Ravinia Festival Partnership
For over ten years, Ravinia has provided high quality musicians for residency programs in District 112 elementary and middle schools. For the 2009-2010 school year, we are offering this enrichment program to Red Oak and Sherwood schools as well as all of our middle schools. Thank you, Ravinia Festival, for supporting our students with fine musical programming! Additionally, the Music Institute of Chicago will be working with Ravinia school students on an exciting musical theater program.
2009-2010 Ravinia Festival Artist-In-Residence Program
This year, the fourth grade at Sherwood School is taking part in a 10-week residency with internationally acclaimed world percussionist Doug Brush. Every child will have the opportunity to learn and play world rhythms on percussion instruments. This learning experience will culminate in a student performance with Doug. This exciting performance is not to be missed. It will be held at Sherwood on December 16th at 7:00pm.
Red Oak is planning its musician-in-residence program for the Spring. Ravinia Festival will be bringing a fabulous jazz program to the students. More details to follow.
The orchestras at Elm Place, Edgewood and Northwood will be learning parts of Ravinia's One Score One Chicago choice - Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Musicians from the Chicago Sinfonietta will be working one on one with our student musicians providing them with an unforgettable learning experience. Our music and art teachers have been invited to a professional development day hosted by Ravinia at the Art Institute where they will delve into the relationship between art and music. Middle school art students will also participate in this creative project.
Update--
Click here to see pictures of the art created by our middle schools students for this exciting project.
2009-2010 Music Institute of Chicago Artist-in-Residence Program
The Music Institute of Chicago will be providing the 5th Grade at Ravinia School with a 6-week musical theater program. Students conjure characters, settings, and songs from their current classroom curriculum and turn them into musical comedy world premieres. This workshop not only brings writing and theater arts to the classroom, but uses the arts to give students further insight and interest in their schoolwork. This exciting program will culminate in a performance at Ravinia School on February 25th.
2008-2009 Program
For the 2008-2009 school year, Lincoln School and Wayne Thomas enjoyed the Ravinia Festival residency experience. In honor of Lincoln School’s 100th birthday and the 200th birthday of Abe Lincoln, Ravinia presented a unique program revolving around President Lincoln and various American standards. Students at Lincoln school learned about these American standards and the famous composers and performers that have created this timeless music. In addition, the students had the unique experience of hearing the music performed live over 5 weeks by a fabulous quartet of professional jazz musicians led by Jeff Handley.
The fifth graders at Wayne Thomas benefited from an entirely different, but equally dramatic musical experience. In a series of meetings, the students learned drumming rhythms from around the world taught by internationally acclaimed percussionist, Doug Brush. This exciting program culminated in a performance by Doug and the children for the entire school and their parents. This is the same program that created amazing experiences at both Indian Trail and Braeside the previous year.
2007-2008 Program
For the 2007-08 school year, Indian Trail and Braeside students enjoed the residency experience. Last year, Janet Lubetkin’s fifth graders at Lincoln and Susan Sicilano’s fifth graders at Oak Terrace learned and performed African and Latin American rhythms. Both groups performed several selections for their schools and parents. This year's Ravinia Festival Partnership with the middle schools focused on live composers and their works. Each middle school band director selected a piece for their band from a living composer: Edgewood performed,Alligator Alley by Michael Doughtery, Elm Place performed Ham Bone by Libby Larson and Northwood performed Gotta Make Noise by Michael Colgrass. In addition to each composer visiting the school and working with the students the Chicago Sinfonietta worked with all the performers in ensemble groups over the course of the spring. The Joffrey Ballet also visited the middle schools and worked with the students on incorporating their musical parts into movement and motion! This all came together in a tremendous performance May 28th at Ravinia's historic Martin Theater.
2006-2007 Program
For the 2006/2007 school year, sixth and seventh grade band and choral students in District 112 went avant garde studying under the direction of Northwestern professor emeritus Don Owens, who composed three pieces designed especially for each middle school’s students. According to Robert Goldberg, Community Partnership Associate at Ravinia Festival, very few middle school programs in the country could successfully perform this challenging, non-traditional music, but Northwood choral and Edgewood and Elm Place band students were up to the task. Teachers Amy Stein, Daniela Valdez, Matt Taylor, and Molly McDougall worked to prepare their students for the performance at Ravinia’s Martin Theater.