Marin Alsop has been appointed chief conductor and curator of the Ravinia Festival, the Highland Park institution announced Wednesday morning.
She will be the first person to hold this post, which has been created for her, in Ravinia’s 116-year history.
Alsop has been a familiar figure at the festival, particularly during the past two seasons, when she curated centennial celebrations of conductor-composer-teacher Leonard Bernstein, her mentor. She also holds posts as chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony and music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
“This is a huge honor and privilege,” said Alsop, 63, in a phone interview. “And also, I think, for me, (Ravinia) really has become a little bit like family.”
Alsop guest conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia in 2002 and 2005, and more recently led a historic, semi-staged concert performance of Bernstein’s “Mass,” to be broadcast on PBS’ “Great Performances” on a date to be announced.
“This really came about from the long relationship she and I have had, and more important the connection she’s made with the Ravinia family and the Ravinia audience,” said Ravinia president and CEO Welz Kauffman, who will be stepping down from his post at the end of the festival’s 2020 season.
Kauffman was the first to engage her to conduct the New York Philharmonic in 1999, when he worked there, according to a Ravinia statement, and has been an Alsop champion ever since.
“These last two summers with the Bernstein celebration just cemented the fact that she’s just the right person in so many ways to both conduct the fabulous CSO but also to work with me, and with my successor, on what the whole Ravinia gestalt is,” said Kauffman. “She gets every piece of it.”
Ravinia is currently conducting a national search for Kauffman’s successor.
What will Alsop do in her new role?
“She will continue to do the kind of curator piece, which is deliberately amorphous,” said Kauffman.
“It’s meant to be weighing in on things that she has knowledge about, the things she’s interested in, the things she’s always well aware of that Ravinia does: the mix of programming, the education with little kids, since she’s so involved with kids in Baltimore. And being a terrific conductor who has wide breadth of repertoire, of which we’ve only begun to scratch the surface.”
This summer Alsop will conduct the CSO in several concerts: “Shostakovich and ‘Slava!'” featuring Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad,” and Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 performed by Midori (July 10); an “All-Rachmaninoff Evening” including his Piano Concerto No. 3 and Symphonic Dances (July 11); “Legendary Women’s Voices,” starring singer Cynthia Erivo in a gala benefit evening (July 12); “Voices of Light,” Richard Einhorn’s 1994 oratorio, performed as accompaniment to Carl Dreyer’s silent film “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (July 16); and “An Evening of Variations,” with pianist Jorge Federico Osorio performing Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini on a program that also holds Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations (July 17).
To Alsop, the new post offers ample possibilities.
“I really think that my experience of Ravinia is one of large-picture ideas that we have the opportunity to share,” she said. “For example, this summer, we’re focusing on (the centennial of) the 19th amendment,” which secured women’s right to vote.
“We can do this from the classical perspective – I’m going to do this film with a contemporary score,” she added, referring to Dreyer’s “The Passion of Joan of Arc.”
“Cynthia (Erivo) is going to do her tribute. So we can take something of interest and look at it from all these various perspectives, which I think is really interesting for our audience.
“I’ll continue that tradition that exists there, trying to program excellent classical programs and also thematic connections to various subjects that we’re going to focus on.”
Alsop’s is a two-year appointment that can be extended, according to the conductor and Kauffman.
In effect, she will serve as a bridge between his tenure and that of his successor.
“That’s kind of built in,” said Kauffman.
Added Alsop, the scenario “gives a little stability through this time, and consistency. But I’m hoping that Welz and I will really already have (programming for) 2021 pretty well under control by the time he leaves, so the next person can come in with the freedom to have a look broadly as to what their vision is as well.”
Kauffman has high hopes for what Alsop will bring to Ravinia.
“A continuing of the fabulous effect she already has had,” he said. “A warmth, a compassion and understanding, a joy about what Ravinia is all about and what it feels like and what it could be.
“But the most important thing is: How do we bring more people to the CSO concerts and everything we do on the classical side?
“But not just that. Her vision, her sweep is so much wider than what one would think of with a conductor. She’s had her own jazz orchestra. She’s been involved with music theater. (She’s) mirroring everything we’re about.”
Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.
