In pre-pandemic early March, Welz Kauffman sat down for a wide-ranging interview looking back at his 20 years as President and CEO of Ravinia Festival. He steps down this month, succeeded by Jeffrey P. Haydon. Although Kauffman’s 20th season was not to be, due to COVID-19 forcing its cancellation in May, here is that interview as it happened six months ago, a companion to the episode of RaviniaTV dedicated to celebrating his tenure.

You’ve cultivated the idea that the “Ravinia experience” is not just coming because Aretha Franklin or the Chicago Symphony is here, but because of the amenities that are also here.

That’s exactly right. And for a Ravinia Family concerned about music audience, the fear with the development of Millennium Park was that Grant Park and its house orchestra would become so popular that it would steal people away from the CSO at Ravinia. And so that one assumption got me to thinking, We’ve got to do something here …

In addition to the commissions, you initiated several new programmatic series, various festivals and spectaculars, as well as the five-year music theater Sondheim Project.

It was hard to go from concert production for the CSO—which is stands and chairs and a podium, sometimes a piano, maybe choral risers—to a really fully staged Sweeney Todd with costumes, lighting, staging, things like that. I remember, for many members of the Ravinia Family, it was their first time seeing a Sondheim show …

Quite a journey. One that brings us to Marin Alsop.

Marin and I got to know each other when she was running the Long Island Philharmonic in the ’80s, and our paths have crossed a lot ever since. I was always trying to engage her for the various places I worked, and what finally made that happen, in what turned out to be her New York Philharmonic debut, was the Completely Copland Festival in 1999. And a little under a year later when I arrived at Ravinia, we started working to bring her in on a regular basis. And then I was able to bring her back for our Bernstein celebration …

What is the post-Ravinia future for Welz Kauffman? Will you be staying in the area? Do you see yourself being a regular here?

My husband Jon is doing some consulting work in Detroit; that might turn into a full-time position. Maybe we’ll move there. We also both have very strong ties to Tucson. But I do believe that it will be important for me—and for my successor—to have me gone. I’ll always be available on the phone if they find something funky in the file drawer. But one of the great things that Ravinia board chairs do is they get out of Dodge when they finish their three-year term. It’s giving space to their successor. I’m thinking that might be a good model …