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music by Bolcom and Tower
to the darker atmosphere of
Rzewski’s
War Song No.
and
Lightfoot’s “Black Day in July.”
“ ese songs still have im-
portance and resonance today,”
said Schaufer, “which is why
I chose them. is is our job,
to proselytize and stand on a
soapbox and say, ‘ ese people
are years old, and they
still have something to say.’ It
doesn’t matter if they wrote it
yesterday or years ago. is
music holds value.”
e youngest of four chil-
dren, Schaufer caught the mu-
sic and performing bug early.
“My family, we were always
the ones who were singing
the leads at school and that
sort of thing,” she said, “and I
have no problem [admitting]
that my rst job, at age ,
was four shows a day, seven
days a week, Memorial Day to
Labor Day, at Santa’s Village in
Dundee.”
She was the lead in a show
titled
Hollywood Star
.
“I played an aging ex–mov-
ie star,” Schaufer recalled.
“More mascara and hot rollers
than a girl should ever have to
use. But I am completely Cath-
olic in my taste, and I do not
believe in the word ‘crossover.’
It is either music that is good,
or music that perhaps isn’t.”
Schaufer is dedicating her
Ravinia recital to Peter van
den Honert, her choral direc-
tor at what is now Dundee-
Crown High School. Retired
and living in Ohio, he is
driving in for her recital. “He’s
like many people in our lives,”
she said. “ ey’re the ones
who inspire you to keep going,
and tell you that it’s okay to be
the weirdo, the one who wants
to do something di erent.”
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.
AUGUST 20 – SE3TEM%ER 2, 2018 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE
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