Reach Teach Play programs are still in full swing this off-season, and our students have been busy showcasing their hard work. Just last week, our Sistema Ravinia Orchestra presented a winter concert at Gregory Elementary School located in Homan Square. Trumpet and clarinet students gave an auditorium performance to their fellow classmates.
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Ravinia Steans Music Institute alumni and faculty receive Grammy nominations
It’s that time of year again! We are proud to announce alumni and faculty members of the Steans Music Institute who have received 2022 Grammy Award nominations. The 64th Annual Grammy Awards broadcast is scheduled for January 31, 2022.
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Ravinia Jazz Scholars alumni jazz it up at Green Mill
Four alumni of Ravinia’s Jazz Mentor Program—known as Jazz Scholars when they were young musicians in the program—made their way to the Green Mill Jazz Club stage for much-anticipated performances that had lines out the door.
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RSMI Alumni Making Headlines in November 2021
Since 1988, the Ravinia Steans Music Institute has been an international destination for young professional musicians devoted to honing and advancing their musical talents. Over that time, RSMI has seen over 1,500 exceptional musicians enter its programs; many of whom have gone on to have very impressive accomplishments in their careers. Here are a few recent stories from November 2021:
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Ravinia’s music education program paves 12-year-old singer’s opera career path
Daelyn Calloway, who is in the Ravinia Lawndale Family Music School choir program, has already been a part of a handful of opera productions at the young age of twelve. Her most recent singing appearance in The Magic Flute occurred this month at Chicago’s Lyric Opera. She has also performed in the Lyric’s production of The Queen of Spades, The Dead Man Walking, and in the spring, she will be performing in the Tosca production.
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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.
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Reach Teach Play Looks Back at Successful Summer
Not only did live music return to the park after a dark and quiet 2020 season, so did Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play (RTP) education program participants. Although RTP instructors and students were not able to perform or meet in person for over a year, this season brought with it numerous joyful reunions and inspiring moments.
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Reach Teach Play Brings Flamenco to Elementary Classroom
This month, Reach Teach Play’s Guest Artists in the Classroom brought the Clinard Dance Flamenco Quartet to Hitch Elementary School for two performances in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. The performances brought zapateado–a Spanish word referring to the shoe strikes flamenco dancers make–to over 100 students along with mesmerizing sounds from traditional Spanish guitar, a cantaora or cante singer, and a violin.
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Honoring Hispanic Heritage Month
in Opinion
Hispanic Heritage Month is an important celebration in the United States. For more than 40 years, Hispanics and non-Hispanics have commemorated this month with pride and joy, all while highlighting the importance of diversity throughout the country.
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2021 Recap— All Together Now: A Place, A Purpose, Performers, And People
in Park News, RaviniaNews
The 2021 Ravinia season has been unforgettable and, in typical fashion, packed full of numerous memorable musical moments. Yet with so much happening in the park—between 70 different events over three months—it’s easy to have missed something amazing along the way. We invite you to take a look back at the incomparable 2021 season with us through the video recap and image galleries, and remember that while you were making these indelible summer memories, you were also helping make our year-round music education programs possible. Thank you for joining us this season!
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The Lincoln Trio Premieres an Ode to Chicago Architecture
in Classical, Artist News
Following their chamber music Grammy nomination in 2016 with Trios from Our Homelands—comprising 20th-century piano trios from each member musician’s ancestral nations—the Lincoln Trio has brought that same focus to their current Chicagoland home on their latest album, Trios from the City of Big Shoulders, released three months ago.
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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.’ ”
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In Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play programs, it’s never been clearer that music matters
Every year Ravinia sends hundreds of musicians into Chicago Public Schools as well as classrooms in Highland Park, Waukegan, and North Chicago. What began in 1965 with the Women’s Board’s program of making lawn passes available to low-income music lovers has grown into Reach Teach Play, a year-round operation that reaches 75,000 children annually through a dozen distinct programs.
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Emoting the Moment: Ben Folds waltzes to weird and normal
Ben Folds does not talk in what he calls “snack-sized” sound bites. He speaks expansively about creativity, a mercurial process. We spoke about why waltzes are incredible, the pitfalls of writing a song about Rudy Giuliani’s disastrous Four Seasons Landscaping press conference, and why arts education is essential to our post-pandemic restart.
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Artist Spotlight: DJs Madrid Perry, Joe Bryl & Frank Orrall
in Artist News
On September 23, Ravinia hosts its first-ever event focused solely on the art of the DJ. For one of the final performances of the season, relax on the Lawn and enjoy some chill end-of-summer vibes. Get to know the three DJs lighting up the Carousel stage.
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For All to Hear: Alexander Hersh makes chamber music a nexus of creativity
“We initially had the idea of starting a summer chamber music festival in downtown Chicago. We partnered with Guarneri Hall, which was being built at the same time. Now, NEXUS is a group, a roster of artists from all around the world who are deeply passionate about chamber music and convene to present projects.”
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Your Support Goes Twice The Distance!
Our friends at The Negaunee Foundation know this, too, and have generously offered a “Pillars of Ravinia” challenge grant, matching dollar-for-dollar every $100–$500 donation to the festival’s 2021 Annual Fund, up to $100,000, from now until the summer season ends.
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Artist Spotlight: The Blind Boys of Alabama
in Artist News
If you Google “The Blind Boys of Alabama” you’ll easily find a million recounts of their astounding eighty-two-years-and-counting story. But…there’s a different way to learn about the Blind Boy’s story before they return to Ravinia on Sept 11. It won’t be from something you read. It’ll be from something that you hear. And most importantly, it’ll be straight from the source and something you’ll feel.
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Smartly Appointed: The Joffrey suits up savvy spectacles returning to Ravinia’s dance card
“To me, dance with live music is really important,” says Jeffrey Haydon, who took over last September as Ravinia’s president and chief executive officer. “We are in a very visual society right now, and I think that is a way that people can connect even more with music: by seeing it visualized through dance.”
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The Beat of the Moment: Max Weinberg makes his audience the boss with Jukebox band
For some 45 years, the now 70-year-old Weinberg and his big beat have been the sonic engine driving the powerful, pounding, chugging, and charging musical locomotive that is Springsteen’s E Street Band. Currently on a hiatus, as Springsteen and the E Streeters plan a possible return to the stage in 2022 for the first time since 2017, Weinberg still is keeping his musical train moving fast and furious down a rock and roll track.
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