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.
Read More“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,”
Read MoreAny musician will tell you to never follow a killer act. Upcoming Ravinia headliners The Roots (September 4) and John Legend (September 5 and 6) are definitely killer acts. But at their upcoming Ravinia appearances, both have opening acts that may make them feel a need to up their already next-level game—Musiq Soulchild and The War and Treaty.
Read MoreDrummers are typically seen as “driving” a band, whether in rock or jazz circles. How does that work when there are three? Three drummers offer unusual polyrhythmic possibilities that King Crimson is exploring to the fullest.
Read MorePicture this—it’s August 26 and you’re on Ravinia’s Lawn enjoying your picnic spread before Lake Street Dive takes the stage when, suddenly, a sweet melody sung by a lovely, yet unfamiliar voice leaps out of the park’s speakers and stops you mid-bite. “Who’s that?” you wonder. It’s Allison Russell. And if you don’t already know this formidable Canadian singer, songwriter, banjoist, and clarinetist from her work with the roots band Po’ Girl, the folk-rock-gospel duo Birds of Chicago, or supergroup Our Native Daughters, meet your new favorite artist.
Read MoreNiko Moon doesn’t do sad songs.
It’s not as if he has anything against them necessarily. In fact, the music mastermind believes there is definitely a time and place for them, and there are plenty of great ones out there, especially within the history of country music. But in a world often finding itself dragging itself through a myriad of pain, Moon prefers to stick with music meant to make you feel good.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreIt 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.”
Read MoreApproximately 100 Chicago Public Schools K–3rd grade classroom teachers and Ravinia Teaching Artists will participate in interactive music workshops at Ravinia and virtually on August 18, August 21, and September 11 as part of the festival’s annual Teacher Institute. Participants will learn various teaching methods to incorporate music into their classroom curriculum with sessions such as “Musical Creativity in the Classroom,” “Connections to Classical Music,” “Music and Literature,” and “Owning Social Emotional Learning and Music in your Classroom.”
Read MoreIf bluegrass music is as American as apple pie, then Leftover Salmon and The Infamous Stringdusters are definitely apple pie à la mode. Over their respective careers, the two wildly innovative groups have topped old musical traditions with sweet, modern flavors, delivering blistering live performances and amassing fervent followings around the world. And to top it all off, they’re both picking August 20 at Ravinia to dish up hearty helpings of their tasty twangs.
Read MoreThe Ravinia Music Box (RMB) and its immersive theater experience, titled Bernstein’s Answer, is now fully open to the public.
The RMB features an immersive, 65-seat, wraparound 4D theater with a museum gallery space, created by BRC Imagination Arts, the experience design and production company behind the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, and the Ryman Auditorium Backstage Tour in Nashville, among many other brand and cultural destinations.
Read More“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.
Read MoreOne 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.”
Read MoreJohn Hiatt’s diversely rich, respected, and rowdy vocation has been a series of perfectly turned phrases with some perfectly good guitar. And now he’s adding some insightful, lingering “leftover feelings.”
Hiatt’s may not be a name you immediately recognize, but he’s always been there. “I like to sneak up from behind,” Hiatt says slyly. You’ve certainly heard many of the songs he’s written during an acclaimed career that includes nine Grammy nominations and the highest praise from peers and fans alike.
Read MoreRavinia 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.
Read MoreThis year’s Ravinia Women’s Board fundraising gala raised a total of $750,000 to support and promote the festival’s Reach Teach Play education programs, which serve more than 75,000 community members each year.
Read MoreThere’s a certain irony to the title of singer-songwriter Brett Dennen’s latest long player, See the World, considering that the bulk of it was penned when the entire globe was closed. However, upon closer examination of the project that brings him to Ravinia’s newly established and delightfully intimate Carousel Stage on Wednesday, August 4, not every moment is quite so literal in the nomadic or exploratory sense, starting with the classic-in-the-making title track.
Read MoreWhat could be more exciting for rising stars violinist Stella Chen and violist Matthew Lipman than performing again in front of a live audience after more than a year of a pandemic-forced hiatus? How about making their Ravinia Pavilion stage debuts together, performing for the first time with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra?
Read MoreIt’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.
Read MoreYacht rock—it’s a term that has been used and reused, a term that has been somewhat understood but frequently confused, a term that brings with it a slew of different feelings from those who essentially find shelter within it from the reality of the present time. And it’s a form of music that Yacht Rock Revue has built an impressive career on.
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