repertoire. Francisco Noya is making his Ra- vinia debut. RAVINIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 7 – SEPTEMBER 24, 2021 58