Patti LuPone And Brian Stokes Mitchell Headline ANNIE GET YOUR GUN Concert As Part Of CSO/Ravinia 2010 Season

The 2010 summer residency of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia Festival will be in full celebration mode throughout a wide-ranging schedule announced today by Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kauffman. Patti LuPone may be at home on the movie screen, the TV set and the Broadway stage, but she's only really at home when she's at Ravinia. With her bigger-than-life vocalism, she is the obvious heiress to the mantle of the legendary Ethel Merman, winning a Drama Desk Award and Tony nomination for Anything Goes and a Tony Award for her take on Mama Rose from Gypsy, a role she first created at Ravinia before taking it to Broadway.

Now, for the 150th anniversary of Annie Oakley's birth, LuPone tackles another iconic Merman role for Ravinia, playing fast and loose with gunpowder and love in Irving Berlin's bigger-than-life musical about the fabled sharp-shooter. Dubbed "the last leading man" by the New York Times, Brian Stokes Mitchell joins LuPone to play her sentimental husband Frank Butler. The hit-stuffed score includes "Doin' What Comes Naturally," "There's No Business Like Show Business," "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better," "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun" and "They Say It's Wonderful."

The CSO residency dates to 1936 and is the core of Ravinia's classical music programming, which traditionally counts for about 50 percent of the festival's concerts. Next season's 21 CSO concerts-programmed from June 28 through August 15-include celebrations of Music Director James Conlon's 60th birthday, former Music Director Christoph Eschenbach's 70th birthday, Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday, the 200th anniversary of Mexican independence, the 20th anniversary of the deaths of American icons Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland, the 150th anniversary of the births of Gustav Mahler and wild-West legend Annie Oakley, the 100th anniversary of the birth of American composer Samuel Barber and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frédéric Chopin.

For the first time, donors to the not-for-profit Ravinia Festival may purchase reserved-seat pavilion tickets to the CSO concerts at the time of the fall announcement. Donors will receive a special mailing or may place orders online at www.ravinia.org to secure best seating for next summer. Others interested in the CSO lineup can become a donor (minimum of $250) for the ability to place an order now. As an early-order incentive, donors who purchase their CSO tickets prior to January 15, 2010, will receive a

25-percent discount off their total order (excluding the Gala and the four concerts already specially priced at $25 each). After this date, donors will receive their regular savings of 20 percent.

"Next summer, North America's oldest music festival nearly explodes with musical milestones," Kauffman said. "Of course Ravinia is the kind of place where there's always something worth celebrating; whether it's a child's birthday party on the lawn or an elegant anniversary getaway for two, the combination of great music and enchanting atmosphere gives us each a chance to create our own milestones." 

The celebrations begin as soon as the residency starts when Ravinia favorite Garrick Ohlsson sits down at the Steinway to mark the 200th birthday year of Frédéric Chopin. The 150th birthday of Gustav Mahler is celebrated with James Conlon concluding his multi-year Mahler cycle when he leads the CSO in the Adagio of the unfinished 10th symphony. On the same program, Samuel Barber's centennial is celebrated with his Adagio for Strings and Joshua Bell performing the Violin Concerto.

Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday promises to be the party of the year with a Gala benefit that reunites the stars of Ravinia's six highly successful Sondheim events. Director Lonny Price and conductor Paul Gemignani also return to lead Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, George Hearn and Michael Cerveris in Sondheim: Timeless, a collection of greatest hits from the Ravinia shows, including "Send in the Clowns."

Closer to home, the birthdays of Music Director James Conlon, 60, and former Music Director Christoph Eschenbach, 70, will be acknowledged throughout the summer. Conlon, regarded as one of the foremost opera conductors in the world, will recreate excerpts from his first Wagner Ring Cycle at the L.A. Opera, where he also holds the post of music director. Building on the overwhelming success of bringing the CSO into the intimate Martin Theatre for two Mozart operas in 2008, Conlon returns the orchestra to the Martin for two performances each of Mozart's Così fan tutte and The Marriage of Figaro, featuring such stars as Frederica von Stade and Nathan Gunn. Eschenbach takes a musical travelogue through his career in concerts that feature him as conductor and soloist working with such colleagues and protégés as Renée Fleming, performing Strauss's Four Last Songs.

The 20th anniversary of the deaths of two music icons-Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland-is commemorated in concerts that feature some of their most treasured creations including Appalachian Spring, The Age of Anxiety and Candide.

The 200th anniversary of Mexican Independence is acknowledged in a few guises next summer, including the CSO concerts that feature one of Mexico City's favorite sons, Jorge Federico Osorio, performing all five of Beethoven's piano concertos over two nights. Patrons can purchase pavilion tickets to both concerts for only $50.

Celebrating the long tradition of symphonic music and film, Ravinia presents the multimedia concert Distant Worlds/Final Fantasy, featuring a score by Nobuo Uematsu that since its creation 20 years ago as the music for the wildly successful video game has since blown up into a live concert phenomenon on a world tour conducted by Arnie Roth. The multimedia concert will showcase the two video screens in Ravinia's pavilion that have been received this past year with enthusiasm from Ravinia audiences.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.