Ravinia Festival Offers Sneak Peek at 2013 Classical Season

Ravinia Festival today presented a “sneak peek” at its 2013 classical music concert season, which includes a performance of Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and vocalists from the festival’s summer conservatory along with Itzhak Perlman on the same program; the return of pianist Lang Lang to the gala stage that launched him to superstardom; a commemoration of Verdi’s bicentennial with Ravinia Festival Music Director James Conlon conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a complete concert performance of Aida, this year’s One Score, One Chicago selection; and the CSO performing Howard Shore’s score to The Lord of the Rings—The Two Towers, while the entire film is broadcast on video screens in the pavilion and on the lawn—this has been the most requested CSO concert at Ravinia in decades, following the popularity of the trilogy’s first film in concert here two summers ago.

“We have such exciting things in the works for 2013 that I’m spilling the beans now—or at least some of them,” said Ravinia Festival President and CEO Welz Kauffman. “I’m tremendously proud of what’s in store, a season that presents the incomparable CSO with all-time iconic works such as Aida along with performances that may capture the imaginations of new symphonic audiences, such as The Lord of the Rings. Not just young listeners—kids and students through college are always free on the lawn for classical concerts—but young artists are top of mind for me. Whether it’s the superstar of his generation, Lang Lang, headlining our annual gala—the very event that placed him on the world stage in 1999—to the fellows from Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, who will showcase their talents in a variety of opportunities throughout the summer, including the vocal showcase Serenade to Music.”

Other highlights include the return of Christoph von Dohnányi conducting the CSO in two evenings of Beethoven with pianist Emanuel Ax; Conlon conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 7; The Juilliard String Quartet presents the final performance of violist Samuel Rhodes and the first by his successor Roger Tapping in a single concert; a program of audience requests performed by The Lincoln Trio; and the return of the massive and massively popular Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Ravinia will announce its complete lineup, including the remaining concerts on its 2013 summer residency of the CSO in March.

Tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert are available now at www.ravinia.org. Ravinia’s Classical Grass Pass, a 10-punch lawn pass, is available now for only $70 through Dec. 31, making the cost of each lawn admission to classical concerts only $7. Tickets for all Ravinia events will go on sale to the public in April.