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hplandmark.com Life & Arts<br />
the highland park landmark | March 15, 2018 | 25<br />
Ravinia announces 2018 lineup<br />
Concerts, classical<br />
music front and<br />
center this summer<br />
Xavier Ward, Editor<br />
Festivalgoers can expect<br />
more than just concerts<br />
from Ravinia Festival this<br />
year.<br />
While it will continue its<br />
tradition of hosting popular<br />
music acts, Ravinia<br />
CEO Welz Kaufmann said<br />
it plans to add a few more<br />
features to diversify its offering<br />
of entertainment.<br />
This summer also marks<br />
the 30th anniversary of Ravinia’s<br />
Steans Music Institute.<br />
The music program has<br />
tracts for piano, strings, vocal<br />
and jazz.<br />
“There are lots of special<br />
celebrations within<br />
each of those programs,”<br />
Kaufmann said.<br />
While Ravinia’s conservatory<br />
is relatively new<br />
compared to many other<br />
established programs such<br />
as Aspen, Interlochen and<br />
Tanglewood, it still offers<br />
a platform to neglected art<br />
forms, such as vocal recitals,<br />
he said.<br />
“We are definitely in<br />
the same league as those,<br />
though we do very different<br />
things,” he said.<br />
For Kaufmann, the push<br />
for classical music is a personal<br />
crusade.<br />
“It’s kind of my mantra<br />
in life,” he said.<br />
Kaufmann said he grew<br />
up in a non-musical family,<br />
but when he was 7 years<br />
old, his parents allowed<br />
him to take piano lessons.<br />
“It changed my life. I<br />
thought I was adopted for<br />
most of my childhood because<br />
there was none of<br />
As we look<br />
for audiences,<br />
there are people<br />
you might not<br />
expect within<br />
a family that<br />
have even that<br />
genetic disposition<br />
for it.”<br />
Welz Kauffmann —<br />
Ravinia CEO on the<br />
importance of making<br />
classical music accessible.<br />
that, not<br />
even within<br />
my own nuclear<br />
family<br />
but no one<br />
else at all,”<br />
Kaufmann<br />
Kaufmann<br />
said.<br />
Having a space like Ravinia<br />
where classical music<br />
is accessible and affordable<br />
may give a young listener<br />
the same “aha moment” he<br />
had.<br />
“As we look for audiences,<br />
there are people you<br />
might not expect within a<br />
family that have even that<br />
genetic disposition for it,”<br />
Kaufmann said.<br />
This push for classical<br />
music began years ago, and<br />
audiences have not always<br />
been warm to Kaufmann’s<br />
ideas, he said.<br />
When he had screens<br />
installed in the lawn area,<br />
Kaufmann said there were<br />
“calls for his head” and<br />
some accused him of turning<br />
The Chicago Symphony<br />
Orchestra into a big<br />
television production.<br />
“Today, people understand<br />
that it’s not only a<br />
normal part of the course<br />
of events of producing anything<br />
from an entertainment<br />
point of view,” he said.<br />
While some don’t like<br />
the prospect of entertainment<br />
being injected into<br />
classical music, it’s an important<br />
part of making it<br />
more attractive to different<br />
audiences — even Mozart<br />
thought so, Kaufmann said.<br />
“[Classical music]’s<br />
power is rooted in a lot of<br />
different things, a lot of it<br />
is chronological, a lot of it<br />
is geographical but also the<br />
power of a conductor to try<br />
and control things lifted it<br />
above where its natural audience<br />
would have been in<br />
terms of numbers,” he said.<br />
Ravinia will honor<br />
the 100th birthday of the<br />
late American composer<br />
Leonard Bernstein with a<br />
number of tribute pieces,<br />
Kaufman said.<br />
“The significance of this<br />
man is hard to overestimate,”<br />
Kaufmann said.<br />
In a classical music world<br />
that is often “American phobic,”<br />
Bernstein was able to<br />
shift the tide and make audiences<br />
want to listen again.<br />
“He really was America’s<br />
music teacher,” Kaufmann<br />
said.<br />
The first event celebrating<br />
the Bernstein centennial<br />
is July 12 in the pavilion,<br />
where The Chicago<br />
Symphony Orchestra and<br />
renowned violinist Joshua<br />
Bell will perform two Bernstein<br />
pieces.<br />
Outside of the musical<br />
world, Bernstein was also<br />
a humanitarian and social<br />
activist, Kaufmann said.<br />
THE SPRING<br />
“All of that combined is<br />
far too much to celebrate in<br />
a single summer, so we’re<br />
going to be doing that over<br />
a couple of different years,”<br />
he said.<br />
Ravinia’s dining pavilion<br />
is also being renovated,<br />
which Kaufmann hopes will<br />
enrich attendee’s experience<br />
beyond the musical portion.<br />
Additionally, Ravinia is<br />
hosting comedians for the<br />
first time this summer, including<br />
Whoopi Goldberg,<br />
Steve Martin and Martin<br />
Short.<br />
Ravinia Festival opens<br />
June 1. For the full summer<br />
concert series, visit Ravinia.org.<br />
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