For two consecutive days, the Ravinia Festival, through its Guest Artists in the classroom Program (GAIC) and in collaboration with Chicago Arts Orchestra (CAO), brought educational performances composed of rich and diverse repertoire of classical music to students from Telpochacalli Elementary and Hammond Elementary. Students had the opportunity to enjoy contrasting and yet equally fascinating repertoire by the likes of W.A. Mozart (Exultate Jubilate), Mexico’s Ignacio Jerusalem (Sinfonia in G), Luigi Boccherini (La Musica Notturna di Madrid), and Léo Delibes (Flower Duet from Lakmé) which rendered a unique experience. Intercalated between the performances of each piece were comments by Javier José Mendoza, founder of CAO, who made comments about each individual composer and answered the students’ questions. The program also included a brief discussion of the instruments and exercises led by the musicians for the children to identify with body movement the different sounds of the instruments .
