Ravinia 2023 Issue 1

MICHAEL BLANK Two to Michael Feinstein and Jean-Yves Thibaudet get to the heart of Gershwin and the gamut of American song “TWO PIANOS,” a collaboration between Michael Feinstein and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, takes its subti- tle—“Who Could Ask for Anything More?”—from a timeless George Gershwin lyric. But this program of piano duos, solos, and song could take its cue from Stephen Sondheim, in that it promises to offer “something for everyone.” But Gershwin is “the main bond,” Feinstein told Ravinia in a recent phone interview, “that straddling of popular song and concert music, the embrace of different musical styles that somehow have a through-line and continuity. We’ve put together a program that features a lot of Gersh- win pieces, the sorts of things that are delightful and easily assimilated by the audience, but are uniquely Gersh- win and have that essence of excite- ment and currency that his music still contains 100 years later.” The “Two Pianos” repertoire will include what Feinstein calls “crowd pleasers,” including “a big chunk” of Rhapsody in Blue , along with less- er-known works such as the “Jasbo Brown Blues” from Porgy and Bess and “Sleepless Night.” Feinstein and Thibaudet are cele- brated artists who fall under the “need no introduction” banner (neither are strangers to Ravinia, having been reg- ular guests since the early ’90s), but that would deny them their consider- able props. Feinstein, an Emmy- and multi-Grammy-nominated pianist/ singer, found his true calling as a historian and archivist of the Great American Songbook. Ira Gershwin hired him to catalog the Gershwin archives at the age of 20. Onstage, he spins revelatory, spellbinding “behind the music” tales behind the classic tunes of George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and others. Offstage, he established the Carmel, IN–based Great American Songbook Foundation, which marked its 15th RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JUNE 6 – JULY 2, 2023 6 I