With beautiful music, enthusiastic community, and gorgeous scenery, it’s hardly a surprise that Ravinia is a special place for many. For some concertgoers, however, Ravinia holds extra sentimental value as a venue where their love stories have grown and flourished. Thank you to those who shared their stories with us – we are grateful to be included in such romantic milestones. Kristin and Todd Schmidt Kristin and Todd first went to Ravinia for a Chicago Symphony Orchestra performance in the summer of 1993. They went as friends because they were unable to go back to college for Greek Weekend ..read more

All 600 students turned out December 9 for a presentation by the Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass during just the second all-school assembly in the Neal Math and Science Academy’s still-new building in North Chicago. Band Director Nathan Massa couldn’t have been happier at every step. That appearance, and another for the band and choir students at the nearby North Chicago Community High School, came a day after Marsalis’s group performed as part of the Ravinia’s Winter Weekend and took place under the auspices of the Highland Park organization’s Reach Teach Play education and community e ..read more

Although Ravinia has been best known for more than a century as a destination for live music bathed in summer’s warm weather and leisure time, the Highland Park venue also offers visitors entertainment for the holiday season as well as in fall and spring. During its Dec. 6–8 Winter Weekend, Ravinia is presenting three musical lineups, including two directly centered on the yuletide; a specially curated menu and seasonal goodies in two of its onsite eateries; and a pop-up shop with holiday gifts ..read more

Classical chamber music, rock and roll, and hip-hop might seem as separate as oil and water, but for Project Trio, these are the ingredients to an ever-evolving, high-energy setlist that keeps their audiences perpetually on the edge of their seats. On Saturday, November 9, innovative chamber group Project Trio will bring their genre-bending music to Ravinia’s Bennett Gordon Hall—but their first Ravinia performances have been sharing their passion for improvisation and composition with hundreds of students across Chicagoland. This past week, the trio conducted three workshops and two in-school ..read more

To tenor Ryan Townsend Strand, in 2020, the thousands of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic and the events of the horrific September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks seemed too recent, and the wounds too raw, to confront directly through his musical art. So he turned to another shocking moment in the nation’s history as a proxy to begin to come to terms with the grief the two incidents provoked—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In collaboration with pianist Karina Kontorovitch, Strand oversaw the creation of Letters to Jackie, a program consisting of 14 song settings of letters of co ..read more

Just days before making his Ravinia debut on November 16 with a solo concert in Bennett Gordon Hall, the 2021 American Prize–winning tenor Ryan Townsend Strand makes his solo recording debut with music from his signature song project Letters to Jackie. The specially commissioned songs from composers across generations—Augusta Read Thomas, Jen Shyu, Will Liverman, Tom Cipullo, Libby Larsen, Nicholas Cline, Adore Alexander, Skyler Butenshon, Matthew Recio, Timothy C. Takach, and Erik Pearson—set to letters to Jacqueline Kennedy after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. The album ..read more

For 30 years, Ravinia Festival’s Reach Teach Play program has transformed the lives of young musicians through its Jazz Mentor Program. The initiative offers pre-professional training to two dozen or so talented Chicago Public High School student musicians each year—forming an ensemble known as the Ravinia Jazz Scholars—while also annually reaching 1,000 students in Chicago Public Schools through workshops led by Chicago’s top jazz musicians: the Ravinia Jazz Mentors. In 2023, an exciting initiative was introduced: “Want to Play Jazz? A Workshop for Young Women,” founded by trombonist Audrey M ..read more

“The beautiful thing about songs, as opposed to movies and books, is that they’re not filed based on what’s true and what’s not,” says Jason Isbell, arguably America’s best living troubadour. “First of all, everything is based on a true story, or else we wouldn’t even have a language for telling stories.” And with that simple declaration, it’s obvious: Here’s an artist who’s done serious internal work—a lot of deep thinking and intense feeling—and then emerged from that process with some profound insights. Not convinced? Isbell elaborated on his perspective two months ago in a conversation wit ..read more

For its latest appearance at Ravinia, Joffrey is presenting two programs on the Pavilion stage—an evening performance September 13 with live music and, reprising a tradition from the past, a morning presentation September 14 as part of the festival’s Kids Concert Series.  Joffrey’s first Ravinia visit took place in 1972, long before it was based in Chicago, and at that time it became something of a perennial presence, appearing in weeklong residencies each year through 1979. But subsequent returns were more sporadic: a series of multidate stands occupied the calendars of 1997 through 2000 ..read more

It’s no slight understatement to observe that the whole of Illinois left no stone—or stovepipe hat—unturned to celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of the 16th President of the United States. Naturally, a great many Illinoisan academics and leaders came together under the interdisciplinary Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, including Ravinia’s team. Then president and CEO of the festival, Welz Kauffman brought a clear vision: “Lincoln is a figure of change. To celebrate Lincoln in a year that brought America its first Black president is more than serendipity; it’s reinforceme ..read more