Ravinia’s long-running summer training program for young professional musicians, the Steans Music Institute, has nurtured many careers— over 1,600 individual artists since 1988—at impressionable moments, and those who go on to bigger things often return in later years as part of main- stage programming. Among others, this summer violinist Augustin Hadelich will solo with the Chicago Symphony on July 25, more than 20 years after he spent a summer at the Steans Institute playing chamber music. And on July 18, the Viano Quartet will appear in the Martin Theatre, only four years after their virtual Steans experience during the pandemic year of 2020.
Read MoreRSMI
The Involving Bassist: Rufus Reid Has All the Pluck to Play, Teach, and Write
Bassist Rufus Reid has lit up the New York City jazz scene for nearly 50 years, working in all the major clubs, fronting more than a dozen albums and serving as a duet partner and sideman on scores more with such luminaries as Kenny Barron, Kenny Burrell, Art Farmer, J.J. Johnson, and Akira Tana. But as important as the Big Apple as has been to this ever-dependable jazz stalwart, none of his success there would have been possible without his early years in Chicago…
Read More
photo: Patrick Gipson/Ravinia
The Steans Piano Trio Found and Renews Instant Kismet at Ravinia
Kismet has a way of striking at unexpected times, and that is exactly what happened when three fellows at the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute (RSMI) happened to be put together with a violist to perform Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in 2015.
Though previously acquainted at the Curtis Institute of Music, they had never played together and had no particular interest in being part of a piano trio. Or so they thought.
All that changed when they began rehearsing together, and the young artists immediately found themselves captivated by the collaboration. Four years later, they decided to make the happenstance assemblage into a permanent group.
Read More
Photo: Nigel Parry
Midori Is Named the Next Artistic Director of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute Piano & Strings Program
in Classical, Park News, RaviniaNews, RSMI
Ravinia is proud to announce the appointment of esteemed violinist Midori as the Artistic Director of Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s Piano & Strings program, effective this fall to begin overseeing the 2024 summer season. Midori will succeed the acclaimed violinist Miriam Fried, who has held that position since 1994, following the tenures of the late Robert Mann (1988) and Walter Levin (1989–93).
Read More
Visceral Vivacity, Lustrous Lyricism: Emily D'Angelo Sings enargeia in Many Forms
We’ve all searched for silver linings since March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic completely upended everyday life around the world. The precious slice for Canadian-born mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo found was time.
Read More
Ravinia Steans Music Institute (RSMI) alumni showcase prestigious singing at The Met Opera and beyond
The classical vocalists who earn fellowships to perform and study art song at the Ravinia Steans Music Institute all have the talent to enrapture stages around the world, but there’s an undeniable boost that comes from strong performances in—let alone winning—events like the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition. Formerly known as the National Council Auditions, the competition is designed to discover young professional opera singers and assist in the development of their careers.
Read More
Ravinia welcomes Alejandra Valarino Boyer as the new Director of our Steans Music Institute
Alejandra Valarino Boyer joins the Steans Music Institute as its new Director, effective March 1. With more than ten years of experience in arts administration, Valarino Boyer is a strategic leader with experience in community engagement, production management, and program development through her work at Seattle Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Read More
Meet Steve Wilson—RSMI's Newest Program Director
At the start of the 2021 Ravinia season, the Steans Music Institute was proud to announce that Steve Wilson joined the Program for Jazz directorate as the program’s third co-director. Wilson, a saxophonist and composer, has long been active in the New York jazz scene, playing, teaching, and recording, both with his own ensembles and with jazz stalwarts such as Christian McBride, Maria Schneider, and Chick Corea.
Read More
Socially Behind the Scenes at Ravinia Steans Music Institute
in Music Education, RSMI, Park News
A day in the life of a Steans Music Institute fellow is never all practice, all the time. To share glimpses of the experience with those on the outside, “Tuesday Takeovers” began in RSMI’s Instagram Stories, bringing viewers into the musicians’ jam-packed schedules and daily experiences.
Read More
A Resplendent Summer at the Steans Institute, Da Capo al Fine
“The fact that everybody here is so talented and yet so nice and humble—there’s no ego here, no drama—it’s so refreshing to be in an environment like this,” said trumpeter Joey Archie. “You don’t find many places like this with high-quality people at all levels, from the faculty to the assistants. Everybody is so warm, and Ravinia Steans Music Institute definitely lives up to its motto, ‘Everything for the Artist.’ ”
Read More
Violinist Maria Ioudenitch Reminisces on Ravinia Steans Music Institute Fellowship
in RSMI, Music Education
Ravinia 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 MoreWelcome Returns: Stella Chen and Matthew Lipman enter a new Ravinia stage with Chicago Symphony debuts
What 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 More
Jazz Alum Alan Blanchard Performs “Nobody Else But Me”
in Music Education, RSMI
Take a listen to RSMI Jazz alum Alan Blanchard perform his arrangement “Nobody Else But Me” alongside bassist Gabriel Godoy and pianist Mason Margut!
Read More
Ravinia Steans Music Institute (RSMI) Kicks Off The Summer
in Music Education, RSMI
The Steans Music Institute is thrilled to return to in-person music making, kicking off with the Bridges Composition Competition concert and the Jazz Grandstand concert, both streamed on Ravinia’s YouTube channel.
Read More
Alexis Lombre Makes “Come Find Me” a Singular Musical Philosophy After Ravinia Successes
South Side–native pianist and vocalist Alexis Lombre is the latest outstanding artist to have come up through both Ravinia programs, and Backstage caught up with the now sometime Detroiter in the midst of work on her second solo album, which she’s dubbed an amalgamation of everything that she listens to and everything that she is. She’s been prepping the first single, “Come Find Me,” from the new collection of original tracks with a fellow Chicagoan, Grammy-winning guitarist Isaiah Sharkey, as producer, and Lombre has recently released a mini-documentary series on her YouTube channel to give fans a sneak peek at the creative process.
Read More
Tuning Up: Musicians and conservatories break the cycle of performance injuries
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.
Read MoreRavinia Receives Grants
Building Bridges: The iron is hot for fusing jazz and classical in RSMI's composition competition
It was in the spirit of the intense and aspirational goals of RSMI’s ambitious programs for jazz and classical musicians—as well as the bold musical vision of Leonard Bernstein, whom Ravinia has just gotten underway celebrating with an expansive multiyear tribute—that Bridges, an international jazz and classical fusion composition competition, was born. It offered an imaginative challenge for artists ages 17–30 (the same age range as the 60–70 performers invited to RSMI each year) to compose original works specifically for a string quartet and a jazz trio. “The Bridges competition was conceived to help give young professionals a place on the map—if not the world stage—which is precisely what RSMI has been granting singers and instrumentalists for the past three decades,” Kauffman said. The directors of the RSMI Program for Jazz had long dreamed of such a competition, having written many works combining jazz and classical music and players themselves.
Ravinia's Steans Institute Remembers David Baker
All of us at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute are still in shock about the sudden death of David Baker last Saturday. David had led the RSMI Program for Jazz since its inception in 2000, so naturally he had developed a certain way he expected things to be done. When I became director of RSMI in 2010, I was in a constant whirlwind with all three of the programs, grasping for any bit of knowledge I could try to retain as I learned on the fly, so of course things didn’t run exactly as David was accustomed to, of course I dropped a few balls here and there. So when he showed up in my doorway
Ravinia and Cuba exchange virtuosos
Nine months before Obama’s historic announcement last winter, Ravinia had already significantly connected with the government of Cuba. In March 2014 an ensemble of young chamber musicians, alumni of Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute (the festival’s summer conservatory), performed in Havana’s Festival de Música de Cámara.
“We got very lucky. We met the right people at the right time,” Plonsker elaborates. “I see Ravinia as a leader. We got there on an official basis before any other group, and we are operating at a very high level of cultural exchange.”