Ravinia 2025 Issue 5

Sam Bush Oct. 25 • 7:30 p.m. / Martin Theatre Sam Bush has always paid due respect to age-old traditions in roots music and bluegrass, but he has also carved his own path, mixing in dashes of jazz, rock and even Indian music. The winner of three Junior National Fiddle Championships before he graduated from high school, Bush is also a master of the mandolin and regularly switches between the two. “I’ve never just sat down and thought, ‘Well, I should make a mandolin album or I should make a fiddle album,’ ” he told Bluegrass Unlimited in 2022. “It’s the same way that I’ve gotten in trouble all through my musical career. I just want to make a big musical statement, and not necessarily any one kind of music.” Bush is the consummate collaborator, from a quarter-century with New Grass Revival to stints with Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, and Béla Fleck; with his own band, he bears the genre’s torch as a consensus pick among the pack. Ben Jones & Laurence Hobgood Oct. 25 • 7:30 p.m. / Oct. 26 • 5:30 p.m. / Sandra K. Crown Theater Critically acclaimed vocalist Ben Jones and Grammy Award– winning pianist, composer, and arranger Laurence Hobgood come together for an unforgettable evening that celebrates their shared love of music ranging across the Great American Songbook: Broadway, classic jazz, pop, and classic and prog rock. Their shared backgrounds and passions ignite a thrilling musical chemistry, infusing every song with vibrant, inno- vative interpretations. Jones and Hobgood will deliver fresh takes on genre-spanning classics—songs by Billy Strayhorn , Joni Mitchell , Rodgers & Hammerstein , Stevie Wonder , Adam Guettel , Carole King , and even the Bee Gees —with unexpected twists and turns. Together, they exude raw, tran- scendent, and electrifying artistry. The Klezmatics play “Happy Joyous Hanukkah” Dec. 4 • 7:30 p.m. / Martin Theatre The Klezmatics are the only Grammy Award–winning klezmer band and one of the most iconic and adventurous groups in modern Jewish music. Since emerging from New York City’s East Village in 1986, they have led a global revival of klezmer—complete with accordion, alto saxophone, cimbalom, clarinet, kaval, and violin—combining Yiddish tradition with radical sensibilities in jazz, gospel, punk, classical, Latin, and Balkan music. In addition to celebrating their 40th anniversary, The Klezmatics return to their acclaimed revivals of Woody Guthrie’s original lyrics from the 1940s that redefined Jewish-American musi- cal storytelling. This holiday program builds on the ensemble’s 2006 recording Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanukkah, a collection of a dozen songs by the folk singer in collaboration with the Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. Living in Brooklyn, Guthrie immersed himself in the Coney Island Jewish community and became devoted to sharing the spirit of Hanukkah and Jewish history in song. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • AUG. 4 – AUG. 17, 2025 22 DAMIANMARHEFKA(JONES/HOBGOOD);ANNNIKOLAENKO(KLEZMATICS)