Ravinia 2023 Issue 4

CICERO RODRIGUES (MILLS); GRAHAM FIELDER (BLUES TRAVELER) I I I ; I RUFUS WAINWRIGHT The son of folk singers Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, Rufus Wainwright began to play piano at age 6 performed on concert tours withThe McGarrigle Sisters and Family in his teens. After graduating from the Millbrook School in New York, he pursued classical music studies at Montreal’s McGill University before expanding to pop and rock performance, recording a series of demos that culminated in his acclaimed 1998 epon- ymous debut album. In addition to making several year-end “best of ” lists, Rufus Wain- wright won a Juno Award for Best Alternative Album. His 2001 follow-up, Poses , was sim- ilarly lauded, and it also became a Billboard number-one Heatseeker. Wainwright’s cover of The Beatles’ “Across the Universe” for the I Am Sam film soundtrack was included as a bonus track, and around the same time he contributed a rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” to the Shrek soundtrack. Follow- ing his seminal Want albums in 2003 (volume one) and 2004 (volume two), Wainwright had another banner year in 2007 between his Grammy-nominated live album Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall , featuring music from his Judy Garland tribute concerts, and Release the Stars , his highest-charting studio album to date. His first opera, Prima Donna , premiered at the Manchester International Festival in 2009, and the following year Wainwright was commissioned by the San Francisco Sym- phony to adapt his settings of Shakespeare’s sonnets into an orchestral song cycle, which he performed at Ravinia with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2011. A recording was released in 2016. Hadrian —Wainwright’s second opera, though he had begun compos- ing it before Prima Donna —was premiered by the Canadian Opera Company in 2018 with Thomas Hampson in the title role. The Grammy- and Juno-nominated album Unfol- low the Rules —its title track written for the 2018 film Here and Now —appeared in 2020, and in June his discography grew to include Folkocracy , which features guest vocals on nearly every track, ranging from his sisters to Andrew Bird, David Byrne, Brandi Carlile, and John Legend, among many others. Rufus Wainwright has made four other appearanc- es at Ravinia between 2004 and 2014 and to- night gives one of the first performances of Want Symphonic. LEE MILLS A five-time winner of the Solti Foundation’s US Career Assistance Award and Musical America ’s New Artist of the Month for March 2022, conductor LeeMills was recently in resi- dence with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, work- ing with music director Enrique Mazzola to prepare the company’s production of Verdi’s Don Carlos . While associate conductor of the Seattle Symphony from 2019 to 2022, heled dozens of performances with the orchestra, including the 2020 Season Opening Gala on Seattle Symphony Live, as well as multiple album recording sessions. Highlights also included stepping in at the last minute for Thomas Dausgaard to conduct Hanna Lash’s world premiere double-harp concerto The Peril of Dreams and Beach’s Gaelic Symphony in November 2021. Before taking that post, Mills was selected by the League of American Orchestras to lead the Nashville Symphony at the 2018 Bruno Walter National Conductors Preview, and in 2017 he was a semifinalist in both the Sir Georg Solti and the Opera Royal de Wallonie-Liege International Conduct- ing Competitions. Working with conductor David Robertson in 2014, Mills was assistant conductor of Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the USA and also participated in the US premiere of Cage’s Thirty Pieces for Five Orchestras with the Saint Louis Sym- phony. That same year, Mills also became as- sistant conductor of the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra—until 2016, when he was named its and there he resident conductor through 2019—where he established Vibe Sinfônica in partnership with nightlife producer The Week Group in São Paulo, bringing classical music to new listeners in unusual settings, such as a performance of Vivaldi’s music for a crowd of 10,000 EDM fans. In addition to his regular appearances with the Brazilian and Seattle Symphonies, Mills has conducted the Los Angeles, Naples, and Rochester Philhar- monics; Baltimore, Milwaukee, National, and San Antonio Symphonies; and the São Pau- lo State Symphony, among other ensembles. In 2011 he was a conducting fellow with the Baltimore Symphony while completing artist diplomas at the Peabody Institute, and during the following two summers he was a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. Lee Mills is making his Ravinia and Chicago Symphony Orches- tra debuts PAVILION 7:00 PM SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 2023 BLUE MONSTERS TOUR BIG HEAD TODD & THE MONSTERS –Intermission– BLUES TRAVELER BLUES TRAVELER In 1987, the four original members of Blues Traveler—John Popper, Chandler Kinchla, the late Bobby Sheehan, and Brendan Hill— gathered in a Princeton, NJ, basement and planted the seeds for the band that would release more than a dozen albums, including three platinum sellers and one six-times plati- num mega-hit. Over that time span, the band has played more than 2,000 live shows and saw its song “Run-Around” become the lon- gest-charting radio single in Billboard history and earn them a Grammy Award. They also lined up numerous screen credits, including the feature films Blues Brothers 2000 , Kingpin , and Wildflowers as well as the TV shows Sat- urday Night Live , Austin City Limits , VH1’s Behind the Music , and The Late Show with David Let- terman , where they held the record for most appearances by a musical guest. From the suburbs of New Jersey, Blues Traveler moved to New York in the late ’80s, where they became part of a jam- band scene that packed clubs like Nightingale’s, McGoverns, and Kenny’s Castaways, sharing bills with the likes of the Spin Doctors and Phish. Repped by Bill Graham early on, the band cultivated a live reputation that led to a record contract with A&M, which released its eponymous debut in 1990. Following Travelers andThieves (1991) and Save His Soul (1993), Blues Traveler found its wa- tershed moment in 1994 with four , featuring the seminal singles “Run-Around” and “Hook.” Af- ter 1997’s Straight on Till Morning , tragedy struck with the passing of Sheehan—Kinchla’s brother Tad was enlisted to fill his shoes, and Ben Wilson joined as keyboardist, a role Sheehan had long sought to add. They debuted on 2001’s Bridge . Independent releases Truth Be Told (2003), ¡ Bas- tardos! (2005), Suzie Cracks the Whip (2012), and Blow Up the Moon (2015) followed, with North Hollywood Shootout , featuring special guest Bruce Willis, splitting the bunch in 2008. Hurry Up & Hang Around , was released in late 2018 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the group’s formation. The quintet’s latest disc, Traveler’s Blues , was nominated for Best Traditional Blues Album at the 2022 Grammys, bringing their 35-year journey full circle. Blues Traveler first played Ravinia in 2002 and is making its fourth appearance at the festival tonight, its first in nearly 20 years. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 41