Ravinia Festival Association

Summer music festival in Highland Park, Illinois.

Ravinia first opened on August 15, 1904, as an amusement park, which included a pavilion, a baseball diamond and grandstand, an electric fountain, a theater, and a refectory building with dining rooms and dance floor. Due to insufficient revenue, however, Ravinia Park slipped into receivership in 1910. The next year, a group of North Shore residents purchased the park and founded The Ravinia Company in 1911. Ravinia became a summer venue for classical music and opera from 1912 through 1931. Decreasing revenues forced Ravinia to close its doors once again, until the spring of 1936, when Highland Park and Chicago businessmen formed the not-for-profit Ravinia Festival Association. On May 14, 1949 the 1400-seat wooden Pavilion burned to the ground, but six weeks later the 14th Festival opened on schedule under a canvas cover originally constructed for B-29 bombers. The replacement pavilion, was completed in 1950, and is still in use. Seiji Ozawa was named Ravinia's first music director in 1964 and in 1968 the Festival appointed Edward Gordon as executive director. In 1971, James Levine became Ravinia's music director, a post he held until 1993.

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