Ravinia 2024 Issue 2

Alsop welcomes another two transcendent young musicians to make their Ravinia and CSO debuts in July: on the 21st, Hayato Sumino (left) plays the First Piano Concerto by Chopin, whose namesake competitions he has astounded, and on the 25th, newly named Taki Alsop conducting fellow Alena Hron (right) opens the evening leading Icarus in Orbit by Walker, the first Black composer to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music. with my Polish orchestra [Polish National Radio Symphony],” said Alsop. “He’s also an improvising musician and pop musi- cian as well, and that appeals to me. And he’s a YouTube star as well—I don’t keep track of these things, but I know he has a big following. He’s a great performer.” For the second half of the program, Alsop leads the orches- tra in Strauss’s career-making tone poem Don Juan —less con- cerned with the salacious conquests of the notorious womaniz- er represented by Mozart’s Don Giovanni, instead delving into the psychological transformation of the villain—as well as the second orchestral suite from Ravel’s ballet music to the Grecian epic romance Daphnis and Chloe . THURSDAY, JULY 25 “This is more so a dance-inspired program,” said Alsop. “The idea really is the influence of dance on music.” Guest conductor Alena Hron is the newest Taki Alsop Con- ducting Fellow, winner of the 2024–25 fellowship for women conductors that includes concert dates and intensive coaching by Alsop. “She’s just become the first woman to head a Czech orches- tra [South Czech Philharmonic],” said Alsop, “which is very exciting.” Alsop has long admired Walker’s Icarus in Orbit . A five-minute work composed for the New Jersey Youth Sym- phony in 2003, it is both sharply etched and mysterious. “It’s a wonderful piece,” said Alsop. “I’ve been wanting to do it, but I gave it to Alena.” The July 25 program may be about dance, but it’s also some- thing of a preview of Ravinia’s July 26–27 events. The theme for this year’s Breaking Barriers Festival, an annual Ravinia week- end showcasing female achievement in music and assorted fields, is women in space. Icarus, of course, is the young man of Greek myth whose hubris sends him flying too close to the sun. In Stravinsky’s ballet based on a Russian myth, the female firebird saves a young prince from deadly danger. Both she and Icarus are creatures of the air. Bernstein’s suite of symphonic dances from West Side Story completes the dance circuit with Stravinsky’s Firebird . In between those works, Alsop welcomes back violinist Augustin Hadelich, who was a Ravinia Steans Music Institute fellow in 2008, as the soloist in Mendelssohn’s concerto. FRIDAY, JULY 26 Exploring the Breaking Barriers theme, the program’s focus is musical depictions of space. Holst’s suite The Planets is a well- famed concert hall staple—in this performance, aptly featuring the Apollo Chorus of Chicago in its closing movement—but The Moons Symphony is very new. Alsop recorded the full, seven-movement work—complete with a large choir, children’s choir, and narrator—with the London Symphony in 2022. Ravinia’s performance will be a suite from the larger piece accompanied by visuals. “It’s by an Australian woman named Amanda Lee Falken- berg,” said Alsop. “She sent it to me during the pandemic. She’s really built it into a huge educational and outreach initiative. It captures the programmatic narrative of the moons in our solar system. We never think about them, but they have properties just like the planets. “I thought it would lend itself really well to having some panels with women who have been in space and are deeply engaged in space exploration. They’ll be around during the concert, and we’ll have some telescopes so people can look at the stars.” Wynne Delacoma was classical music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1991 to 2006 and has been an adjunct journalism faculty member at Northwestern University. She is a freelance music critic, writer, and lecturer. RAVINIA.ORG  • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 13 RYUYAAMAO(SUMINO);PETRAHAJSKA(HRON)