The Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois opened its new RaviniaMusicBox Experience Center on July 23 with a gallery exhibit devoted to Leonard Bernstein, who made his Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducting debut at Ravinia on July 4, 1944. The traveling “Leonard Bernstein at 100” exhibit—which has also been displayed at New England Conservatory, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—is free and open to Ravinia concert-goers from the time the park opens until concerts begin each night through September 15, 2019. Among Bernstein concerts at Ravinia this summer are the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing the scores live to the films West Side Story and On the Waterfront; a CSO program entitled “Leonard Bernstein: Man for All Music,” featuring songs, symphonic works, and stories about the composer from Bernstein daughter Jamie Bernstein, conductor Marin Alsop, and young musicians; performances of the one-act musical Trouble in Tahiti; and a full production of Candide, featuring The Knights. The RaviniaMusicBox Experience Center, still under construction, plans to complete its new space with an “immersive-experience” theater in 2020.
Posted July 30, 2019
