Ravinia 2024 Issue 2

PAVILION 7:30 PM FRIDAY, JULY 12, 2024 CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MARIN ALSOP, conductor MICHELLE CANN, piano † MASABANE CECILIA RANGWANASHA, soprano † COPLAND Appalachian Spring suite for orchestra JOHNSON Charleston * (orch. Rimelis) –Intermission– BARBER Knoxville: Summer of 1915 , op. 24 Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha GERSHWIN Rhapsody in Blue * Michelle Cann † Ravinia debut * First performance by the CSO and at Ravinia Ravinia expresses its appreciation for the generous support of Premier Sponsor The Negaunee Foundation as well as The CSO Opening Night Consortium . The CSO Opening Night Consortium comprises Jane & David Casper; Annette Dezelan, in Loving Memory of David Dezelan; Hunter Family Foundation; Stuart Sondheimer & Bonnie Lucas; and Pamela B. & Russ M. Strobel. AARON COPLAND (1900–1990) Appalachian Spring Suite Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani, xylophone, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, tabor (long drum), snare drum, wood block, claves, glockenspiel, triangle, harp, piano, and strings Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge—one of America’s foremost patrons of the arts—first attended a performance by dancer and choreographer Martha Graham during the early 1940s. Gra- ham’s striking modern technique impressed Coolidge, who soon commissioned three new ballets for her foundation’s annual fall festival at the Library of Congress. For these productions, Coolidge also commissioned musical scores from Aaron Copland ( Appalachian Spring ), Darius Milhaud ( Jeux de printemps , or Imag- ined Wing ), and Carlos Chávez. Paul Hindemith eventually took over Chávez’s commission and produced the ballet Mirror before Me , later re- named Hérodiade . Several years earlier, Graham had based her dance Dithyramb on Copland’s piano variations. The Coolidge commission afforded these two MARIN ALSOP Following six performances at Ravinia with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra between 2002 and 2006, Marin Alsop has renewed the pairing every year since 2018. As Ravinia’s Chief Con- ductor, she leads three weeks of concerts with the CSO each summer and curates Breaking Barriers, an annual festival focused on celebrat- ing and advancing diverse artists and leaders in classical music. She began her professional ed- ucation at Yale University at 16 and within six years earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in violin at The Juilliard School. In 1989, Alsop be- came the first woman to receive Tanglewood’s Koussevitzky Conducting Prize. Today the di- rector of graduate conducting at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, she is the only conductor to have earned a MacArthur Fel- lowship. She founded the Taki Alsop Conduct- ing Fellowship in 2002 to nurture the careers of female conductors, providing mentorship and a network of now 36 women active in the field. A documentary about Alsop’s life, The Conductor , premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and won the Focus on the Arts Award at the Naples International Film Festival. In addition to her role at Ravinia, Alsop is Chief Conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Music Director of the National Orchestral In- stitute + Festival at the University of Maryland. In 2021 she became Music Director Laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, concluding a 14-year tenure that included the founding of the OrchKids youth music initiative, and she is Conductor of Honor of the São Paulo Sym- phony Orchestra following her seven years as its principal conductor and music director. Deeply committed to newmusic, she was music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music for 25 years, during which she led 174 premieres. In addition to regular engagements with the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, Alsop has long-standing relationships with the Lon- don Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras and frequently guests with the Gewandhaus, Concertgebouw, and La Scala Orchestras. Her extensive award-winning discography includes Brahms, Dvořák, and Prokofiev cycles on Naxos and further recordings on Decca, Harmonia Mundi, and Sony Classical. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JULY 1 – JULY 21, 2024 72 PATRICKGIPSON/RAVINIA