A Farewell Conversation with Welz Kauffman on 20 Years of Running Ravinia
By Dennis Polkow
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. This is the final part of that interview as it happened six months ago, a companion to the episode of RaviniaTV dedicated to celebrating his tenure. Begin reading the complete story here.
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, in almost every case, and I’ve had seven board chairs; I’m on my eighth.
Wow. That puts 20 years in perspective.
It’s giving space to their successor. It doesn’t mean they’re not available, they definitely are, but their physical presence is less. They may come to regular Board meetings, or they may not until the Annual Meeting in December. I’m thinking that might be a good model. Jon and I live literally next door. If Zarin and Carmen had lived right there, I would have thought it was wonderful [to have them around] but they probably would have thought it was weird.
You’ve brought up the Ravinia Family—with a capital F—numerous times. The Board of Trustees, the Life Trustees, the Women’s Board, the Associates Board, and the staff. You’ve intimated that everything is possible because of these folks.
Welz at the 2014 Gala with (left to right) the event’s co-chairs Betty McLean and Christy Fowler, violinist Joshua Bell, then Women’s Board chair Bobbie Denison, and then Board of Trustees chair John Anderson
We spoke a little bit earlier about how I got this job in the first place, because I didn’t really “fit” the specifications that had been written down. The chance they took turned out to be a journey; we held hands together and went for it. And we were gratified that there were successes early on. Usually when you have that early success, that happens because people come together and make it reality. And that’s certainly what happened here.
But then you do the next thing, and it makes everybody a little less fearful about taking on something unusual each time. Did everyone want to do an Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial celebration? No, not so much. Did the Sondheim stuff excite people? Sure, the theater people; we’re in a theater area, here by Chicago. Otherwise, not so much.
The daring and courage and penchant for adventure within the Ravinia Family is pretty extraordinary. And you don’t find that in classical music institutions very much. You find—not necessarily people who are timid, but who like the status quo. It’s worked before, let’s keep doing it that way. Ardis got in trouble with supertitles, right? Things like that, today we take them for granted, and many people assume they always were there in some form or another. Screens in the Pavilion, supertitles at the Lyric. We forget the history, and thought it’s not really important to know the history, you can’t get those kinds of things done unless there is this support.
If I can get just a little sentimental about the Ravinia Family—my husband and I got married in California. In Carmel, a town that has a lot of resonance for me because it was the vacation that my family would take when I was little. I love the beach, love the city. We got married there in the home of friends, on the water. A year later, we decided to do a commitment ceremony here because there were a lot of people who wanted to be at the actual marriage and couldn’t. Jon and I were able to use the beautiful space in the Dining Pavilion for our party; it shows you the warmth. Something that I’ll never, ever forget. The Chicago Children’s Choir, the Lincoln Trio, and all of these wonderful people. Good friends of ours plus a whole bunch of the Ravinia Family, some 300 people came.
Welz on stage with Josephine Lee at Navy Pier in 2015
I’m not sure I thought I would ever work in a place where that would be the case. And it wasn’t as if people felt, “Well, he’s the CEO of Ravinia, so we have to go.” Really what it was is, “He’s that guy we’re all older than and he’s kind of like our son.” They’re concerned about me, they ask questions about me. Am I working too hard? Am I too tired? You look really happy today. How’s Jon? How are the dogs? All those kinds of things. I feel very blessed.
The Ravinia Family is real. A lot of organizations call themselves a family, and I know they believe it. Here, especially for me and Jon, it takes on a whole special dimension. And it’s really not about me and Jon or me as CEO as much as it is about their love of the place. I think that, for this my last summer, one of my favorite Leonard Bernstein songs, “Take Care of This House,” is very relevant for me because, not that I’m the president of the United States, but we all know that the President, as they’re departing, they leave a letter for their successor. That’s all I would say, from me, to whoever takes this job, is to “Take Care of This House.” That’s the most important thing.
Award-winning veteran journalist, critic, author, broadcaster, and educator Dennis Polkow has been covering Chicago-based cultural institutions across various local, national, and international media for more than 35 years, including both decades of the Welz Kauffman era at Ravinia.