Playing in an orchestra is, essentially, a team sport, one that many fledgling musicians dream about. But unlike baseball or soccer, it requires hours of solitary practice before “team play” begins. Sometimes trying to learn an instrument and performing only occasionally with local classmates can feel like a lonely slog. Budding athletes can plug into a vast network of local, regional, and national sports competitions, meets, and workshops that keep them excited about their sport. Little on that scale exists for young musicians. Marin Alsop, Ravinia’s Chief Conductor, is deeply invested…
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James Taylor: That's Why We're Here
One of my favorite James Taylor songs is one you may not instantly recognize or associate with pop music’s lanky illuminator. After almost two decades of writing, singing, and performing many of the rock era’s most beloved ballads and appealing pop songs, with his honest, post-rehab album—1985’s That’s Why I’m Here—James Taylor finally confronted in song his personal demons and accepted his artistic reality.
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Salutes to Wayne Shorter underscore springtime Ravinia concerts
When saxophonist Wayne Shorter died last year at 89, the jazz world lost one of the most innovative and influential voices of his generation. Given Shorter’s wide-ranging reach and impact, it is hardly surprising that two upcoming concerts as part of Ravinia’s Fall/Spring Series in Bennett Gordon Hall will pay tribute to the recently departed jazz legend. The eight-member Ravinia Jazz Mentors will raise their hats to Shorter on March 16, and vocalist Kurt Elling and Panamanian pianist Danilo Pérez, who played with the saxophonist for 20 years, will devote much of their May 3 program to his music.
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The trumpet of Jason Palmer, 2003 RSMI Jazz alumnus and 2024 Ravinia on Tour ensemble member (photo: Jimmy Katz)
Ravinia Steans Music Institute Jazz Alumni hallmark the art of spontaneity
Although just 25 years old, pianist Luca Mendoza is one of only two all-time Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival “triple crown winners.” Chicago-native bassist Harish Raghavan has become a fixture on the New York jazz scene, fronting two recordings since moving in 2007. Though based on opposite coasts, they have a common thread that brings them together at Ravinia’s Bennett Gordon Hall on February 27 with saxophonist Veronica Leahy, trumpeter Jason Palmer, and drummer Mark Whitfield Jr.—the quintet has alighted to that stage before, though not at the same time. They’re all alumni of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute (RSMI) Jazz Program from the past two decades.
Mendoza has never performed with any of the other artists on the lineup, but he is sure they will bond quickly. “We all know who each other is,” he said. “That’s sort of the beauty of jazz being a small world at a certain level. We all know each other’s music and playing, and there is a certain caliber of respect that we’re bringing to the table. So, there is no concern at all—just excitement.”
In keeping with the spontaneity that is a hallmark of the jazz genre, the musicians will arrive at Ravinia a day two or early to work out a program and run through it. “Everybody is submitting some music, and we’re going to see how it goes at rehearsal,” Raghavan said.
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photo: Patrick Gipson/Ravinia
The Steans Piano Trio Found and Renews Instant Kismet at Ravinia
Kismet has a way of striking at unexpected times, and that is exactly what happened when three fellows at the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute (RSMI) happened to be put together with a violist to perform Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in 2015.
Though previously acquainted at the Curtis Institute of Music, they had never played together and had no particular interest in being part of a piano trio. Or so they thought.
All that changed when they began rehearsing together, and the young artists immediately found themselves captivated by the collaboration. Four years later, they decided to make the happenstance assemblage into a permanent group.
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Shakti’s Zakir Hussain Drums Up Unbound, United Innovation
World-renowned tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain remembers exactly when he first made music with guitar legend John McLaughlin. It was September 1972 in the Bay Area, and Hussain had been jaw-droppingly gobsmacked the night prior by McLaughlin, shredding up a storm in concert with his jazz-fusion band. The following day, they were hanging out at the home of maestro Ali Akbar Khan when McLaughlin asked Hussain, “Would you play with me?”
Half a century after that first jam session, McLaughlin and Hussain have launched a golden-anniversary world tour. In a big surprise for their fans, Shakti—a band mostly known for its concerts and live recordings—also recently released This Moment, the first new studio album in 45 years. Another fun surprise: their September 3 concert at Ravinia includes an appearance by banjo sorcerer Béla Fleck, with whom Hussain recently renewed a trio collaboration including bassist Edgar Meyer for the album and upcoming tour As We Speak.
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Photo: Benjamin Allen
Tessa Lark Explores the Formidable Flexibility of Fiddling
There is a moment of sheer infectious joy on Ravinia Steans Music Institute alum Tessa Lark’s most recent album, The Stradgrass Sessions. There are several, actually, but one that stands out comes at the end of “Hysedelje,” a fiddle tune composed by Lark that is more (blue)grass than Strad(ivarius). At the end, she emits a “whoop” that evokes her Richmond, KY, roots as the daughter of a bluegrass musician. “It was a spur of the moment,” she told Ravinia. “Culturally, it is something you might do after playing a fiddle tune.” She added with a laugh, “You can take the girl out of Kentucky—”
Lark was born to the breed. Her father plays with the gospel-bluegrass ensemble Narrow Road. Her mother played piano for almost a decade when Lark was growing up. Classical music made an impression on her via radio and Performance Today, the American Public Radio series reputedly the most listened-to classical music program in the country. “I adored the music from a very young age,” she said. “My parents were amazing about having unique styles piping through the house. I would gravitate to what I thought was good music. It didn’t matter what the style or genre was. I quickly fell in love with classical because of the depth of emotion.”
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Photo: Benjamin Ealovega
James Ehnes Keeps a Compelling Calendar
On September 5, James Ehnes will join the Chicago-based Music of the Baroque and Dame Jane Glover as soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3. He has appeared four times previously at the Ravinia Festival, but this visit will be his first since 2013. “I love playing in the Pavilion at Ravinia, but I’ve never played in the Martin Theatre, so this is going to be something new, different, and exciting,” he said. The 47-year-old violinist appeared as a soloist with Glover at the Aspen Music Festival in 2021 in the Beethoven Violin Concerto. “I just found her music-making to be so natural and so enjoyable to play with, so I’m really looking forward to being with her again.”
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photo: Sam Burriss
The Lawrence Siblings Don’t Lose Sight Between Stage and Studio
To those already in the know, brother-sister duo Lawrence is one of today’s most relatable, unshakable, soulful pop tastemakers, who’ve spent the last decade steadily building a fan base one college basement party and online follower at a time. For folks just finding out about vocalist/pianist Clyde and co-singer Gracie Lawrence, chances are the connection will be equally immediate, if not already unconsciously familiar thanks to their smash single “Don’t Lose Sight.”
Lawrence has since been seen on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, as well as mega-festivals Coachella, Bonnaroo, and Outside Lands, along the way to their Ravinia debut on June 16, appearing in between British jazz/R&B giant Jacob Collier and burgeoning folksy pop trio Tiny Habits. However, the troupe’s meteoric rise is far from an overnight success story, but rather a slowly marinating journey stocked with exponential artistic development every fascinating step of the way.
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Music & Mayhem: Karen Ouzounian Powerfully Shatters Pigeonholes with Her Artistic Partners
American cellist Karen Ouzounian’s professional résumé has one unexpected entry.
Most of her achievements fall in the category of a gifted, classically trained musician forging a strong, creative career: Bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School. Co-founding the Aizuri Quartet, which has held a residency at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and recently won the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award for the 2022–24 seasons. Memberships in Yo-Yo Ma’s boundary-breaking Silkroad Ensemble as well as The Knights, the innovative New York City–based chamber orchestra.
Two of those highlights will bring her to Ravinia before 2022’s finale. On September 13, she will be the soloist with The Knights in Shorthand, a new work for cello and chamber ensemble commissioned from Anna Clyne. Then she returns December 10 with the Aizuri Quartet for “Song Emerging,” a concert centered on translating the incredible musical potential of the human voice.
The aforementioned outlier on Ouzounian’s résumé? The Aizuri Quartet’s five-night gig this past April as the opening act for Wilco, the fabled Chicago alt-rock band fronted by Jeff Tweedy, during its New York shows celebrating the 20th anniversary of its mega-hit debut album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
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In Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play programs, it’s never been clearer that music matters
Every year Ravinia sends hundreds of musicians into Chicago Public Schools as well as classrooms in Highland Park, Waukegan, and North Chicago. What began in 1965 with the Women’s Board’s program of making lawn passes available to low-income music lovers has grown into Reach Teach Play, a year-round operation that reaches 75,000 children annually through a dozen distinct programs.
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Emoting the Moment: Ben Folds waltzes to weird and normal
Ben Folds does not talk in what he calls “snack-sized” sound bites. He speaks expansively about creativity, a mercurial process. We spoke about why waltzes are incredible, the pitfalls of writing a song about Rudy Giuliani’s disastrous Four Seasons Landscaping press conference, and why arts education is essential to our post-pandemic restart.
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For All to Hear: Alexander Hersh makes chamber music a nexus of creativity
“We initially had the idea of starting a summer chamber music festival in downtown Chicago. We partnered with Guarneri Hall, which was being built at the same time. Now, NEXUS is a group, a roster of artists from all around the world who are deeply passionate about chamber music and convene to present projects.”
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Smartly Appointed: The Joffrey suits up savvy spectacles returning to Ravinia’s dance card
“To me, dance with live music is really important,” says Jeffrey Haydon, who took over last September as Ravinia’s president and chief executive officer. “We are in a very visual society right now, and I think that is a way that people can connect even more with music: by seeing it visualized through dance.”
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The Beat of the Moment: Max Weinberg makes his audience the boss with Jukebox band
For some 45 years, the now 70-year-old Weinberg and his big beat have been the sonic engine driving the powerful, pounding, chugging, and charging musical locomotive that is Springsteen’s E Street Band. Currently on a hiatus, as Springsteen and the E Streeters plan a possible return to the stage in 2022 for the first time since 2017, Weinberg still is keeping his musical train moving fast and furious down a rock and roll track.
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Abundant Sunshine: Lara Downes and friends are reviving the field of good music
Lara Downes thinks we have reached the right moment for unfamiliar music presented in a new way.
Downes, the founder and curator of Rising Sun Music, has spent decades finding and preserving the music of Black composers from several continents and many centuries. The pianist has been adding to her already significant discography with monthly digital releases of four or five pieces from this repertoire since February, and the first full album, New Day Begun, appeared in July. Across the recordings, she has collaborated with musicians ranging from violinist Regina Carter and violist Jordan Bak to soprano Nicole Cabell and bass-baritone Davóne Tines to the PUBLIQuartet.
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The World They Know: Collective Soul maintains an energetic bond
The talented men of Collective Soul have taken many a stage and sang many a thought-provoking song. But in 2021, as the band with the mystical ways came out from under their pandemic slumber, they found that things didn’t feel quite the same.
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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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‘Mass’ Diversity: Davóne Tines is singing with and for inclusion
“My life in opera has been very nonstandard,” admits bass-baritone Davóne Tines in attempting to describe a unique and groundbreaking career. In his credits, there are leading roles in world premieres such as Matthew Aucoin’s Crossing, John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West, and Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up In My Bones, as well as collaborations with director Peter Sellars, and then there’s a series of pioneering works-in-progress that Tines himself is helping bring into being.
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Making It Obvious: Lake Street Dive rings the changes with songs for feeling strong
One way to garner extra ears is to lure listeners with cover songs. So Lake Street Dive recorded Fun Machine, an EP featuring their takes on beloved pop tunes, including “Faith” by George Michael and “Rich Girl” by Daryl Hall and John Oates. The strategy proved to be their tipping point into much broader success, thanks in particular to their acoustic, bluesy cover of “I Want You Back.”
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