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the

Score

ByWynne

Delacoma

Photos by

Marco Borggreve

Inon Barnatan

approaches his

canon on the ball

When pianist inOn Barnatan

returns to Ravinia on July 21, he’ll be

there to extend the history of an insti-

tution. The festival has been hosting a

high-spirited, evening-long celebration

of Tchaikovsky every season for now 40

years. The Russian composer’s tuneful,

dramatic ballets and symphonies are

among the world’s most beloved classi-

cal pieces, and every year since the early

’80s, Ravinia’s “Tchaikovsky Spectacu-

lar” has ended with a rousing version

of the

1812

Overture, complete with live

cannons. This summer, for the first time,

the ever-popular event occupies a full

weekend, July 21–22, with concerts fea-

turing the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

and conductor Ken-David Masur. The

Violin Concerto—with Miriam Fried,

the venerable, 25-year lion of Ravinia’s

Steans Music Institute, as soloist—is the

centerpiece for July 22, the traditional

Sunday concert, and Israeli-born Barna-

tan is joining the CSO as soloist in the

First Piano Concerto.

The weekend’s two Tchaikovsky

concertos are the very definition of

“standard” classical repertoire. Audi-

ences adore them, and gifted young-

sters start playing them in their teens,

if not earlier. Professional musicians

can expect to perform them hundreds

of times over a long career. Staving off

boredom with a piece you’ve played for

years might seem difficult. Not so, says

Barnatan. “The piano concerto is a piece

I never thought I would fall in love with

as much as I did,” elaborates the pianist,

who spent three summers in the early

RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 9

– JULY 22, 2018

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