Our friends at The Negaunee Foundation know this, too, and have generously offered a “Pillars of Ravinia” challenge grant, matching dollar-for-dollar every $100–$500 donation to the festival’s 2021 Annual Fund, up to $100,000, from now until the summer season ends.
Read MoreMusic Education
Thaddeus Tukes brings all the vibes to Ravinia
“The Ravinia jazz program is one of the reasons I was actually able to go to school for jazz and develop a career. The stuff we learned and were exposed to all year long, having that match with my school curriculum, and the support from teachers were the reasons I was able to visualize what a career as a professional musician would look like,”
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Everybody Wants to Play: In the key of Black Violin, every note is in the home chord
It seems implausible that a casual bet on a golf game could determine the trajectory of a young man’s life. But truth is stranger than fiction, as Wil Baptiste found out.
One half of the groundbreaking string duo Black Violin, 38-year-old Baptiste spent much of his life thinking a mix-up had determined his musical fate. Although he hadn’t played an instrument during his first decade of life, the adolescent started daydreaming about the saxophone. So he joined a summer music program, visions of John Coltrane bebopping in his head, but ended up in the string section. For years, he thought he’d just ended up in the wrong class by fate, but, as he told Ravinia Magazine during a recent phone chat, “Came to find out, it was orchestrated.”
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Violinist Maria Ioudenitch Reminisces on Ravinia Steans Music Institute Fellowship
in RSMI, Music Education
Ravinia Steans Institute alum and violinist Maria Ioudenitch recounts her memorable experience being a fellow in the Program for Piano and Strings for two consecutive summers.
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Gotta Have My Pops: Steven Reineke lights a broad way for favorites in orchestral music
It’s pops night, which means fun is on the menu! Even the word itself conjures up blissful thoughts of relaxed musical evenings with friends and lots of irrepressible toe-tapping.
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Between the notes, Midori shares living memories and honest music
Out of a constant need to renew and update itself, the classical-music world is always looking for the new, and, 35 years ago, no budding star burned brighter than Midori.
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Jonathan Rush Shares His Artistic Mission With Sistema Ravinia's Young Musicians
Jonathan Rush is one of the world's most exciting young conductors and the students of Sistema Ravinia were instantly inspired and moved by his craft and dedication. They saw that being the best wasn’t far from their reach, which is exactly what Rush wanted to accomplish when meeting these students.
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Ravinia's Chicago Festival: Celebrating and Thanking our Community
Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play students, families, and partners attended Chicago Festival on July 3, a special event featuring Chicago-area artists to thank the invited audience of essential, frontline, and healthcare workers; first responders; neighborhood partners; and families who participate in RTP programs for their efforts and dedication over the past year.
Sistema Ravinia Students Take Major Step in Their Musical Journey
Read more about the three Sistema Ravinia students who were accepted into the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative, a highly selective training and mentorship program for talented, passionate student musicians from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.
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Ravinia Fun For The Whole Family
Don’t miss out on the fun your kids can have this summer! Catch the Kids Concert Series and stop by the Ravinia KidsLawn, a perfect place for kids to interact with instruments.
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Magic of Music Golf Benefit Raises More than $235,800 for Reach Teach Play
This year’s successful Magic of Music Golf Benefit raises more than $235,800. With the Women’s Board Gala Benefit and the Ravinia Associates Board’s Music Matters, the Golf Benefit is one of three Ravinia fundraisers that support Reach Teach Play.
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Jazz Alum Alan Blanchard Performs “Nobody Else But Me”
in Music Education, RSMI
Take a listen to RSMI Jazz alum Alan Blanchard perform his arrangement “Nobody Else But Me” alongside bassist Gabriel Godoy and pianist Mason Margut!
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Ravinia Steans Music Institute (RSMI) Kicks Off The Summer
in Music Education, RSMI
The Steans Music Institute is thrilled to return to in-person music making, kicking off with the Bridges Composition Competition concert and the Jazz Grandstand concert, both streamed on Ravinia’s YouTube channel.
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Sistema Ravinia Joins El Sistema from Venezuela on a Virtual Tour
This spring, Sistema Ravinia became the first program in the world to connect virtually with El Sistema, spending a month, from April 12 to May 15, on a “virtual tour” together. The young musicians in Sistema Ravinia collaborated with students like themselves in Venezuela and rehearsed with Venezuelan coaches and teachers.
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Alexis Lombre Makes “Come Find Me” a Singular Musical Philosophy After Ravinia Successes
South Side–native pianist and vocalist Alexis Lombre is the latest outstanding artist to have come up through both Ravinia programs, and Backstage caught up with the now sometime Detroiter in the midst of work on her second solo album, which she’s dubbed an amalgamation of everything that she listens to and everything that she is. She’s been prepping the first single, “Come Find Me,” from the new collection of original tracks with a fellow Chicagoan, Grammy-winning guitarist Isaiah Sharkey, as producer, and Lombre has recently released a mini-documentary series on her YouTube channel to give fans a sneak peek at the creative process.
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A Two-Way Mirror of History Through Music: Guest Artists in the Classroom
As our country embraced the mantra “Yes, we can,” during the 2008–9 school year Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play education programs met the three-word mettle of the then newly adopted name by inaugurating Guest Artists in the Classroom, a program connecting Ravinia performers and local soloists and ensembles with students in their schools. Through live classical performances by renowned musicians, the program focuses on inspiring a love of music, introducing young students in Cook and Lake Counties to experiences they may never otherwise have had at their age.
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BRIDGES COMPETITION WINNER SHARES PREMIERE WORK
in RSMI, Music Education
During an action-packed jazz schedule in Bennett Gordon Hall this year, beginning with the Second Annual Bridges concert, Michael Orenstein’s winning composition, Staircase premiered to an enthusiastic crowd. The concert featured an ensemble of RSMI alumni performing Orenstein’s piece, and the three winning composers from the inaugural competition last year returned for encore performances of their winning works.
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Ravinia Welcomes Home Asst. Conductor George Stelluto
George Stelluto, music director of the Peoria Symphony Orchestra, makes his summer home at Ravinia, where he serves as assistant conductor, understudying the repertoire to be performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and ready to leap to the podium at a moment’s notice should an emergency arise.
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Ravinia Will Collect Used Music Instruments to Distribute to Students This 'MLK Day of Service'
The City of Highland Park will add a new twist to its annual “Martin Luther King Day of Service,” starting at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, January 21. Ravinia staff will be present at the event to collect used music instruments that will be cleaned and refurbished for distribution to current music students who cannot afford new instruments.
Read MoreIntense, Beautiful, Devoted: Classical music has long felt the Bern(stein) to speak in political tones
There was a stunning moment in the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s “Celebrating 100 Years of Bernstein” gala this season. Kate Baldwin, on a brief hiatus from her Tony Award–nominated run in Broadway’s revival of Hello Dolly!, took the stage and delivered an ineffably moving rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s Vietnam-era protest song “So Pretty.” This affecting piece, with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, was first heard in 1968 at the Broadway for Peace fundraiser co-hosted by Bernstein and Paul Newman. It was performed then by Barbra Streisand with the composer himself at the piano. The song tells of a land far away with golden temples and pretty people with shining hair—who we are told “must die for peace.” The text concludes with “But they’re so pretty, so pretty. / I don’t understand.”