Ravinia 2025 Issue 4

Among the Piano & Strings traditions that Midori continues is mentoring Steans fellows fromwithin a performing ensemble. Like Miriam Fried before her, Midori has been joining at least one chamber music group each season, and she has selected diverse repertoire for each of the two groups she has joined in 2024 and 2025. The first ensemble she was embedded in performed a Divertimento by living Diné/Navajo composer Juantio Becenti, featuring fellows Joseph Skerik (viola, above left), Hannah Rubin (cello, above right), and Lucas Amory (piano, not pictured). Applicants to the Piano & Strings Program take part in rigorous auditions structured by Midori, and the partic- ipating fellows are chosen by a com- mittee headed by Midori that includes faculty and alumni, whom Midori has worked to get more involved. Past participants in the program include such notables as pianists Jeremy Denk, Awadagin Pratt and Yuja Wang; cellist Nicholas Canellakis; violinists Pekka Kuusisto and Elena Urioste and the Argus and Isidore Quartets. Once they arrive at Ravinia, fellows receive individual coachings, and they also take part in chamber ensembles, some with faculty (including Midori) as members who mentor from within, and other all-fellow groups that receive critiques in studio sessions. Audiences had an opportunity to see the mento- ring-from-within in action during a Piano & Strings first—an open rehearsal on July 9 in which Midori and cellist Timothy Eddy worked with the ensem- bles of fellows whom they would then perform with during free afternoon concerts on July 11 and 15. Midori and her ensemble performed Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Trio and Eddy and his group took on Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 2. Recordings of the open rehearsal and both concerts—along with most performances at the Steans Institute— become available to stream for free on YouTube after the summer season at Steans concludes. In addition to these individual and chamber sessions, the fellows attend group studio classes and clinics led by faculty members and visiting experts on topics ranging from rehearsal do s and don’t s to avoiding injuries. While Midori has no major modi- fications planned, she does have a few goals for the Piano & Strings Program, including increasing the sense of com- munity even more. “I tell them, there are so many opportunities that if you try to do it all, it’s too much,” she said. “But I want them to see what works for them and to have a variety from which they can choose. They are flexible and open to new ideas.” One way she wants to do this is by increasing interactions across what she calls “instrumental borders.” Typically, violinists are critiqued by other violinists and pianists by other pi- anists, but she wants to see violists play for pianists or cellists play for violinists as a way to get alternative perspectives on their playing. “I can’t teach technique to players of different instruments, but music is music, right?” Midori said. She would also like to see the Piano & Strings fellows have more interaction with other facets of the Ravinia Festival and even with members of the sur- rounding communities. A new form of audience engagement that has already begun is a series of half- hour talks before some of the free Piano & Strings concerts. Midori conducted two of these during her first summer as Artistic Director and doubled the num- ber this season, inviting Joel Thompson, who is serving as this year’s Piano & Strings composer-in-residence, to also offer his thoughts on July 20. To understand Midori’s place in the American cultural firmament, one need look no further than the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors, which fêted her in 2021. Past classical honorees in- clude such towering figures as composer William Schuman, soprano Leontyne Price, conductor and composer André Previn, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and violinist Itzhak Perlman. Midori was born in Osaka, Japan, RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JULY 21 – AUG. 3, 2025 16 OLIVECANTOR/RAVINIA