Ravinia 2024 Issue 1

MARTIN THEATRE 1:30 PM SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 2024 THE KNIGHTS COLIN JACOBSEN, artistic director, violin ERIC JACOBSEN, artistic director, conductor AARON DIEHL TRIO AARON DIEHL, piano YASUSHI NAKAMURA, bass AARON KIMMEL, drums FARRENC Symphony No. 3 in G minor, op. 36 * IV. Finale: Allegro WILLIAMS Selections from Zodiac Suite * Aaron Diehl Trio –Intermission– BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 6 in F major, op. 68 (“Pastoral”) Allegro ma non troppo Andante molto mosso Scherzo: Allegro Allegro Finale * First performance at Ravinia Pianist Aaron Diehl fully embodies each of these attributes, and he has brought us deeply into the world of Mary Lou Williams (known as the “first lady of the jazz keyboard”) and her long-overlooked chamber orchestra version of her Zodiac Suite . Alongside Aaron, we’ve done a deep dive into the various aural and written sources that exist, which include Mary Lou’s own trio version; sev- eral handwritten parts and scores that had re- ceived various and mixed editing treatment; and a live recording from the premiere at Town Hall, an ill-fated outing that discouraged her from following up with more work in that form. The process has felt like both excavation and unveil- ing, and as we got to know the piece, the clarity of the writing, the intriguing blend of jazz and classical vocabularies, and the vivid colors and moods of these 12 character pieces (each dedi- cated to a different jazz musician representing a different astrological sign) came to life. We’re endlessly grateful to Aaron for being our guide throughout this journey. The care and loving at- tention to detail brought to this music has yield- ed something incredibly special, which we are happy to share with you today and which we are thrilled also lives on in our Grammy-nominated album. We kick off the programwith the music of Louise Farrenc, who was a formidable presence in Pari- sian musical life in the 19th century, obtaining a post as professor at the elite Paris Conservatory which she held (as the only female professor for the whole century!) for 30 years. While French composers in the 19th century were primarily focused on opera, Farrenc bucked the trend and wrote piano, chamber, and orchestral mu- sic often inspired by the symphonic models of Beethoven and her own composition teacher, Beethoven’s contemporary, Anton Reicha. –Colin Jacobsen Mary Lou Williams at the Café Society Downtown (ca. June 1947) Artists have been drawn to the power of natural and cyclical forces as fodder for the imagination as long as we’ve been on this planet. One could argue that all human artistic endeavor is a re- flection of—though it perhaps pales in compar- ison to—nature’s all-encompassing creative and destructive powers. While our minds have dif- ficulty grappling with the macro and micro as- pects of the cosmos (“What is dark matter any- ways?” “The nearest star is howmany light-years away?” “How small is a quark?”), composers like Beethoven and Mary Lou Williams humanize our experience through their music and help us make sense of our relationship to those natural and cyclical processes that are so much larger than ourselves. As Beethoven grappled with the existential difficulty of being a composer in the process of losing his hearing, he wrote: “No one can love the country as much as I do … for surely woods, trees, and rocks produce the echo that man desires to hear.” And what better setting for this exploration than a summer night at Ravinia? The Knights are most inspired by artists who challenge us, widen our musical world, and speak to the current moment while acknowl- edging the past and looking to the future. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JUNE 7 – JUNE 30, 2024 80