“The tragic irony of the Ravinia and Grant Park Music Festivals canceling their entire seasons, due to the coronavirus pandemic, is that it robs us of music at the very moment we need it most: during crisis,” writes Howard Reich in Tuesday’s (5/5) Chicago Tribune. “Ravinia opened in Highland Park in 1904 and bills itself as North America’s oldest outdoor music fest.… The Chicago Symphony Orchestra launched its annual Ravinia residency that year…. The Grant Park Music Festival also has held a singular place in Chicago’s cultural life, enabling listeners from all corners of the city and beyond to hear the world’s greatest classical artists—for free.… Through the decades … surely few institutions have done more to make classical music accessible to all than Grant Park…. To hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the world’s most accomplished large ensembles, outdoors [at Ravinia] on an idyllic summer night is to realize that classical music … is not an elite endeavor. It’s a pleasure that everyone can bask in…. This summer looked to be particularly inviting at both festivals…. We grieve these losses, knowing that they’re slight compared to the loss of hu-man life. But they’re still essential to enduring it.”
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