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Jennifer W. Steans

Chairman

Welz Kauffman

President & CEO

Fried, along with such Ravinia favorites as James Conlon and

Thomas Hampson, will be among the leaders of RSMI’s live-

wire master classes, which are free and open to the public.

Earlier this year, the music world lost another towering

figure who was also music teacher to an entire nation—and

beyond. Conductor José Antonio Abreu invented the El

Sistema method of music education as social involvement to

keep kids off the mean streets of his native Venezuela. His

method of putting instruments in the hands of young people

ignited passions around the world. Ravinia follows El Sistema

in one of its own Reach*Teach*Play education programs,

which now serve more than 85,000 people each year in Cook

and Lake Counties. We’re ecstatic that the students in our own

Sistema Ravinia orchestras will have the opportunity to witness

Dudamel, the chief proponent and global ambassador for El

Sistema, at Ravinia this summer.

Of course, none of Ravinia’s mission—onstage or off—could

be achieved without the generous support of our individual

donors and corporate sponsors. Special shout outs go to

Northwestern Medicine for naming the Grand Entrance to our

park and to Allstate for returning for a second year as Lead

Reach*Teach*Play Sponsor. Ticket sales generate just over half

of the money it takes for Ravinia to help music enrich so many

lives. The balance is donated by supporters of the not-for-profit

festival. Leading that charge are the all-volunteer boards that

oversee America’s oldest and most programmatically diverse

music festival, and so we thank the Ravinia Board of Trustees,

Life Trustees, Associates Board, and our largest funder, the

Women’s Board, whose annual gala benefit this year stars

Audra McDonald with the CSO.

A special thank-you goes to our hometown, which is

gearing up for its 150th anniversary. When you visit Ravinia,

you also are visiting Highland Park, a proud city of 30,000

people and such local attractions as two shopping districts

with a variety of casual and fine dining restaurants, landscaped

parks designed by the legendary Jens Jensen, and homes

designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Ravinia and Highland

Park have grown up together. After investing more than $30

million over the past decade in improvements in and around

the park, our most recent growth is the major rejuvenation

of our Dining Pavilion, featuring the new Tree Top and

Lawn Bar restaurants. We are very proud to be a part of this

community, which we support in myriad ways, from hiring

local teens for their first jobs to donating five percent of our

gross ticket sales—more than a million dollars each year—to

the city. We bring around 600,000 guests to the community

each summer, and national studies show that for every dollar

spent at a cultural institution, $7 is spent in the surrounding

neighborhood. Please support the businesses of Highland Park

and be courteous to our residential neighbors, especially when

arriving and leaving concerts.

Finally, we thank

you

, the Ravinia concertgoer. We hope

you, too, get a kick out of the 2018 season. We appreciate your

support.

MISSION STATEMENT OF THE

RAVINIA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION

Ravinia is an internationally renowned, not-for-profit music

festival that presents outstanding performances by the world’s

greatest artists. Ravinia’s principal objectives are

• to present performances of a full range of classical music in

its open-air Pavilion and enclosed recital halls, by the world’s

greatest composers and musicians, along with a variety of

other kinds of light classical, jazz and popular music;

• to maintain a beautiful park that is welcoming to all and

attractive to families in which the music experience is

enhanced by a beautiful environment and excellent dining

opportunities;

• to enable gifted young performers to study under great

teachers and perform in concert settings; and

• to develop broader and more diverse audiences for classical

music through education and outreach programs and by

maintaining affordable ticket prices.

JUNE 1 – JUNE 17, 2018 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE

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