Ravinia 2025 Issue 4

PAVILION 7:30 PMWEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2025 BECK † with the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA EDWIN OUTWATER, conductor † JASON FALKNER, guitar and bass ROGER MANNING, keyboards JOEY WARONKER, drums with support from MOLLY LEWIS † Molly Lewis –Intermission– Beck with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra –Pause– Beck with his band † Ravinia debut MOLLY LEWIS Molly Lewis’s compositions seem to float from distant shores. They’re otherworldly, drawn more from landscapes of dream than from anywhere found on a map. Lewis is a unique presence in music today. Her trademark whistle, which brings to mind the great Peruvian soprano Yma Sumac, has graced recordings of everything from Schumann lieder and Brazilian jazz to Spaghetti Western ballads and noir lounge. Lewis’s collabs- orations are diverse: La Femme, Sébastien Tellier, Barbie, and Dr. Dre. She’s performed around the globe at Shanghai’s Yuz Museum, the Cannes Film Festival, Paris and London Fashion Weeks, Mexico City’s Salón Los Angeles, and across the whole of New Zealand. Lewis’s pair of debut EPs, The Forgotten Edge (2021) and Mirage (2022), were produced by Tom Brenneck (Charles Bradley, Amy Winehouse) and drew praise from the New York Times and NPR. Now they’ve teamed up again for Lewis’s debut full-length album, On the Lips , where an open-door policy in the studio drew in the likes of Nick Hakim, Latin Grammy-nominated Brazilian guitarist Rogê, Leland Whitty and Chester Hansen of Badbadnotgood, Chicano soul group Thee Sacred Souls, experimental jazz pianist Marco Benevento, and El Michels Affair’s Leon Michels as guests. BECK As the title of his recent album Hyperspace would imply, eight-time Grammy winner Beck has traveled light years from his emergence as a reluctant generational spokesperson when “Loser” exploded from a rejected 1992 demo to become a ubiquitous smash in 1994. In the de- cades since, Beck’s singular career has seen him blur the bounds of all manners and eras of mu- sic. After the mainstream and alternative rock intersecting Mellow Gold in 1994, Beck quickly confounded and exceeded expectations with the lo-fi folk of One Foot in the Grave (1994) and the multi-platinum, Grammy-winning Odelay (1996), layering R&B influences on jazz-rock in the hooks of “Devil’s Haircut” and “The New Pollution,” as well as the anthemic live-show staple “Where It’s At.” The atmospheric psyche- delia of 1998’s Mutations earned Beck a second Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, and the singer-songwriter continued to pivot to new sounds with each successive album. Midnite Vul- tures (1999) was characterized by uptempo funk, while 2002’s Sea Change swapped his trademark eccentric lyricism for reflective, somber simplic- ity, earning him some of his most emphatically positive reviews. Guero quickly became one of Beck’s best-selling albums in 2005 thanks to the rock-radio popularity of chart-topper “E-Pro” and “Girl,” and 2006’s The Information marked a return to introspection but also innovation with both physical and digital album supple- ments, including sticker sheets and low-budget videos. Beck connected with producer Danger Mouse for the ’60s/’70s-inspired Modern Guilt , then returned to multi-media invention with the Song Reader “album”: 20 tracks presented only as sheet music with accompanying artwork, lat- er recorded with the likes of Jack White, Juanes, Norah Jones, and many others. After a series of standalone singles, Beck released what became perceived as a Sea Change companion, Morning Phase (2014), featuring many of the same musi- cians on a parade of hits including “Blue Moon” and “Heart Is a Drum,” as well as earning him Grammys for Best Rock Album and Album of the Year. Another two Grammys came his way with 2017’s Colors , featuring the major singles “Dreams,” “Wow,” and “Up All Night,” and Hy- perspace emerged in 2019. Beck is making his Ra- vinia and Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts. RAVINIA.ORG  • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 57 SHERVINLAINEZ(LEWIS);POONEHGHANA(BECK)