Ravinia 2024 Issue 6

ANTHONY McGILL A native of Chicago’s South Side, the 2020 Avery Fisher Prize recipient, and 2024 Musical Ameri- ca Instrumentalist of the Year, Anthony McGill has been principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic since 2014, the ensemble’s first African American principal musician. He pre- viously held the same chair in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for 10 years. McGill regularly appears as a soloist with the New York Philhar- monic, recording Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto with the orchestra shortly after joining, and has been a soloist with the the Met orchestra and the Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, and San Diego Symphonies. Next season he makes his BBC Proms debut performing Mo- zart’s Clarinet Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Gemma New. With his brother, flutist Demarre McGill, he record- ed an album of duo concertos with the Chica- go Youth Symphony Orchestra, including the world premiere of Winged Creatures by Michael Abels. Anthony earned a Grammy nomination this year with American Stories , an album with the Pacifica Quartet featuring works by Rich- ard Danielpour, James Lee III, Ben Shirley, and Valerie Coleman. McGill regularly appears as a chamber musician internationally, performing alongside the Brentano, Daedalus, Dover, Guar- neri, JACK, Miró, Pacifica, Shanghai, and Takács Quartets, as well as such leading musicians as Emanuel Ax, Inon Barnatan, Gloria Chien, Yefim Bronfman, Gil Shaham, Midori, Mitsuko Uchida, and Lang Lang. In 2009 he performed at the first inauguration of President Obama with Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, and Gabriela Montero. Following his 2020 #TakeTwoKnees campaign, McGill has partnered with the Equal Justice Initiative since 2023 to organize classical music industry leaders at EJI’s Legacy Museum in Alabama. This year he performed at the ded- ication of the National Monument to Freedom during EJI’s Juneteenth celebration. A leading music educator, McGill is on the Juilliard faculty and is Artistic Director of its Music Advance- ment Program, and he also holds the William R. and Hyunah Yu Brody Distinguished Chair at the Curtis Institute of Music. Anthony McGill appeared at Ravinia in 2000 and 2016 and made his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut at the festival in 2021. PAVILION 8:00 PMWEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2024 GRAVITY STAIRS TOUR CROWDED HOUSE † † Ravinia debut CROWDED HOUSE For more than four decades, Crowded House leader Neil Finn has been on an evolving, wind- ing journey. Crowded House’s mid-eighties hits like “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “Something So Strong,” combined with albums like Woodface (1991) and Together Alone (1993), set the standard for the period’s erudite jangle-pop while always pushing the band’s art forward. That creative spir- it brings Finn and his Crowded House bandmates to Gravity Stairs , their first new release since 2021’s Dreamers Are Waiting and eighth overall. The album shows Crowded House in its cur- rent incarnation—Finn, Nick Seymour, Mitchell Froom, and Finn’s sons Elroy and Liam—feeling musically adventurous and still reaching for stag- gering heights. The act of climbing those “gravity stairs”—inspired by a heavy stone staircase, symbolic of struggling to ascend amidst opposing forces of weight on the mechanics of living—aligns with Finn’s mindset as a creator, a process illuminated in the album’s opener, “Magic Piano,” as letting mel- ody reign in a slavish devotion to music. Finn’s history bears that out, from joining his brother Tim in the artful pop band Split Enz to leading Crowded House to his numerous solo efforts, the through-line is meticulous, indelible melodies and impressionistic lyrics. That very song evolved along those lines in the studio from the various connections between the musicians, with themes of connection and love popping up in several places on Gravity Stairs . Sparkling Brit-pop-esque harmonies give “Teen- age Summer” its angle on hope and longing, and shimmers between keyboards and drums on “All That I Can Ever Own” deliver on the threat, even inevitability, of needing to let go. But there’s also the promise of renewal in “Oh Hi,” inspired by Finn’s experience with the nonprofit So They Can, building schools in remote parts of Kenya and Tanzania. Finn peers through the worlds of memory, dreams, and afterlife across “Some Greater Plan (for Claire)” and “Black Water, White Circle,” as well as the mystery of creation in “Night Song,” including a kinship with obsessive ideas. Ideas like the tunes that circle Finn’s mind through the moments of sleep, waking, and deciding to scale the gravity stairs again. Crowded House is making its Ravinia debut following Neil Finn’s solo appearance in 2016. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2 – SEPTEMBER 15, 2024 72 MARTINROMERO(MCGILL)