Live online chat with Music Director James Conlon

Ravinia Festival is proud to present a live chat with Music Director James Conlon at Chicago Classical Music on Wednesday, June 28, from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Join Maestro Conlon to discuss upcoming Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances at Ravinia as we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the CSO summer residency at Ravinia Festival.

Chicago Classical Music members simply need to login and click "chat" to participate. Not yet a member? Sign up for free registration today at:

www.chicagoclassicalmusic.org

Ravinia Festival Dance Competition

The Ravinia Festival Women's Board held the first ever dance competition at the park on June 18, 2006. Watch highlights from this lively and fun competition.

Hubbard Street, in Highland Park.

Hubbard Street Dance gave their final Ravinia performance of the 2006 season last night. The combination of modern dance with traditional classical music provided a unique experience for those in attendance. They performed four works that have all received their Chicago premieres in the last two years.

The company of 21 dancers emotionally portrayed the choreography of Jim Vincent, Marguerite Donlon, Susan Marshall and Nacho Duato. Well-known melodies of Bach, Mozart and Arvo Pärt accompanied these works.

The next dance performance at Ravinia is on August 16 when the Joffrey Ballet performs Twyla Tharp's "Deuce Coupe" set to the music of the Beach Boys.

-Justin Brown, Communications Associate

Jazz in June

The party was non-stop for Jazz in June over the weekend. Ravinia Festival celebrated jazz music and musicians during this 4-day festival. Here are some of the highlights:



The Friday evening "Spirit of New Orleans" concert also spread the spirit of Mardi Gras. On hand to perform were The Neville Brothers and Dr. John. Ravinia staff and volunteers took donations on behalf of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, raising thousands of dollars to help rebuild their concert hall.



Artistic Director of Jazz at Ravinia, Ramsey Lewis, was featured with the Chicago Jazz Ensemble and also gave the debut performance of his original "One Score, One Chicago" composition, which was inspired by Robert Schumann's "Scenes from Childhood."



The Original Pin Stripe Brass Band was lead by its Grand Marshall around the park, sharing their blend of traditional New Orleans and pop music styles.



The Sunday "Battle of the Big Bands" also featured a dance contest. For the first time ever, a dance floor was constructed on the lawn and hundreds of audience members (including many children) took advantage of the unique opportunity.

-Adriana Avila, Marketing Manager

Golijov's Chicago premiere.

You know it's a special performance at Ravinia when audience members leave their picnic tables on the lawn to approach the pavilion to catch a glimpse of the stage. The otherworldly sounds created by Golijov's new opera, "Ainadamar" continued to draw listeners to the stage throughout the hour and a half long performance.

The Thursday night performance featured the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with conductor Robert Spano. Soloists for that evening's performance included Dawn Upshaw, Kelley O'Connor, Jessica Rivera, and Jesus Montoya (whose voice can be heard on television commercials for Nike, Coca-Cola, and Eveready-Energizer).

The artists arrived Thursday afternoon, just in time for a brief dress rehearsal at 7:00 P.M. The concert followed an hour later, beginning with a brief chat between Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Spano, and Welz Kauffman, President of Ravinia. Their stay was a brief one, they returned to Atlanta on Friday morning.



Yo-Yo Ma will present the second Golijov premiere of the summer with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Miguel Harth-Bedoya on Saturday, August 6. Also on the program are De Falla's "Three-Cornered Hat" and Ravel's "Bolero."

-Justin Brown, Communications Associate

4 down 28 to go...

Garrick Ohlsson began his cycle of Beethoven Piano Sonatas last night (which, by the way, is the first in Ravinia Festival history). He performed Sonatas No. 4, 20, 23 ("Appassionata"), and 28. He will complete the cycle of 32 sonatas during his seven remaining performances at Ravinia this season.

The Beethoven festivities began at 6:45 P.M. with a pre-concert talk hosted by Sylvie Desouches. It was an exciting presentation that included information on Beethoven's history, compositional techniques, and musical examples.

When asked how he prepared for this cycle he responded: "You know the famous joke 'how do you get to Carnegie hall.' Well, how do you prepare for a Beethoven Sonata cycle? It is the same answer."

You can catch the remaining Beethoven sonata performances tonight, June 19 and 20, August 28 and 29, and September 5 and 6.

-Justin Brown, Communications Associate

Action-packed weekend at Ravinia!

Performances this past weekend featured the Bodeans, who are at Ravinia for the fourth season in a row, and Elvis Costello and the Imposters with Allen Toussaint.



The Saturday night performance of the BoDeans included their hit "Closer to Free" and an inventive cover that combined the Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" with Prince's "Little Red Corvette."



Allen Toussaint and his New Orleans Horn Section joined Elvis Costello and the Imposters for the only River in Reverse Tour 2006 performance in Chicago. It was great to hear songs from his new critically-acclaimed album "The River in Reverse," which was recorded in Toussaint's hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana.





The entire Ravinia staff donated their time during the performance on Sunday night to collect donations for the Louisiana Philharmonic Relief Fund. Following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 the Louisiana Philharmonic was forced to suspend its operations. Direct contributions can be made through the Louisiana Philharmonic website www.lpomusic.org

-Justin Brown, Communications Associate

Last chance to see UShaka.

The following pictures were taken during the first performance of UShaka last night. The cast arrived from South Africa last week and have spent their time in Chicago preparing for the American premier.





In addition to preparing for the performances, our guests from Opera Africa have been featured in community outreach and education events around the Chicagoland area.






These concerts are the first in this summer's series of large-scale vocal events, which include Mahler's Symphony No. 3 and Verdi's Requiem. The final performance is tonight (Friday, June 9) at 8:00 PM. See you there!


- Justin Brown, Communications Associate

Ravinia kicks off another great season.

It was a sell out! The 2006 season at Ravinia Festival kicked off in high gear on Saturday with Blondie and the New Cars.

The weather was perfect for the concert! The pavilion was full, and every green space on the lawn was completely covered.



The concert began with Blondie, who opened with her hit "Call Me." Just about everyone in the pavilion was standing by the end dancing along with Debra Harry. Her concert was energetic and exciting, featuring all of Blondie's greatest hits with audience participation and interaction. The band closed with "One Way or Another," one of their greatest hits, a great crowd pleaser.



The New Cars took the stage with a completely new setup that included audio-visual screens and lightning collaborations that made the concert visually stunning. The crowd was dancing right along with the band as they played. It was fantastic to see so many excited and happy fans enjoying themselves at Ravinia - the start to another great Ravinia summer full of more of the same!

-Nick Rego, Marketing Intern

Opera Africa Returns to Ravinia Festival

The creative forces behind Princess Magogo return to perform UShaka, the story of legendary Zulu King Shaka.

Behind the Scenes with Opera Africa

Get a closer look at Opera Africa and the incredible performers who will bring UShaka to Ravinia Festival on June 8 & 9.

BOOD! 2006 (Box Office Opening Day)

Ravinia's annual box office opening day attracted more than 1,000 visitors. This popular day brought out families, bicycle riders, and even dogs! This special event offered customers the one-time opportunity to purchase tickets at a 20% discount. Extra seats for performances that had sold out reserved seating were also available for purchase only on Saturday. If you weren't able to take advantage of the discount prices that were offered on this past weekend, there's still the opportunity for reduced price tickets on the first day of each month when special "2 for 1" ticketing options are released for certain events via email. Sign up using the myRAVINIA feature of www.ravinia.org.




WFMT morning host Lisa Flynn joined Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kauffman in previewing the season in a live broadcast from 9:00 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. Also featured were telephone interviews with Ramsey Lewis, Artistic Director of Jazz at Ravinia; Robert Greenberg, guest lecturer; and Garrick Ohlsson, guest artist. Garrick Ohlsson discussed his preparation for performing all of Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas this summer. He said it was a lot of work preparing each piece for performance, there were some that he has never performed in public! The broadcast also included excerpts from the end-of-term performance at the Ravinia Lawndale Music Conservatory located on Chicago's West side. Another highlight of the morning was Welz Kauffman's own piano performance of three of 13 new works, Ravinia commissions which are part of the "One Score, One Chicago" tribute to Robert Schumann's Scenes from Childhood.




Although many customers utilized the convenience of online ticket purchasing, which hit an all-time high this year, the energy and excitement of box office opening day 2006 was apparent to all involved in this once-a-year event!

Having been involved with music organizations and festivals in New York City for the past five years, I was excited to see such anticipation of a performance season. The diverse musical offerings of the 2006 Ravinia Festival can satisfy the most discerning of artistic tastes, and offer the opportunity to discover new music from around the globe!




The box office is now open for telephone orders on Monday-Friday from 10am until 5pm at (847) 266-5100, and for walk-up sales on Monday-Saturday from 10am until 6pm and Sunday from 1pm until 6pm.

-Justin Brown, Communications Associate

A Visit From Mzilikazi Khumalo

This past week, we had a visit from South African composer and teacher Mzilikazi Khumalo, the composer of Princess Magogo and this season's uShaka. More than a musician, he's a true statesman and was eager for culture exchange with the Chicago community. He held a workshop for Chicago Public Schools choral directors on Saturday and gave a brief talk at the South African Freedom Day celebration on Friday. He was as warm and insightful as I remembered from his 2004 trip when Ravinia presented the American premiere of his Princess Magogo, the world's first Zulu opera.

Some things I learned:

• Princess Magogo was the great-granddaughter of the great Zulu King Shaka in real life
• The "u" in "uShaka" is a Zulu point of grammar. When you are speaking about someone instead of directly to them, you would place the u in front of his or her name. So if I were writing in Zulu instead of English, I would be talking about uMzilikazi.
• Khumalo considers uShaka an epic cantata, and he created it to help set the record straight on the controversial but crucially important king who unified the Zulu tribes into one nation. Shaka has largely been painted as cruel and blood-thirsty, but Khumalo asserts that any deaths attributed to Shaka actually occurred during war.
• Western-style opera has developed a large and devoted following in South Africa. Movies, not so much.

---Nick Pullia, Director of Communications

Let The Games Begin

Well, it's official ... after several busybee weeks, no make that months, the Ravinia Festival's web site has been updated, brochures hit the mail and online ticket sales have begun.

Tickets went on sale yesterday and our August 9th showcase of Bach's Complete Brandenburg Concertos, to be performed in our intimate Martin Theatre (featuring the CSO and Jaime Laredo as conductor, violin and viola), has already sold out! What a feeling to see classical performances getting this kind of audience attention.

As many of you know, our brochure included a CD preview of the summer season hosted by our CEO Welz Kauffman and soprano Sylvia McNair. We were pleased to see the Chicago Sun-Times give the CD a shout out in yesterday's paper. It's true that you can write and write about music until you're blue in the face, but hearing that preview of Mahler's Third or Renee Fleming or Verdi's Requiem leaves the listener hungry for more. We'll be serving it up June 1–September 16.

An audio preview of the 2006 Ravinia Festival season.

"Scenes From Childhood" Featured as 2006 One Score, One Chicago

Watch this lighthearted demonstration of pianist Lang Lang conducting a master class with Ravinia President/CEO Welz Kauffman. In it you will see how this brilliant performer interprets Robert Schumann's "Scenes from Childhood."



This piece will be heard twice this summer at Ravinia as Robert Schumann's "Scenes From Childhood" (Kinderszenen) has been named the 2006 One Score, One Chicago selection. The work is the first solo-piano work to be featured in the project, which each year chooses a musical masterpiece to serve as the focal point of community discussion.

"This year's One Score project gave Ravinia the perfect opportunity to embrace the musical tradition of getting composers to express their own experiences through the prism of an existing masterpiece. It was easy to find willing composers because Scenes from Childhood is so well-loved by everyone we approached," said Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kauffman. "We turned to composers we've commissioned over the past several seasons along with artists who will help demonstrate the composition process to the students in our community outreach and education programs. In fact, by the time we're done, we hope to have a new 'scene' composed by the students themselves."

The diverse group of composers commissioned to create "New Scenes from Childhood" include Kenneth Frazelle, Lita Grier, Jake Heggie, Aaron Jay Kernis, Ana Lara, Ramsey Lewis, Ricardo Lorenz, Nicole Mitchell, Ned Rorem, Jorge Torres Saenz and Augusta Read Thomas.

Inspired in 2003 by the Chicago Public Library's One Book, One Chicago, Ravinia's One Score is designed to promote the enjoyment of classical music and to create a cultural touchstone to enable people of diverse musical backgrounds to engage in community-wide discussion.

We also produce a bilingual (English and Spanish) supplemental resource guide that includes a CD of the featured work in addition to informative essays and children's activities.

Blondie & The New Cars On Sale

Fresh off her induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Blondie hits the road this summer with The New Cars for what is going to be an awesome tour. They cruise into town to play Ravinia on Saturday, June 3. Lawn tickets are on sale now exclusively on our website.

It's been 17 years since the last tour by The Cars, and now two of its seminal members, guitarist Elliott Easton and keyboardist Greg Hawkes, have customized a new model of the band, featuring vocalist/guitarist Todd Rundgren, fellow Utopia bassist/vocalist Kasim Sulton and former Tubes drummer Prairie Prince.

For the first time ever, a full album download will be offered free with online ticket purchases. Anyone who purchases tickets on our website will be mailed a link for the free download. The album features five songs performed by The New Cars (four classic songs of The Cars, recorded live, and the newly penned studio track "Not Tonight") and five songs performed by Blondie (four previously unreleased live tracks and one new studio cover of "More Than This").

Look for me singing on the lawn!

March Madness

I can't believe it's March already! Where did February go? We have been busy booking acts, designing our brochure and planning for the 2006 season. It's been a little crazy lately but when summer rolls around and we see the fruits of our labor, it will all be worth it.

Afterall, there really is no other experience like Ravinia Festival in the summer. Even before I worked here, I always looked forward to bringing my wine & picnic basket to enjoy concerts with friends here. I know that many people feel the same way. Ravinia is just a great summer tradition.

We have announced a few things going on this summer. You can visit our website to get a full listing. The rest of the artists are a secret until later this month.