This marks the first year that I’ll be attending concerts at Ravinia in Chicago. I’ve long been a fan of the programming there and look forward to finally having my first experiences there. Here are the twelve shows I think you shouldn’t miss at Ravinia this season.
June 7th: Grace Jones and Janelle Monáe
You might wonder what Grace Jones is doing on a culture list. I would have been asking the same question had I not seen her in concert at the Hollywood Bowl in September of 2022.
Yes, Jones is a pop star. But I think she’s more of a performance artist. Her shows are a pure expression of her full creativity. Anyone who likes performance art should check out her concerts.
At that Hollywood Bowl Janelle Monáe showed up to sing Pull Up to the Bumper at the close of the show. I’m not surprised to see them pairing up for this show. Monáe is one of our most adventurous singer/songwriters. I expect no less from her than I do Jones. This is a dynamic duo for the ages.
June 11th: Bach’s Goldberg Variations – Angela Hewitt
Pianist Hewitt is one of the finest performers of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. She is celebrating 50 years of live performances with this performance of the composer’s 30 variations on one theme.
Hewitt has recorded this work twice: once in 1999 and second recording in 2015. The Goldberg Variations run about 85 minutes.
Fans of Bach performed extraordinarily well will not want to miss this concert.
July 9th: Chucho Valdés, Paquito D’Rivera & Arturo Sandoval
Afro-Cuban jazz doesn’t get better than Chucho Valdés. His career has had numerous highlights, but his 1973 band Irakere 50 is definitely one of them. This small big-band packed a very big sound.
Valdés is a towering figure in this genre of music and other musicians clamor to collaborate with him.
As in this concert which finds saxophonist/clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera and trumpeter and composer Arturo Sandoval joining him for this concert.
The show opens with Emilio Frías and his orchestra El Niño y la Verdad.
Put on your dancing shoes!
July 11th: 89th Residency Opening Night
Marin Alsop conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a program that features two well-known works from the 20th century and a composition by one of our most fascinating contemporary composers.
Carlos Simon’s Amen opens the concert. This 13-minute work had its world premiere in 2017. It celebrates Simon and his family’s generations-long attendance with the Pentecostal church.
Pianist Bruce Liu joins for Rachmaninoff’s showy Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini to close out the first half of the concert.
Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, which still sounds new and cutting edge 112 years after its debut in Paris. It’s a staggering work. This should be an equally staggering concert.
July 13th: Sutton Foster & Kelli O’Hara
Two of Broadway’s Best join forces: Two-time Tony Award winner Sutton Foster (Thoroughly Modern Millie and Anything Goes) and Tony Award winner Kelli O’Hara (The King and I).
Between the two of them they have 15 Tony Award nominations. They have also appeared in some of the best shows on Broadway over the past 20 years.
They include The Drowsy Chaperone, Violet, The Light in the Piazza and South Pacific.
Audiences should expect some deep cut Broadway tracks, non-Broadway selections and, of course, some of the songs that Foster and O’Hara have made their own.
Marin Alsop conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
July 18th: Mahler’s Second Symphony: “Resurrection”
Gustav Mahler’s 2nd Symphony had its world premiere in Berlin in 1895. It is, of course, a large-scale work – as most of his symphonies are. It runs close to 90 minutes.
Marin Alsop will conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Soloists are soprano Janai Brugger and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke.
Contemplate life. Contemplate nature. Contemplate what it all means…courtesy of Mahler.
July 20th: Premiere: String Quartet by Joel Thompson
This is a free concert and also a matinee. It showcases the new string quartet by composer Joel Thompson. He is a bit more than half-way through his 5-year term as Composer-in-Residence at Houston’s Grand Opera. His string quartet was co-commissioned by Ravinia and Chamber Music America.
This concert will be performed by members of the Steans Institute Piano & Strings Program.
45 minutes before the world premiere, Thompson will hold a talk with violinist Midori to discuss his composition.
July 25th: Chef Sheherazade
This globe-trotting concert features works from various parts of the world: the Persian Empire, India, the Midwestern United States and Cuba. It’s part of the 2025 Breaking Barriers series at Ravinia.
That concert opens with RE|member by composer Reena Esmail. It is a work she composed during the pandemic.
As she says about the work on her website, “I wanted this piece to honor the experience of coming back together, infused with the wisdom of the time apart.”
The third movement from The Great Lake Concerto by Tim Corpus follows. Ed Harrison and Vadim Karpinos will be featured on percussion.
The first act concludes with George Gershwin’s Cuban Overture.
The concert closes with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Based on One Thousand and One Nights, the work had its world premiere in 1888.
Conductor Marin Alsop co-curated this concert with Molly Yeh. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performs.
August 13th: Apollo’s Fire
You might not think of Baroque music and the stuff of duels. But it’s also the stuff of duals. As in double-concerti.
Works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Evarista Felice Dall’Abaco, Georg Philipp Telemann and Antonio Vivaldi will each feature two soloists.
Bach’s Double Violin Concerto will feature Alan Choo and Susanna Perry Gilmore going toe-to-toe with one another. Telemann’s Concerto for Flute and Recorder will showcase Kathie Stewart and Daphna Mor. Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos will pit René Schiffer and Rebecca Landell.
Who needs Gladiator when you have Apollo’s Fire?
August 15th: Cynthia Erivo
Less than two weeks after playing Jesus in the Hollywood Bowl production of Jesus Christ Superstar, Tony Award-winner Erivo joins the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Edwin Outwater.
It’s a busy time for Erivo. Wicked was a smash success with the second film opening later this year. She’s hosting the Tony Awards on June 8th.
Her new album I Forgive You is being released on Friday, June 6th.
What to expect? Having seen her in concert before, expect the unexpected. Her version of Don’t Rain on My Parade from Funny Girl was extraordinary. As is Erivo.
August 24th: Handel’s Alcina
Handel’s 3-act opera gets a matinee performance at Ravinia. Alcina had its world premiere in 1735 in London. It’s an opera than can be performed in 2-1/2 hours with some cuts or closer to 3-1/2 hours without them.
This semi-staged production is from Chicago’s Haymarket Opera Company under the baton of Craig Trompeter.
Soprano Nicole Cabell sings the title role. She is a sorceress with a short attention span. She uses her magical powers to attract men. But once she grows tired of them, turns them into stones and animals.
Ruggiero (Emily Fons), a knight, becomes enraptured with Alcina. That doesn’t sit too well with his fiancée Bradamante (Elizabeth DeShong). She disguises herself as her brother in hopes of rescuing her beloved before he, too, gets turned to stone.
August 26th: Bach in Brazil
I am a big fan of guitarist Plínio Fernandes’ 2023 album Bacheando in which compositions by Bach are interspersed with music by some of Brazil’s best-known composers. What seems to be an unlikely combination proves to be a perfect fit.
This concert will showcase works by Bach alongside those of João Bandolim, Ary Barroso, Violeta Parra, Heitor Villa-Lobos and more.
He’s a superb musician and this should be a captivating evening.
Of course, this is just my top 12. And it doesn’t cover the full range of concerts I’d attend. My interests aren’t limited to just a few genres of music. There are concerts by Juanes, James Taylor, Dan Tepfer and countless other classical music and jazz concerts to attend.
The only show you won’t find me clamoring to see is The Sound of Music Sing-Along. No one needs to hear me struggle to sing Lonely Goatherd. But if this movie is one of your favorite things, sing out on August 28th to your heart’s content.
For tickets and more information for the twelve concerts I’ve selected, click on the event names just after the dates. For all concerts at Ravinia, please go HERE.
Main Photo: Ravinia Pavilion (Courtesy Ravinia Festival)
All photos Courtesy Ravinia Festival unless otherwise noted.