Ravinia Festival

And I will give you this example.

in Ravinia, which is the summer festival of the Chicago Symphony.

All we had in the summer festivals in America is one rehearsal, one program.

I was meeting for the first time the great conductor Kurt Mazur.

And we put the group back together again after all this time.

We played Ravinia.

We played Arcata.

We played a number of places.

Geez, I can't remember the name of the album, but it's the Mauds with Jimmy Rogers.

I played on two tunes on that album, an harmonica.

And then I sat in with Dinosaurs a bit at Ravinia.

I can't even remember how many years ago, but it was really fun.

But yeah, he's you know, so I didn't know that.

So I saw him at Ravinia earlier this summer and he mentioned on stage that he was writing a book about his mother.

and he told the humorous story that she would have turned 100 this year, but she was the one who really got him exposed to music at a young age, and not just exposed to it, but really encouraged it and fostered that and made sure he became this great musician.

And

Oh,

man.

She died of cancer when he was 13, and he told the story on stage at Ravinia that he called, he was like 9 years old or 10 years old or something, and called Carnegie Hall like, hey, I want to play.

My mom's dream is for me to play Carnegie Hall.

He was in Philadelphia.

He was Ravinia Festival Chicago.

I mean, n- Washington, D.C., lots of music directorships.

Conductor, right? Yeah.

Well, one of the other great female slide guitar players, of course, is Bonnie Raitt.

Did you happen to catch her show at Ravinia this summer?

I did not, but I have to tell you a secret.

Okay.

Suzanne Sole is an actor, comedian, writer, and singer who recently relocated back to Chicago.

Suzanne's stage credits include Dolly Tate in Anna Get Your Gun at Ravinia, Muriel Eubanks in the national tour of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, E.B. Janet on the North American tour of Spank, the Fifty Shades parody, and on screen, she has appeared in Chicago PD, Joey, and The New Partridge Family.

Her original solo show, Nice to Meet Me, a comedy cabaret about awakening to yourself, blends comedy, cabaret characters, and storytelling.

Suzanne is also the creator and host of The Spiritual Shit Show with Suzanne Sole, a podcast about navigating the messy, funny, and deeply human business of being a person.

But you grew up here.

So what made you come back here to do theater? Because that's how you and I know each other.

We did Annie Get Your Gun back in the day at Ravinia.

So I'm curious how you came back here and what made that happen for you?

The CSO recorded this score in 1967 with a young Seiji Ozawa on the podium.

Ozawa was becoming a familiar face in Chicago as he served as the first music director of the Ravinia Festival.

This is Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, in an RCA recording by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

[music]

Oh, so you live in Vienna, and you've had a busy summer.

You, if I'm not mistaken, had your debut at the Ravinia Festival, and you were in Aspen.

What's been most memorable so far about this summer for you?

Well, uh, there have been so many different projects, I would say.

got married when I was 24 and I was still working at the league.

And just almost right after our wedding, I ended up moving up to Ravinia Festival and And that move was, you know, Wells Coffman had just become the CEO at 39 years old.

Brilliant administrator who I learned so much from.

And Wells, I became, I started off doing special events.

And then within a year, I was promoted to the Associate Director of Operations and Programs there.

So I was, you know, in my early 20s, 24, 25, and working with some of the leading CEOs and civic leaders of the city to steward this almost 100-year-old premier music festival and home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

And Ravinia Festival, similar to the Santa Fe Opera, is such a special place.

It is, you know, the caliber of artists that perform there, the acres of lawn that are next to the pavilion and the Martin Theater.

At least one.

Crunching the numbers, the Ravinia Festival has received a $38 million gift, the largest in the organization's history, to renovate the festival's Martin Theater.

The Negaunee Foundation's contribution will make substantial improvements to Ravinia's only remaining original structure on the campus, first constructed in 1904.

Renovations are expected to be complete by summer of 2028.