Ravinia Festival News

CSO Music Director Riccardo Muti returns to Chicago in March for two weeks of CSO programs that continue the cycle of Schubert's symphonic works which began at the start of the 2013/14 season. Concerts with Maestro Muti take place today, March 20-22 and 26-29, 2014. The first week's program includes Schubert's Symphony No. 9, the 'Great' C Major and Schumann's Piano Concerto featuring pianist Mitsuko Uchida.

The latest in unauthorized gossip and buzz from the heart of Chicago's showtune video bars, and musical theater news from Chicago to Broadway. 'Passion,' 'Road Show' and 'Into The Woods' celebrate Sondheim's birthday, 'Dessa Rose' and 'Rent' rake in the reviews, Black Ensemble and Bailiwick announce spring shows, new musicals from Writers Theatre and Chicago Shakespeare, plus Ravinia and Court plan summers 2014 and 2015 and more....

One of the fastest rising and highly-regarded cellists Narek Hakhnazaryan and dramatic classical pianist Christoper Shih perform together for the first time in an evening featuring the music of Tchaikovsky, Khudoyan, Rachmaninoff, Paganini and Shostakovich.

Although Drury Lane Theatre's Young Frankenstein closed yesterday, Dr. Frankenstein (Devin DeSantis) and The Monster (Travis Taylor) are still going strong with their own rendition of the ridiculously popular Let It Go from Disney's Frozen. Scroll down to listen!

CSO Music Director Riccardo Muti returns to Chicago in March for two weeks of CSO programs that continue the cycle of Schubert's symphonic works which began at the start of the 2013/14 season. Concerts with Maestro Muti take place on March 20-22 and 26-29, 2014. The first week's program includes Schubert's Symphony No. 9, the “Great” C Major and Schumann's Piano Concerto featuring pianist Mitsuko Uchida.

Making their Auditorium Theatre debut, Houston Ballet brings their enchanted production of celebrated choreographer David Bintley's "Aladdin" to the landmark stage, March 22 - 23, 2014.

The New York Philharmonic will present its 11th season of Summertime Classics, July 2-6, 2014, featuring five themed concerts with Bramwell Tovey, who has been the host and conductor of the series since its founding in 2004. On the first program, July 2-3, 2014, titled "Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Friends," the New York Philharmonic will perform Shostakovich's Festive Overture; Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1, with pianist Joyce Yang as soloist; Musorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain; Rachmaninoff's arrangement of his own Vocalise; and Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker, and Marche slave. The second program, July 4-6, 2014, titled "Star-Spangled Celebration," will feature the New York Philharmonic and United States Marine Drum & Bugle Corps - "The Commandant's Own," which is celebrating its 80th-anniversary year - in a program that includes Copland's Clarinet Concerto, with Associate Principal Clarinet Mark Nuccio as soloist, and Fanfare for the Common Man; Gershwin's "Strike Up the Band" from Strike Up the Band; Sousa marches; and more. In these performances Major Brian Dix, director and commanding officer of "The Commandant's Own," will share conducting duties with Bramwell Tovey.

One of America's most beloved sopranos, Christine Brewer, who won a George London Award in 1991, and 2013 George London Award winner Dominic Armstrong, called a 'clarion-voiced tenor' by The New York Times, will share the stage for the third and final event in the season's George London Foundation Recital Series. Pianist Craig Rutenberg joins the singers for the recital on Sunday, April 6, 2014, at 4:30 PM at The Morgan Library & Museum.

This just in! New York City Center's acclaimed Encores! Off-Center series, under the artistic direction of Jeanine Tesori, will return this summer for a second season of landmark Off-Broadway musicals. The season opens with Jonathan Larson's tick, tick… BOOM!, June 25 - 28, starring Lin-Manuel Miranda and Karen Olivo, directed by Oliver Butler, and continues with a one-night only performance of Randy Newman'sFaust: The Concert, with Randy Newman as the Devil, directed by Thomas Kail, on July 1. Pump Boys and Dinettes, withbook, music and lyrics by John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel and Jim Wann , directed by Lear deBessonet and choreographed by Danny Mefford, wraps up the season, running July 16 - 19. Chris Fenwick is the Encores! Off-Center music director.

Riccardo Muti, music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), and an internationally celebrated conductor, can now add three more awards to the dozens he has received over the course of his career.

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Jacques Lacombe present Verdi's mammoth Requiem April 3-6 in Newark, New Brunswick and Morristown with soprano Marianne Fiset, mezzo-soprano Janara Kellerman, tenor Russell Thomas, bass Peter Volpe and the Montclair State University Chorale. Thomas returns to NJSO stages after his performance of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with the Orchestra in January. The April 5 performance at the State Theatre in New Brunswick is the NJSO's third College Night event of the season.

This March, Lincoln Center presents American Songbook with 'Jim Caruso's Cast Party Goes to the Movies!', Great Performers concerts by pianist Murray Perahia, the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by Gustavo Dudamel, and the Emerson String Quartet, plus Target Free Thursdays and Meet the Artist Todays. Details below!

LA Opera will present two free concerts on April 13 featuring 'Great Opera Choruses,' with Resident Conductor Grant Gershon leading the LA Opera Chorus. Highlights will include beloved excerpts from Madame Butterfly, The Magic Flute and La Traviata, among other works. Best of all, audience members of all ages-and of any musical ability-will have the exciting opportunity to join in the fun by singing along with the pros to such famous pieces as the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore, 'Va pensiero' from Nabucco and the Toreador Song from Carmen. The 'Great Opera Choruses' concerts will be accompanied by LA Opera Assistant Conductor Jeremy Frank and will include soloists from LA Opera's Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program.

Ravinia's 2014 season, dubbed 'Summer of Love/Season of Stars,' was announced today by Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kauffman. Brimming with talent and romance, the festival's 2014 schedule brings some the biggest names in the world of music as well as repertoire that explores the theme of great love in its various manifestations. No fewer than three musical incarnations of the most famous love story of all time, Romeo and Juliet, will be featured, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky's Overture-Fantasy (July 27), a suite from Prokofiev's ballet setting of the story (July 16) and the score of West Side Story as the classic film is shown (July 17-18). In other examples of love, soprano Deborah Voigt describes it as 'Something Wonderful' on a Broadway evening (July 13), the legendary Broadway team of Lerner and Loewe will be celebrated (July 20), and Chanticleer even jabs at the battle of the sexes in an evening titled 'She Said/He Said' (July 6). In fact, love lurks, longs and lingers across genres in most of the more than 130 events that Ravinia will present in 2014, its 110th year and its 78th as the summer residence of the CSO.

The Cypress String Quartet will give the New York premiere of Grawemeyer Award-winning composer George Tsontakis' String Quartet No. 6 on Tuesday, April 1 at 7:30pm as part of the new series "92Y Concerts at SubCulture," a co-presentation of 92Y and newly opened club SubCulture (downstairs at 45 Bleecker Street). The concert, which is the group's 92Y debut and their only NYC appearance of the season, also includes selections from Dvorak's set of twelve love songs for string quartet, Cypresses, from which the Quartet takes its name, as well as Schubert's seminal String Quartet No. 15 in G Major. The Cypress Quartet's recording of Dvorak's Cypresses was released as part of the quartet's debut album on AVIE in February 2013 (review copies available on request).

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, two longtime friends - violinist Hyeyung Julie Yoon and pianist Soyeon Kate Lee - will present an unforgettable evening of chamber music at the new downtown venue SubCulture (45 Bleecker Street, downstairs). The concert features the New York premiere of composer Robert Sirota's Pange Lingua Sonata, written for Yoon and Lee in 2012, and Bach's Sonata in C Minor. Cellist Gregory Beaver joins the ensemble for Brahms' Piano Trio in C Major; Soyeon Kate Lee will also perform 'Agitato/Calmo' and 'Tender Rage' from Robert Sirota's Mixed Emotions for solo piano.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts presents An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin tonight, February 18 to the 23rd, 2014 in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater.

Making their Auditorium Theatre debut, Houston Ballet brings their enchanted production of celebrated choreographer David Bintley's 'Aladdin' to the landmark stage, March 22 - 23, 2014.

In celebration of the most romantic day of the year, Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, will offer a three-course dinner and theatre package including tickets to the Mel Brooks Broadway hit YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN on Valentine's Day. Treat your loved one to the comedic re-imagining of the Frankenstein legend and indulge Drury Lane's delicious menu items.

Venetia Stifler, Executive and Artistic Director of the Ruth Page Center for the Arts and The 2014 Ruth Page Award Committee has announced its selection for this year's Ruth Page Award. For her tireless dedication to teaching young dancers for almost 30 years not only the discipline of the art form, but also the importance of community philanthropy and citizenship, Diane Rawlinson has been selected as the 2014 Ruth Page Award recipient.