“With the celebratory thwacks of bass drum and timpani that open Joan Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 1, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra made it thunderously clear on Friday evening that it was back in business at Ravinia,” writes John von Rhein in Sunday’s (7/11) Chicago Classical Review. “It also marked the Ravinia concert debut of conductor Marin Alsop in her role as the festival’s chief conductor and curator, leading three weeks of CSO performances this summer…. Ovations were long and loud for Alsop’s two weekend events…. On Saturday … all five works were … new or unfamiliar music by living American woman composers Laura Karpman and Stacy Garrop, and African-American composers Carlos Simon and James P. Johnson…. Karpman’s All American and Garrop’s The Battle for the Ballot play around with traditional sounds of American patriotism, albeit with a feminist spin…. Simon was represented by his Fate Now Conquers (2020), for chamber orchestra [led by] Jonathan Rush … [whose] brawny and assured reading … drew a resounding whoop of approval.” Friday’s program also included Johnson’s Harlem Symphony and Victory Stride; Saturday featured Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, with pianist Jorge Federico Osorio.
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