In recent years, Ravinia Festival has been pushing the buttons of eclecticism in classical music, dance, jazz, pop, musical theater, cabaret and combinations thereof.
March 8, 2007 (Press Release) --
And its 2007 season looks to be one of the long-reigning summer festival's most eclectic set of offerings to date.
There are new fusions of jazz and classical music with dance, pairings of singers with composers and instrumentalists -- and with each other. Continuing investigations of music by composers who were suppressed, exiled or murdered by the Nazi German regime. Premieres, debuts and a "Water Works" theme that will link the Highland Park venue with other area cultural and science institutions. All are, excuse the expression, on tap.
As it has for seven decades, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will anchor the classical music offerings though in a slightly altered schedule to accommodate the anticipated return of the 17-year cicadas to the North Shore.
"We know that the cicadas are coming, we know they've come before," said Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kauffman at a press breakfast previewing the season.
"But there seems to be very little documentation of exactly what happens when they arrive, except that it gets rather noisy."
This year, Ravinia has invited Field Museum entomologists to document the insects' visit, and the Field will also set up at Ravinia a satellite version of its own scheduled summer cicadas exhibit.
While the CSO continues its music director search, Ravinia has extended the contract of its own music director, James Conlon, through the 2011 season. It has called on his predecessor, Christoph Eschenbach, who recently announced his departure from the top job at the Philadelphia Orchestra, and former Dallas Symphony Orchestra conductor Andrew Litton to round out Ravinia's 17-concert CSO residency.
Conlon's ambitious programs include:
• Mahler's Fifth and Sixth symphonies, July 6 and Aug. 1.
• Mozart piano concerto evenings with the excellent American veteran Garrick Ohlsson, July 15, and the much-hyped young American Jonathan Biss, July 8.
• The gala benefit concert with supertenor Placido Domingo, Aug. 4.
• A concert version of Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" with American singers Patricia Racette and Frank Lopardo, Aug. 11.
• The season's featured "Breaking the Silence" and "One Score, One Chicago" work, Alexander von Zemlinsky's 1905 tone-poem "The Mermaid," based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, Aug. 12.
• A concert performance with the CSO of Zemlinsky's 1917 opera "A Florentine Tragedy," based on an Oscar Wilde story and featuring tenor Anthony Dean Griffey and soprano Christine Brewer on July 11, and the "Lyric Symphony" of 1924 with Brewer as soloist, July 7.
• A program of Zelimsky's works by the Escher String Quartet on Family Day, July 1.
Source: http://www.msn.com
POSTED BY ANDREW PATNER
There are new fusions of jazz and classical music with dance, pairings of singers with composers and instrumentalists -- and with each other. Continuing investigations of music by composers who were suppressed, exiled or murdered by the Nazi German regime. Premieres, debuts and a "Water Works" theme that will link the Highland Park venue with other area cultural and science institutions. All are, excuse the expression, on tap.
As it has for seven decades, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will anchor the classical music offerings though in a slightly altered schedule to accommodate the anticipated return of the 17-year cicadas to the North Shore.
"We know that the cicadas are coming, we know they've come before," said Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kauffman at a press breakfast previewing the season.
"But there seems to be very little documentation of exactly what happens when they arrive, except that it gets rather noisy."
This year, Ravinia has invited Field Museum entomologists to document the insects' visit, and the Field will also set up at Ravinia a satellite version of its own scheduled summer cicadas exhibit.
While the CSO continues its music director search, Ravinia has extended the contract of its own music director, James Conlon, through the 2011 season. It has called on his predecessor, Christoph Eschenbach, who recently announced his departure from the top job at the Philadelphia Orchestra, and former Dallas Symphony Orchestra conductor Andrew Litton to round out Ravinia's 17-concert CSO residency.
Conlon's ambitious programs include:
• Mahler's Fifth and Sixth symphonies, July 6 and Aug. 1.
• Mozart piano concerto evenings with the excellent American veteran Garrick Ohlsson, July 15, and the much-hyped young American Jonathan Biss, July 8.
• The gala benefit concert with supertenor Placido Domingo, Aug. 4.
• A concert version of Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" with American singers Patricia Racette and Frank Lopardo, Aug. 11.
• The season's featured "Breaking the Silence" and "One Score, One Chicago" work, Alexander von Zemlinsky's 1905 tone-poem "The Mermaid," based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, Aug. 12.
• A concert performance with the CSO of Zemlinsky's 1917 opera "A Florentine Tragedy," based on an Oscar Wilde story and featuring tenor Anthony Dean Griffey and soprano Christine Brewer on July 11, and the "Lyric Symphony" of 1924 with Brewer as soloist, July 7.
• A program of Zelimsky's works by the Escher String Quartet on Family Day, July 1.
Source: http://www.msn.com
POSTED BY ANDREW PATNER
Email
Print
SPAM
LEAVE A COMMENT
