Ravinia 2026 Issue 2

Fey) to attend a Halloween séance at the pala- zzo of Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly). His inves- tigative skills are meant to expose a fraudulent medium, Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh). How- ever, the medium is murdered, and the other participants are trapped inside the palace by a storm. Poirot interviews the guests and learns of the tragic death of Joyce’s daughter Alicia by apparent suicide. His investigation points to Ro- wena and an elaborate plot to disguise several murders as a ghostly curse. Confronted with her crime on the rooftop, Rowena falls to her death after seeing another vision of Alicia. In “Confessions,” the solo violin opens with a di- minished-fifth leap, an interval hovering in the air with no aural resolution. Underneath, the string ensemble provides a slowly crescendoing, pulsating heartbeat, eventually leaving the solo violin to reiterate its “confession,” this time mak- ing the same leap, but spelled as an augment- ed-fourth—a tritone, or the “devil’s interval.” GERMAINE FRANCO (b. 1987) Encanto Suite Germaine Franco was born in Oxnard, CA, and raised in El Paso, TX, where her family had lived for generations after fleeing the Mexican Revo- lution (1910–20). Growing up on the border with Juárez, Mexico, she filled her early years with the rich experiences of Mexican music, dance, cuisines, and culture. Franco gravitated to percussion instruments as a young child, later majoring in percussion and composition at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where she received both bachelor’s and master’s de- grees. She relocated to Los Angeles one year af- ter graduation for advanced studies in Latin percussion with Luis Conte. Franco first estab- lished herself as a performing artist with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and Spoleto Festival Orchestra, among other ensembles, and as a ses- sion musician. After working as an assistant to film composer John Powell, she gained her first experience as a composer, songwriter, producer, and orchestrator with the Pixar film Coco (2017, scored by Michael Giacchino), where her knowledge of Mexican musical traditions added authenticity to the soundtrack. Four years later, Franco was selected as the lead composer for Disney’s animated feature Encanto (2021), mak- ing her the first woman to score a Walt Disney Animation Studios feature film. The soundtrack earned Annie, Grammy, ASCAP, and Society of Composers & Lyricists Awards and was nomi- nated for Academy and Golden Globe Awards. In 2016, Franco became the first Latina compos- er to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences music branch. Directed by Jared Buch and Byron Howard, Encanto included songs by Lin-Manuel Miran- da and a score by Germaine Franco. A violent conflict forces Alma and Pedro Madrigal to flee their Columbian village with their young triplets, Julieta, Pepa, and Bruno. After Pedro is killed, Alma’s candle acquires magical, pro- tective powers and conjures an animated house, Casita. Every Madrigal descendant receives a special gift that they use to protect the village— everyone except Mirabel. After a time, Mirabel begins to see visions of Casita’s walls crack- ing and a secret passageway behind a portrait, where she discovers her brother Bruno, who has been missing since being rejected for his visions. Alma angrily confronts Mirabel, blaming her for the family’s misfortunes. Casita crumbles, the candle extinguishes, and the Madrigals are left powerless and on their own. Mirabel runs away, hiding alongside the river where her father had died and the magic emerged. Realizing her self- ishness and pride, Alma apologizes to Mirabel. The family returns to the village, begins rebuild- ing Casita, and the magic is restored. • • • • • NATALIE HOLT (b. 1982) “Hanging Out” from Obi-Wan Kenobi Award-winning British film composer Natalie Holt originally trained as a classical violinist and violist, inspired by her mother, who was a music Germaine Franco Hildur Guðnadóttir teacher and cellist. Holt studied at the Royal Academy of Music, played with the English Chamber Orchestra, performed at the 2012 Lon- don Olympic Games Closing Ceremony as a member of the RaVen Quartet, and worked as a session musician at Abbey Road. Fascinated with films and film music since her childhood, Holt enrolled in the National Film and Television School on scholarship. Short film and television scores eventually opened doors to the movie in- dustry. Holt created her first score as lead com- poser for the television series Three Girls (nomi- nee, Royal Television Society Craft & Design Award for Best Original Music) in 2017. Mean- while, she had steadily worked her way into scor- ing, landing her first film as lead composer with the dark comedy Pin Cushion . That year, Holt co-composed the soundtrack for the World War II drama Journey’s End with Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, a collaboration that won the Best International Score Award at the 2018 Bei- jing International Film Festival. These successes led to work on History Channel’s historical fic- tion series Knightfall and the Disney+ sci- ence-fiction, superhero series Loki (2021–23), based on the Marvel Comics character. Holt’s music for Loki earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations; the second season earned Holt the World Soundtrack Award for Television Composer of the Year in 2024. Disney+ took notice of Holt’s breathtaking cinematic writing and extended an impossi- ble-to-refuse offer: scoring the new Obi-Wan Kenobi action series. With one stroke of a pen, Holt rewrote history by becoming the first wom- an to compose music for any part of the Star Wars franchise. As a girl, she watched the orig- inal Star Wars trilogy with her father. “I was obsessed,” she later recalled, with the action, the fantasy, and the grandeur, but most especially the music. “I was always a huge John Williams fan, too, because I remember watching E.T. when I was about 5 years old and really noticing that film music was a thing for the first time. So, I held John Williams in such high regard, he’s a genius.” Holt was deeply honored when Natalie Holt RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 77 DANDOPERALSKI(GUÐNADÓTTIR);