Ravinia 2025 Issue 2

While David Foster made his Ravinia debut in 2018, then-fiancée Katharine McPhee was looking on from the audience, having sung on that very stage herself for the first time two years earlier alongside Seth MacFarlane. Foster and McPhee return together, along with trumpeter Chris Botti, on June 20. “I’m too big a star to walk around out there,” the 75-year-old laughs as his 41-year-old wife Katharine McPhee shoots him a disparaging look that is quickly followed up by an adoring smile. “But seriously, I just know that it’s a place that feels magical,” Foster continues in a Zoom interview with Ravinia Magazine from his home in Los Angeles that he shares with his wife, their son, and a plethora of shiny gold awards. “I just felt it. Even though I didn’t go past the stage and the side entrance the last time I was there, it just looked like a party. I just remember having the best time with the best audience, and that’s not just hyperbole or hype. It was an amazing night for me.” It was in fact an amazing night, because it was that night— Sunday, August 5, 2018—on Foster’s wildly popular Intimate Evening tour that McPhee found herself in the audience. “I specifically remember—I had a Sunday show matinee for Waitress on Broadway, and then I took the plane and saw your show that night,” the vocal powerhouse reminds Foster of the evening they spent at Ravinia Festival, mere months before the two were married in June of 2019. “What I really enjoyed was, when I was sitting there in the audience and watching David’s show, I just remember the audience being very lively.” It’s no surprise, then, that the talented pair are extremely thrilled at the chance to not only return to Ravinia Festival on June 20 but also thrilled to perform for the first time upon Ravinia’s sweeping Pavilion stage together. Granted, Foster and McPhee have been collaborating for decades. In fact, it was all the way back in 2006 when the two first found themselves on the same stage together, as McPhee competed on Season 5 of American Idol , the same season Foster was on the singing competition show as a mentor. The two ended up working together and performing together—and ultimately began dating each other in 2017. “I’ve been on stage for years just looking at her a**,” Foster laughs, eliciting yet another brief smirk from McPhee. This time around, the two are joined Grammy-winning trumpeter Chris Botti for the 12-city summer tour, on which McPhee will serve as a featured special guest. “This tour is an amalgamation, of course, of what Kat brings and what I bring and what Chris brings,” Foster explains. “I mean, Chris is a religious experience.” Indeed, not only are Foster and McPhee longtime friends of the chart-topping jazz artist, but they are also two of his biggest fans. “We’ve seen him probably 50 times in concert,” gushes Foster, a 16-time Grammy Award winning composer and pro- ducer himself. “I am in awe of Chris, and the fact that he wants to hang out with me really makes me feel great. And then you have Kat, who has her Smash songs and Waitress songs and then sings some of my songs.” Certainly, there are so very many to pick from, as Foster’s rep- ertory of songs that he has a hand in either writing or producing or playing are somewhat endless. And, ironically, many of his best-known ones have a direct connection to the Windy City. “So many connections,” Foster says, his voice trailing towards listing off some of the exemplary work he has done RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JUNE 16 – JUNE 29, 2025 8 RUSSELLJENKINS/RAVINIA