RAVINIA FESTIVAL WILL CELEBRATE
ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S BICENTENNIAL
IN MULTI-GENRE SERIES THROUGHOUT
THE 2009 SEASON
Ravinia welcomes performances from towns
throughout the Land of Lincoln
Programs to include commissions
and competition for composers
Ravinia Festival will celebrate the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln throughout 2009, the bicentennial of the birth of America’s martyred 16th president. Ravinia Festival President and CEO Welz Kauffman made the announcement, looking forward to a 2009 season that will reflect many aspects of the celebrated and sometimes controversial statesman through programming across the many genres and disciplines regularly presented at America’s oldest music festival, including classical, jazz, gospel, music theater and dance. New works will be commissioned by renowned composers, and Ravinia will launch a competition for composers to write works that will be performed around the state. These programs will be united under the banner “Mystic Chords of Memory,” a quote from Lincoln’s first inaugural address.
“Ravinia, which was founded less than 40 years after Lincoln’s assassination, intends to become a gathering place for everyone from The Land of Lincoln who would like to
recognize the great contributions of this unparalleled American leader,” Kauffman said.
“Because we present so many different kinds of performances to more than 600,000 visitors
each summer, Ravinia is uniquely suited to capture the entire picture of this complex person through limitless opportunities for artistic expression. Works will reflect Lincoln in his shifting historical context, re-imagining his own relationship with music and the arts. We will hear from new voices on the subject including exploration from a global perspective.”
Planning for “Mystic Chords of Memory” has just begun, but concepts include:
- Beyond “A Lincoln Portrait”: The most famous musical work incorporating Lincoln’s words is Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait composed in 1942. Ravinia proposes not only to perform this work, but also to commission a new companion piece to be performed with and complement the Copland masterpiece.
- Education and Community Partnerships: Ravinia will bring schoolchildren closer to Lincoln’s words by commissioning piano and chamber pieces that incorporate moments from Lincoln’s great speeches, addresses, debates and other writings. These works would have the added benefit of allowing children to be the narrator, combining a musical and historical experience. These pieces will also be portable and could travel to schools and performances spaces throughout the state.
- The Many Lands of Lincoln—A Global Legacy: With its recent internationally acclaimed presentations of South African music (Princess Magogo, UShaka) and culture at Ravinia, the festival would look to that great country as an example of Lincoln 's continuing legacy of equality and freedom. This could be realized in a commissioned work providing a perspective on Lincoln from a country where freedom was only recently won. A production of Kurt Weill’s classic musical Lost in the Stars, based on Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country may also be presented.
- The Music of Lincoln’s Time: To provide context, Ravinia will look at the work of Lincoln’s contemporaries, composers born in or around 1809, including Chopin, Brahms, Wagner, Liszt and Schumann, as well as a look at American music in the 1850s and 1860s.
- Music Theater: Ravinia mounts a hot-ticket music theater production each season. For 2009 major works by Gershwin and Joplin are being considered along with
Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, a turn-the-tables character study of political murderers, including Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Boothe.
- A Whitman Sampler: Poet Walt Whitman was a spokesman for an American generation, the most famous of American writers commenting on Lincoln’s time and work. He will be celebrated along with Lincoln through the presentation of several of the seminal works incorporating his texts, such as compositions by Hindemith, Sessions, Delius, Vaughan Williams and John Adams.
- Jazz, Gospel, Spirituals: A celebration of great Chicago music with a variety of artists, both local and international, will focus on genres that grew out of the African-American experience.
- Dance: Ravinia will commission one of the great American dance companies to present a work inspired by Lincoln and his legacy.
In addition to these concepts, Kauffman said Ravinia will find ways to make its venues available for presentations from arts organizations from around the State of Illinois, creating a touring circuit the way Lincoln himself toured Illinois as a member of the circuit court.
“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
---Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address
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National Press Representative:
Cohn Dutcher Associates
Lois Cohn
(917) 339-7187
lcohn@cohndutcher.com
