Since Elizabeth’s time, composers have found diverse ways to finance their careers, and a consideration of some of the composers whose music will be performed at Ravinia this summer shows how cleverly their solutions evolved over the years.
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More than a century after his birth, Leonard Bernstein remains a pop culture phenomenon. Hot off the success of A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper will direct and star in a biopic about multi-hyphenate who many consider the most important musician in American history. At the same time, America’s most successful filmmaker is remaking the treasured 1962 Best Picture Oscar winner West Side Story. Someone with Spielberg’s track record of blockbusters is in a position to pick only the best.
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Fulfilling a 25-year dream of becoming the cultural cornerstone and social forum for the entire community of Austin on Chicago’s West Side, Catalyst Circle Rock Charter School will unveil both its new Kehrein Center for the Arts and the Sistema Ravinia Auditorium on Wednesday, May 22. “This unique music and fine arts space presents a critical area to engage our children in the field of the arts as well as continue to emphasize values of reverence and respect,” said Illinois Senator Kimberly A. Lightford, a member of the Education Committee.
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Jazz pianist and composer Dan Tepfer is releasing his album Natural Machines tomorrow, May 17, with a twist. On this album, Tepfer plays a unique digital player piano called the Disklavier, which takes the music he plays on the piano, runs it through a computer program he wrote, and plays it back over the instrument.
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These days, “Your Mama’s Talkin’,” a song from Chicago-based blues scion Shemekia Copeland’s 1998 debut album, Turnin’ Up the Heat, has taken on a whole new meaning. Copeland became a parent in 2016, and when she isn’t wrangling her “little man,” she says she’s thinking about “the type of world I brought him into, and my concerns for him and what he will have to face.”
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Melissa White and Elena Urioste got through the beginnings of their professional violin careers without thinking much about their bodies. If they had performance-related pain, they ignored it as long as they could.
Then, in 2009, they separately found yoga.
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For the 69-year-old Australian-born Richard Lewis Springthorpe (his real name), the Grammy Award–winning song would be life-changing. At the same time, however, Springfield was still an unproven entity; prior album releases did well, but radio play and massive sales were not yet happening for him in the age of MTV. So, the singer-songwriter took a role as the uber-handsome and dashing Dr. Noah Drake on the daytime soap opera General Hospital—just to ensure he got a steady paycheck, he says.
And then it happened.
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More than 50 years ago, Prine returned home from an Army stint in Germany and began work as a US postal carrier. Daily and dutifully walking the unapologetic, diversely populated, middle-class streets of his west-suburban Chicago hometown, he mentally molded melodies and lyrics in his head to break the monotony of his Maywood, IL, mail route.
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It was 2015, and Rob Thomas was scared to death.
His wife, Marisol Maldonado, was waiting for her phone to ring, waiting to hear what the doctor had to say about the tunnel vision she had been experiencing, waiting to find out if the lesion that the MRI had found at the base bone of her brain was something that would change their lives forevermore.
And there they were, one of music’s biggest music hit makers and one of the world’s most beautiful models sitting in a dreary parking lot in Chicago, waiting to learn their collective fate.
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As a lifelong Highland Parker, one of the things I cherish about Ravinia is that it is one of a handful of childhood icons still in operation. Woolworth’s, Garnett’s department store, Stash’s, Fell Company, Grant & Grant record store, Big Z Burgers, Chandler’s; all gone. But Ravinia is still making indelible musical memories.
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Ravinia will be announcing its 2019 season on March 14, with public ticket sales opening across May 7 and 8. Get more information about purchasing your 2019 Ravinia tickets here.
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From classical masters to rock legends, there will be plenty to satisfy music lovers of all backgrounds, tastes, and experiences at Ravinia in 2019. As contributors know, there is no better way to enjoy Ravinia than as a donor, and now is the perfect time to renew your gift. In appreciation of this support, donors receive highly sought-after benefits—depending on donation level—that could include priority onsite parking just steps from the Pavilion, season gate passes, the opportunity to purchase tickets before the public, and early entry on concert nights.
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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.
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Ringo Starr returns to Ravinia for the first time in 24 years on a double bill with perennial Ravinia favorite The Beach Boys for two concerts, Aug. 3 and Aug. 4. The global tour, with confirmed stops in America and Japan, commemorates the 30th anniversary of the first tour of Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band in 1989.
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The Chicago Tribune has named Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kauffman its Chicagoan of the Year for Classical Music for leading the way in celebrating the centennial of Leonard Bernstein. In the article, Chicago Tribune Music Critic Howard Reich said, “For anyone who values Leonard Bernstein’s towering musical achievements, Ravinia Festival was ground zero this summer. … No one did more to make all of this come together than Welz Kauffman.”
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