Grand Opening Night

Featuring Chief Conductor Marin Alsop and award-winning pianist Yunchan Lim

With a very special guest performance by global superstar and flautist

Lizzo

An international star as the youngest-ever Van Cliburn Competition winner, Yunchan Lim returns to Ravinia for the highly anticipated Grand Opening of the Hunter Pavilion, adding gleams of Art Deco style as he performs Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major. Joined by the CSO and Marin Alsop, the “one-in-a-million talent” (Dallas Morning News) performs Ravel’s classic, a work brimming with Parisian jazz, Basque soulfulness, and American spirit.

Marking Ravinia’s 60th Gala Evening and the 90th CSO Opening Night, the event illuminates the festival’s legacy of artistic excellence, celebrating decades of unforgettable performances while opening a bold new chapter on the Hunter Pavilion stage.

Global superstar Lizzo plays flute arrangements with the CSO, sharing her spark for transforming lives with music. Alsop brings her own fanfare to the grand opening, proclaiming this stage “the best of all possible worlds” with Bernstein’s Candide Overture and giving the pavilion its flowers with the concert suite of Strauss’s Rosenkavalier.

Woven around this concert are spotlights on our Reach Teach Play programs and the access to music they create, and our Women’s Board hosts the Gala before and after the performance to raise funds for Ravinia and these initiatives.