Ravinia 2023 Issue 2

STEPHANIE GIRARD (COOKE); MARCO BORGGREVE (ARIEL); KATE LEMMON (NINOMIYA); SHERVIN LAINEZ (OUZOUNIAN); GRITTANI CREATIVE (KRAMER); SIMON PAULY (CHEN); RICHARD RODRIGUEZ (LIM) Coming Soon at Ravinia STEPHANIE GIRARD (COOKE); MARCO BORGGREVE (ARIEL); KATE LEMMON (NINOMIYA); SHERVIN LAINEZ (OUZOUNIAN); GRITTANI CREATIVE (KRAMER); SIMON PAULY (CHEN); RICHARD RODRIGUEZ (LIM) 8:00 PM WEDNESDAY, JULY 19 PAVILION CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MARIN ALSOP, conductor SASHA COOKE, mezzo soprano GUSTAV MAHLER: Blumine from Symphony No. 1 ALMA MAHLER: Four songs ( orch. David & Colin Matthews ) : Die stille Stadt Bei dir ist es traut Laue Sommernacht In meines Vaters Garten GUSTAV MAHLER: Symphony No. 5 Marin Alsop and twice Grammy-winning mezzo Sasha Cooke highlight the intense yet intimate music of Alma Mahler, suppressed by her husband Gustav after their marriage and the only record of her “rare gift of melody … weight of purpose and resolve” ( The Guardian ), bookended by Gustav’s own signature songful writing, including the “love poem” to Alma within his Fifth Symphony. 7:30 PM THURSDAY, JULY 20 BENNETT GORDON HALL ARIEL QUARTET AYANO NINOMIYA, violin KAREN OUZOUNIAN, cello HENRY KRAMER, piano JOSEPH HAYDN: Piano Trio No. 29 in E-flat major, H. XV:30 MAURICE RAVEL: Piano Trio FRANZ SCHUBERT: String Quartet in G major, D. 887 The Cleveland Quartet Award-winning Ariel Quartet and fellow acclaimed alumni of the RSMI Piano & Strings Program highlight final works in recognition of Miriam Fried’s 30th and final season in leadership of the globally renowned destination for young professional classical musicians to focus on advancing talents as collaborative artists. Each work shows the composer at the height of their imagination, with Haydn hinting at the dramatically wider soundstage of his pupil Beethoven, Ravel basking in the extreme ranges and playing techniques on the instruments, and Schubert adding his singular gift for song to strings. 8:00 PM FRIDAY, JULY 28 PAVILION CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MEI-ANN CHEN , conductor JEREMY DENK, piano FLORENCE PRICE: Ethiopia’s Shadow in America LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 AARON COPLAND: Symphony No. 3 Mei-Ann Chen , longtime music director of the Chicago Sinfonietta and a former Taki Alsop Conducting Fellow, returns to explore the American experience through Price’s three-part tone poem Ethiopia’s Shadow in America and Copland’s Third Symphony, sprinkled with hints of his famous Fanfare for the Comman Man . Back at Ravinia for the first time in a decade, Jeremy Denk lends his “unerring sense of dramatic structure and intuition for timing” ( Boston Globe ) to Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. 7:30 PM SATURDAY, AUGUST 5 PAVILION CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MARIN ALSOP, conductor YUNCHAN LIM, piano AUGUSTA READ THOMAS: Sun Dance LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”) SERGE RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 3 Marin Alsop sets up the CSO for an electric evening reminiscent of Ravinia’s “Gala of the Century” as Yunchan Lim , winner of the 2022 Van Cliburn Competition (the youngest ever in its history), makes his debut with Rachmaninoff ’s Third Piano Concerto—the vehicle of his victory that also earned him plaudits in the New York Times after his New York Philharmonic debut in May: “precise clarity and expansive reverie; vivid scenes and bursts of wit; endless and persuasive bendings of time … when I say he played like a dream, I mean something more literal.” Another powerful “third”—Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony—completes the program alongside Thomas’s Sun Dance , an agile and spirited ode to pastoral scenes. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 43