This Weekend at Ravinia Festival 2015

Today, North America’s oldest music festival is more musically diverse than ever, presenting over 140 different events throughout the summer. Of course I am referring to Ravinia in Highland Park, IL. These concerts run the gambit from Yo-Yo Ma to John Legend to the annual summer residency of the nation’s finest orchestra, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The 36-acre park is nestled in a gently wooded area that makes it an enchanting place to experience music. Guests can bring their own picnics or eat at one of the park restaurants. Children up to age 15, high school and college students are admitted free to the lawn for classical performances.

History

In 1904, the A.C. Frost Company created Ravinia as an amusement park intended to lure riders to the fledgling Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railroad. The amusement park boasted a baseball diamond, electric fountain and refectory or casino building with dining rooms and a dance floor. The prairie-style Martin Theatre (then called Ravinia Theatre) is the only building on the grounds that dates back to that original construction. Over 100 years later, Ravinia Festival is the oldest outdoor music festival in North America and is lauded for presenting world-class music. The festival attracts about 600,000 listeners to some 120 to 150 events that span all genres from classical music to jazz to music theater over each three-month summer season. Over the years, the festival has hosted such luminaries as Louis Armstrong, The Ballet Russe, Luciano Berio, Leonard Bernstein, Lucrezia Bori, Dave Brubeck, Pablo Casals, Van Cliburn, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, George Gershwin, José Greco, Jascha Heifetz, John Houseman, Janis Joplin, Yo-Yo Ma, Luciano Pavarotti, Itzhak Perlman, Oscar Peterson, Stephen Sondheim, Isaac Stern and Frank Zappa.