Free Ravinia Lawn Tickets! Starry Nights of Classical Music!

Yes, it's that time again! As in the past, Ravinia has generously supplied us with a limited number of tickets for our patrons. These are lawn tickets to classical music concerts (so no Demi Lovato or Diana Krall tickets), and a great opportunity to listen to first-rate classical performers in a beautiful setting.

Tickets will be available on a first come, first served basis on Saturday, June 16th from 9 am to 11 am on the 1st floor. Any tickets available after that will be distributed at the 3rd floor Readers' Services desk. The ticket limit is 2 tickets per person.

Ravinia is the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the magnificence of which I've posted about previously. Among the CSO concerts we have tickets for are the "Brahms Bonanza" on Friday, July 13th and "La Mer and More," on Tuesday, August 7th, featuring pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.    


Want to know the additional concerts we have tickets we for? Stop by the 3rd floor desk to view a list of available concerts. The third floor is also where you'll find classical music CDs--and all other music CDs--to check out.

Happy listening and concert-going!

Free Ravinia Lawn Tickets to Classical Music Concerts

Summer is on its way, believe it or not, which means that the Ravinia concert season is almost here! As in the past, Ravinia has generously supplied local libraries with a limited number of tickets for library patrons. These are lawn tickets to classical music concerts (so no Jennifer Hudson or Robert Plant tickets), and a great opportunity to listen to first-rate classical performers in a beautiful setting.

Tickets will be available on a first come, first served basis on Saturday, June 11th from 9 to 10:30 a.m. on the 1st floor. Any tickets available after that will be distributed at the 3rd floor Readers' Services desk. The ticket limit is 2 tickets per person.

Want to know what concerts we have tickets we for? Stop by the Readers' Services desk on the 3rd floor to view a list of available concerts and pick up a Ravinia concert schedule. This year, Ravinia also generously supplied us with copies of Ravinia Preview magazine, which includes interviews with performers, as well as a full calendar of events.

The third floor is also where you'll find classical music CDs--and all other music CDs--to check out.

Finally, you can enjoy live classical music right here in Des Plaines this summer. On Sunday, July 17th, pianist Mark Damisch will be performing compositions by Copland, Barber, Dello Joio and Gershwin right here at the library, in Friends Room B/C at 2 p.m. Click here to register.

Happy listening and concert-going!

Free Ravinia Lawn Tickets! Starry Nights of Classical Music!

Yes, it's that time again! As in the past, Ravinia has generously supplied local libraries with a limited number of tickets for our patrons. These are lawn tickets to classical music concerts (so no Sheryl Crow or Sting tickets), and a great opportunity to listen to first-rate classical performers in a beautiful setting.

Tickets will be available on a first come, first served basis on Saturday, June 19th from 9 am to 11 am by the entrance to Community Room A on the 1st floor. (The ticket line forms at the front door.) Any tickets available after that will be distributed at the 3rd floor Readers' Services desk. The ticket limit is 2 tickets per person.

Want to know what concerts we have tickets we for? Stop by the 3rd floor desk to view a list of available concerts and pick up a Ravinia concert schedule.

The third floor is also where you'll find classical music CDs--and all other music CDs--to check out. Some of our most recent acquisitions include the following:

Prokofiev: Piano Concertos 2 & 3 performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy and featuring one of my favorite pianists, Evgeny Kissin.

Beethoven: Complete Works for Piano and Cello performed by Simone Dinnerstein and Zuill Bailey (currently on the Billboard Classical Bestseller list).

Mendelssohn: Piano Trios performed by music legends Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and Emanuel Ax.

Happy listening and concert-going!

Win a Pair of Ravinia Lawn Tickets!

To celebrate our new Classical Music Center on the 3rd Floor, we're offering a chance to win one of three pairs of Ravinia lawn tickets for a Brahms/Dvorak concert on Saturday, July 25th at 7:30 pm.

What will you find at our Classical Music Center, which is located behind the 3rd floor elevator?

For starters, you'll find the latest issues of Strings, Gramophone and BBC Music. My favorite of the three magazines is BBC Music, a beautifully produced magazine out of Britain written in an engaging, accessible style. One of my favorite sections is Composer of the Month, which generally includes an essay, composer quotations, a timeline of main events in the composer's life and recommended recordings. Another cool feature is the backpage interview called Music That Changed Me.

The Classical Music Center currently houses all of our Orchestra section CDs, as well as CD lists to get you started on your classical music journey, such as Music of the Baroque and Relax to the Classics. You'll also find a small selection of our classical music DVD collection, like From the Top at Carnegie Hall. Season 2, which features gifted musicians aged 8 to 18. And don't forget to check out our list of best-selling classical CDs, as well as the rest of our classical CD collection on the third floor.

So stop by between now and July 12th to fill out an entry for the Ravinia tickets drawing, but be sure to check out our classical music offerings here at the library as well. My hope is that if you like classical music enough to travel to Ravinia in Highland Park, you'll also take advantage of what we have to offer in the way of classical music right here in Des Plaines--at the library.

Music Under the Stars (and not far from the stairs, on the 3rd floor)

It’s Grant Park and Ravinia season—a chance to enjoy classical music, as well as other forms of music, under the stars!

If you’re new to classical music, or you just want to get the most out of a classical music concert, listen to CDs of the compositions before you attend a concert to deepen your understanding and enjoyment of the music. For example, if you’re planning to attend pianist Simone Dinnerstein’s performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at Ravinia on August 25^th, you can check out our copy of her critically acclaimed CD of the Goldberg Variations and listen to it beforehand. We also own Glenn Gould’s recordings of the Goldberg Variations. He recorded the work twice, in 1955 and 1981, and both are included in The Complete Goldberg Variations, 1955 and 1981. Want even more variety? We also own Rosalyn Tureck’s and Vladimir Feltsman’s performances of this elegant Baroque masterpiece.

Listening to multiple interpretations of a composition can be illuminating. For example, in Glenn Gould’s recording of the Goldberg Variations you might hear melodic threads that you never noticed in other recordings. While we don’t own multiple versions of all classical compositions, we do own many, and listening to new artists perform old favorites can be a joyous experience.

If you ever have difficulties locating a CD, please don’t hesitate to ask for assistance at the Readers' Services desk. And don’t forget to stop by the third floor between now and July 27^th to enter our Classical Music Trivia Contest, which changes weekly!