Ravinia 2024 Issue 2

SATURDAY, JULY 13 Rangwanasha isn’t the only South African musician Alsop has invited to Ravinia this summer. Selaocoe is a classically trained cellist whose performances move back and forth between classical chamber and orchestral music and the world-music and beatbox scenes. He has appeared as soloist at London’s im- mensely popular annual BBC Proms series and formed a trio, Chesaba, which specializes in South African music, including some of his own compositions. “I’ve conducted in South Africa a few times,” said Alsop. “I’m quite involved with the talent coming from South Africa, so I heard about [Selaocoe]. I think he’s a really interesting artist. I’ve been wanting to invite him for a long time.” Composed in 2022 and approximately 25 minutes long, Selaocoe’s Four Spirits is a cello concerto in four movements. At times he sings an infectious, folk-inflected melody while playing the cello; at other times the orchestra musicians (or, at Ravinia, a few local high-schoolers) sing with him. The audience is welcome to sing or clap along. “It’s a very unusual piece,” said Alsop. “I was very touched by the kind of mu- sic-making I was experiencing in South Africa. There’s thinking outside the box. It’s more interactive; it’s much more exper- imental, like theater. These two South African soloists really exemplify those characteristics. There’s a sense of impro- visation that I like. And a joyous quality that really is very enticing and emotional for me. There’s an innocence about it that I think is great.” The program opens with compos- er Iryna Aleksiychuk’s newest work, scheduled to have its world premiere July 5 at the Prague Summer Nights Festival. It is the most recent commis- sion by the Taki Alsop Conducting Fel- lowship in conjunction with the Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program of the Classical Movements organization. The project selects women composers from various countries to write pieces that Taki Alsop’s female conduct- ing fellows can perform at concerts around the world. Go where the wind takes you … is approx- imately 15 minutes long and inspired by a poem by Olena Stepanenko (Prylutska), Aleksiychuk’s frequent collaborator. “We particularly want to support women composers from Ukraine,” said Alsop. “This is a Ukrainian woman composer collaborating with a Ukrainian woman poet. It’s all about resilience and endurance, all of the things they’ve needed. The war had started when she began composing. She had already fled to Spain, and the poet is in the United Kingdom. Really, everyone had to run.” Beethoven’s symphony, whose four opening notes served as a victory signal (the rhythm of V in Morse code) for the Allies in World War II, seemed a perfect capstone for the program. “The Beethoven Fifth is, in many ways, about resilience and triumph over adversity,” said Alsop. “That’s what Beethoven’s philosophy was, of course.” SATURDAY, JULY 20 The CSO is one of the world’s great Mahler orchestras, and Al- sop has conducted several of the composer’s works at Ravinia, starting in 2018 with the buoyant Symphony No. 1. The massive Symphony No. 8 followed in 2019, Symphony No. 4 in 2021, and, last year, two Mahler pieces, Blumine (a movement the composer cut from Symphony No. 1) and Symphony No. 5. “I’m really looking forward to doing Symphony No. 9 with the CSO,” she said. “They’re such a marvelous orchestra. I love doing Mahler with them, and I think we have a good affinity together for the works. “I just recorded this with my orchestra in Vienna [ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra] in the Musikverein. Of course, that’s where Bernstein [Leonard Bernstein, the fabled American conductor and Alsop’s mentor] recorded them all, and Mahler conducted them. It was very exciting.” SUNDAY, JULY 21 Alsop’s remaining CSO programs are highly varied, some of them glittering orchestral showcases. “This is a very exciting program, colorful—that was really the idea,” said Alsop about the afternoon concert. “And introducing the audience to a new rising star.” Now in his late 20s, Hayato Sumino is a Japanese pianist and composer whose performance in the semifinals of the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition became an internet sen- sation. He didn’t win the competition’s top prize, but online viewers were fascinated by both his playing and his backstory. Starting out as a graduate student in science and technology, inter- ested in AI and the technology of music information processing, he turned himself into an award-winning classical pianist. He is making his CSO debut with the First Piano Concerto by Chopin. “I worked with him on a tour to Japan Abel Selaocoe makes his Ravinia and CSO debuts July 13, completing the opening weekend of the orchestra’s return to its summer home. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JULY 1 – JULY 21, 2024 12 CHRISTINAEBENEZER