Since Ravinia Festival commissioned jazz great Ramsey Lewis to create a major new work that is inspired by the life of Abraham Lincoln, Lewis has been diligently creating music that will complement one of the nation’s greatest presidents.
Since Ravinia Festival commissioned jazz great Ramsey Lewis to create a major new work that is inspired by the life of Abraham Lincoln, Lewis has been diligently creating music that will complement one of the nation’s greatest presidents.
The composition does not have a title as of yet but will reflect the significant changes in freedom that was the result of a single political act, the Emancipation Proclamation.
The production’s world premiere is set to a part of the 2009 Ravinia season, which will have a special focus on the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth.
Under the banner Mystic Chords of Memory, a phrase Lincoln uttered during the last paragraph of his first inaugural speech, Ravinia Festival will feature a variety of programs focusing on the life of Lincoln and his musical contemporaries. The season will climax with the world premiere of a dance concert choreographed by Bill T. Jones.
Lewis’ composition will probably reflect the tenor of Lincoln’s last paragraph from his first inaugural speech which is as follows, “I am loath to close, we are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and heartstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
“There are many layers to Abraham Lincoln, and we want to present several points of view to communicate something meaningful and musical about this legendary American,” said Welz Kauffman, president and CEO of Ravinia Festival and member of the Illinois Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.
Jones’ dance contribution, tentatively titled "A Good Man," would likely focus on a conversation between Lincoln and Frederick Douglass that was found in the book "Lincoln-An Illustrated Biography."
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