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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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