In ‘Letters to Jackie,’ Ryan Townsend Strand taps universal emotional responses

November 07, 2024 in Classical, Ravinia Magazine, The Artists

To tenor Ryan Townsend Strand, in 2020, the thousands of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic and the events of the horrific September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks seemed too recent, and the wounds too raw, to confront directly through his musical art. So he turned to another shocking moment in the nation’s history as a proxy to begin to come to terms with the grief the two incidents provoked—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

In collaboration with pianist Karina Kontorovitch, Strand oversaw the creation of Letters to Jackie, a program consisting of 14 song settings of letters of condolence and support written to Jacqueline Kennedy following her husband’s death. The two musicians premiered Letters to Jackie in November 2023 at Chicago’s Epiphany Center for the Arts, marking the 60th anniversary of the assassination. Ravinia will host the second Chicago-area performance November 16 as part of the Fall Series in Bennett Gordon Hall.

James Ehnes Keeps a Compelling Calendar

August 25, 2023 in Classical, Ravinia Magazine, The Artists, RaviniaNews

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.”

House Blend: Kahanes père & fils brew multiple-origin music

August 07, 2023 in Classical, RaviniaNews, The Artists

“Like father, like son.” That old, familiar saying seems especially apt when it comes to Jeffrey Kahane and his son, Gabriel. Although they lived on opposite coasts for two decades and have different kinds of careers—Jeffrey, 66, following the path of a more traditional classical pianist and Gabriel, 42, finding his way as an entrepreneurial, cross-genre singer-songwriter—both have devoted their lives to music.

Brain Storm: Gabriela Montero surges with moments of inspiration

July 19, 2023 in Classical, RaviniaNews, The Artists

With such bona fides of ability and adventurousness, Montero’s simpatico with Ravinia’s Breaking Barriers Festival is little surprise. She kicks off the series of events this year focused on women composers—anchored by three evening concerts—with a performance of her Latin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Friday, July 21.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Alma?

July 19, 2023 in Classical, RaviniaNews

Less than six months after the death of Alma Schindler on December 11, 1964, the satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer wrote a song that he said was inspired by “the juiciest, spiciest, raciest obituary it has ever been my pleasure to read.” Worth checking out on YouTube, his ballad “Alma” is highly entertaining but does little justice to a figure who has frustrated historians attempting an accurate portrait.

Music & Mayhem: Karen Ouzounian Powerfully Shatters Pigeonholes with Her Artistic Partners

September 01, 2022 in Artist News, Classical, Ravinia Magazine, RaviniaNews, RSMI

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.

A Very High Sort of Strings

June 21, 2022 in Classical, Artist News

The Emerson Quartet announced in August 2021 that it will disband in 2023 after 47 years on the road, performing its final concert in October that year in New York’s Alice Tully Hall. As part of what has become a kind of an extended farewell tour, the group will make its culminating appearance at the Ravinia Festival on June 28.

Intense, Beautiful, Devoted: Classical music has long felt the Bern(stein) to speak in political tones

August 16, 2018 in Music Education, Classical

There was a stunning moment in the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s “Celebrating 100 Years of Bernstein” gala this season. Kate Baldwin, on a brief hiatus from her Tony Award–nominated run in Broadway’s revival of Hello Dolly!, took the stage and delivered an ineffably moving rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s Vietnam-era protest song “So Pretty.” This affecting piece, with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, was first heard in 1968 at the Broadway for Peace fundraiser co-hosted by Bernstein and Paul Newman. It was performed then by Barbra Streisand with the composer himself at the piano. The song tells of a land far away with golden temples and pretty people with shining hair—who we are told “must die for peace.” The text concludes with “But they’re so pretty, so pretty. / I don’t understand.”

Music Was No Balm for L. Frank Baum

September 26, 2017 in Opinion, Ravinia History

In 2005 and again in 2016, Ravinia audiences were treated to a screening of possibly the most beloved movie of all time, The Wizard of Oz, with the musical score performed live. But as old as that screen classic is—the film was released in 1939—it was not the earliest film adaptation of one of the 13 Oz novels that Lyman Frank Baum would eventually write. The earliest attempt was part of a project the author himself oversaw 31 years before Judy Garland sailed over the rainbow—and it was seen at Ravinia over a century ago.