The doomsayers keep insisting classical music is tottering, just as those who run the show keep insisting it’s very much alive and indeed kicking. They say it’s just a matter of making more people aware they are missing something important if they exclude great music from their lives.
Zarin Mehta is one local impresario willing to make the orchestral concert experience more user-friendly to more people. Two new series designed to open the experience to new ears are among the more than 130 Ravinia Festival events booked for the festival’s 11-week summer season, which runs June 15 to Sept. 1. Both orchestral concert series, “Family Fun” and “Classical SoundBytes,” will be launched on opening day.
“Family Fun” will consist of four concerts, the first at 2 p.m., June 15 featuring orchestral versions of Dr. Seuss books conducted by composer Robert Kapilow. Other concerts in the series are “Music All Around Us,” July 19; “Beethoven Back to the Future,” July 26; and a presentation by the Joffrey Ballet, Aug. 30. These programs will supplement, not replace, the six-performance “Kraft Kids Concerts.”
“Classical SoundBytes,” as its title suggests, will consist of two programs built around favorite movements from familiar symphonic masterworks. The first concert, at 5 p.m. June 15, will be “Classical Music Goes to the Movies,” with conductor William Eddins and pianist Alexander Slobodyanik. “Born in the USA,” on Aug. 17, will hold American, or American-themed, music ranging from Dvorak to Frank Zappa.
“We want to break down this formal barrier some people feel exists when they go to a symphonic concert,” says Mehta. “We want to expose new listeners to the great music that is available to them.”
Of course, there will be plenty of complete symphonies played during the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s eight-week residency. Music director Christoph Eschenbach will conduct 15 of the 23 CSO concerts, with a program emphasis on works by Schubert and Brahms. The year marks the 200th anniversary of Franz Schubert’s birth and the centennial of Brahms’ death. Eschenbach also will collaborate with chamber ensembles and singers in the Martin Theatre, lead master classes at the Steans Institute for Young Artists and participate in a Brahms-Schubert marathon of instrumental and vocal chamber works.
Guest conductors directing CSO concerts this summer include violinist Pinchas Zukerman, Donald Runnicles and Yuri Temirkanov. Erich Kunzel will return to lead the Ravinia Festival Orchestra in three light classical programs, including the traditional “Tchaikovsky Spectacular” (with cannons) as festival finale on Sept. 1. There will be 20 concerts by chamber music ensembles, solo instrumentalists and singers in the Martin Theatre, along with five Preview and four Postlude concerts and five “Musica Viva” programs of avant-garde and world music and dance.
Pianists appearing with the CSO include John Browning, Jon Kimura Parker, Menahem Pressler, Jonathan Gilad, Yefim Bronfman, Peter Serkin, Alejandro Vela, Andre Watts, Tzimon Barto, Andreas Haefliger and Eschenbach. Appearing in recital will be pianists Misha Dichter, Alicia de Larrocha and Stephen Kovacevich.
Ravinia long has been a mecca for singers and those who love singing. Of the vocalists appearing this summer, Denyce Graves, Ben Heppner and Thomas Allen will team up for a concert of operatic excerpts from Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier” and Saint-Saens’ “Samson et Dalila” under Eschenbach’s baton. Rebecca Evans and Thomas Hampson will be the soloists in Brahms’ “A German Requiem” under Eschenbach. Samuel Ramey will sing opera arias and Broadway hits.
Recitals will be given by Renee Fleming, Barbara Bonney and Hampson, all accompanied by Eschenbach at the piano. Jessye Norman will headline the annual Gala Benefit Evening, previously announced. The a cappella male chorus Chanticleer will make its festival debut.
Instrumentalists to be featured at Ravinia this summer include Itzhak Perlman, Gil Shaham, Sarah Chang, Miriam Fried, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Rachel Barton and Jennifer Koh, violins; Hai-Ye Ni, cello; CSO members Li-Kuo Chang, viola; Stephen Balderston, cello; Alex Klein, oboe, Larry Combs, clarinet and Joseph Guastafeste, bass; clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, with pianist-composer Lukas Foss; and bassoonist Milan Turkovic.
Along with its other efforts to pull in a new public, Ravinia is making the inevitable bow to the success of “Shine”: Pianist Bronfman will perform that film’s Greatest Hit, the “Rach 3” (a k a Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3), with Temirkanov conducting.
