Saturday, August 12, 2023
The Stories and Music of Lieder and Mélodie with Graham Johnson
Ravinia Steans Music Institute
1:00 PM
2:00 PM
Views of the Stage
Bennett Gordon Hall is an indoor venue. The stage is not visible from any location on the Lawn, nor is audio from the performance broadcast to the Lawn.
Cashless
Ravinia is becoming a cashless venue and encourages all guests to bring credit/debit cards or other cashless forms of payment. Cash will not be accepted at The Festival Shop, Wintrust Chair & Table Rental, Dining Pavilion restaurants, and concessions and bars.
Dining/Concessions at Ravinia Festival®
The Scoop Café is open 1 p.m. – 2 p.m. to serve chilled food and drinks, specialty coffees, ice cream, and snacks.
About the Artist
The Program for Singers offers a unique setting for 15 classical singers to delve deeply into the vast repertoire of art song for three weeks. Fellows are paired with staff collaborative pianists to work with a faculty of distinguished musicians, pedagogues, and scholars on varied aspects of vocal performance, including style, technique, language, diction, dramaturgy, performance, and career preparation.
In addition to a series of public master classes that focus on growing the fellows’ experience and interpretations of specific repertoire, the musicians participate in several afternoon and evening concerts presented during the summer, some with specially curated themes and others featuring repertoire selected by the performers.
This program is curated by Graham Johnson, who was honored with the Hugo Wolf Medal in 2014 for his services to the art of song. That same year, he published Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs, a richly detailed commentary with annotations of poetic sources and articles on performance, to join his Songmaker’s Almanac, French Song Companion, and volumes on the vocal music of Benjamin Britten and Gabriel Fauré. His latest book, Poulenc: The Life in the Songs, was published in 2020 to great critical acclaim.
Performers
RSMI Program for Singers
Graham Johnson, scholar, curator, and host
Program
The most evocative and emotionally bracing songs share a common, extra-worldly dimension: when words and music were put together, something of the writer’s psyche was plucked out of time to be re-created in performance. But that moment of clairvoyance is not simply spirited away and waiting to be invoked by voice or instrument. This program pierces the veil with insightful commentary on the life events surrounding the moment of composition, the story the underlying poetry is telling, or the threads between other familiar work by the writers—all paired with the songs themselves in performances shaped to share the closer connection.
Plan Your Visit
Traffic and wait times are nothing to worry about when you plan ahead