RAVINIA FESTIVAL EXTENDS JAMES CONLON'S
CONTRACT AS MUSIC DIRECTOR THROUGH 2011

Conlon will conclude Mahler Symphony cycle in 2011, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the composer's death

Ravinia Festival Chairman Michael E. Lavin and President and CEO Welz Kauffman announced today that James Conlon has agreed to a four-year extension of his contract as Ravinia Festival's music director. The internationally acclaimed conductor became the fourth music director of Ravinia, the oldest music festival in North America, in 2005 but has been a regular guest conductor for three decades. The new contract extends through the 2011 season when Conlon will complete his multi-year traversal of the Mahler symphony cycle with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Ravinia has hosted the CSO in its summer residency since 1936.

"I am pleased to continue my long association with Ravinia and especially with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra," Conlon said. "For over three decades, I've become deeply connected to the festival, its supporters and its audiences who have been discerning and appreciative of all types of music. I look forward to future great seasons here, to maintaining high caliber performances and bringing great music making to a wide audience."

"James Conlon has impressed everyone with his dedication, his versatility and his musical vision," Lavin said. "We are proud of this consummate artist and look forward to more incredible music-making over the next four years."

"We are so fortunate to have James Conlon at the helm. A superb musician, James understands every aspect of the festival from his personal 30-year experience here. He sees the very unique and special opportunity Ravinia has in bolstering classical music-especially its role in supporting and sustaining the incomparable Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In just two seasons, Ravinia has experienced a growth in pavilion audiences for CSO concerts while maintaining its strong commitment to the classics that attract new audiences and to more unusual and challenging repertoire, such as last summer's performances of Shostakovich's 13th, 14th and 15th symphonies and the music of Erwin Schulhoff. He enjoys hearing from CSO musicians who have an open line of communication with him, and he invites audiences into the music by speaking from the stage," Kauffman said. "He's also been very active in our education and community partnerships programs, giving high school master classes, meeting with teachers and narrating Ravinia's annual One Score, One Chicago project. He also enjoys collaborating with the young professionals in Ravinia's Steans Institute, not only as teacher but as conductor, as last summer he turned to participants as heroic last-minute replacements for an ailing pavilion artist. It's amazing how quickly and thoroughly James has taken the reins of the festival."

Conlon continues three ongoing projects at Ravinia in 2007, the Breaking the Silence series, the traversal of the Mahler Symphony cycle and the performance of all the Mozart Piano concertos. Season highlights include performances of Mahler's fifth and sixth symphonies. (Conlon will complete the Mahler Symphonies in the final year of this contract extension, 2011, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the composer's death.) Breaking the Silence, which each year focuses on a composer suppressed during the Holocaust, will focus on the music of Alexander von Zemlinsky, including the Ravinia premieres of The Mermaid and A Florentine Tragedy, a one-act opera based on a text of Oscar Wilde. He will also lead the CSO and Patricia Racette in a concert version of Madama Butterfly and conduct the legendary Plácido Domingo in a rare concert performance.

As one of classical music's pre-eminent conductors, Conlon has distinguished himself internationally in a highly diverse repertoire of symphonic, operatic and choral works and has developed enduring relationships with many of the most prestigious symphony orchestra and opera houses. In addition to his role as Music Director of the Ravinia Festival, he is also Music Director of Los Angeles Opera, a post he assumed in September, 2006. He continues to
serve as Music Director of the Cincinnati May Festival, America's oldest choral festival, where he will mark his 28th season in May, 2007. Since his New York Philharmonic debut in 1974, Conlon has appeared with virtually every major North American and European orchestra.

Having spent the major part of the last two decades in Europe, Conlon served as Principal Conductor of the Paris National Opera (1995-2004); General Music Director of the City of Cologne, Germany (1989-2002), where he was simultaneously Music Director of the Gürzenich Orchestra and the Cologne Opera; and Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (1983-1991).

Conlon has worked regularly with the Metropolitan Opera for nearly three decades, conducting more than 250 performances there. He's also appeared with many of the world's major opera companies, including Teatro alla Scala (Milan), the Royal Opera at Covent Garden (London), the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Florence).

In an effort to raise public consciousness to the significance of works of composers whose lives and compositions were affected by the political and religious oppression of the Third Reich, Conlon continues to champion this music with many American and European orchestras. This includes the works of such composers as Alexander von Zemlinsky, Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, Kurt Weill, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Karl-Amadeus Hartmann, Erwin Schulhoff, and Ernest Krenek. At Ravinia, Conlon launched a multiyear exploration of this repertoire entitled

Breaking the Silence, during which he presents a different composer from this group each summer. He has already highlighted works of Viktor Ullmann and Erwin Schulhoff, and will explore the music of Alexander von Zemlinsky as the subject of Ravinia's 2007 Breaking the Silence concerts. He has inaugurated a similar multi-year project entitled Recovered Voices at the LA Opera and is devoted to programming this music with top orchestras and opera houses worldwide. In 1999, Conlon received the Zemlinsky Prize, awarded only once before, for his efforts in bringing the composer's music to international attention.

Conlon is committed to working with young pre-professional musicians and has devoted his time to teaching at the Aspen Music Festival and School, The Juilliard School, the New World Symphony and Tanglewood Music Center. He has become active and influential in the Steans Institute for Young Artists, Ravinia's professional studies wing, and is generous in leading insightful master classes, which are open to the public. Since 1977 he has been active with the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, where he not only conducts the final round of the competition, but also initiated a program through which he leads master classes and coaches finalists. His work in the past three competitions was taped and aired in a special series on PBS.

Conlon has recorded for the EMI, SONY Classical, ERATO, CAPRICCIO and TELARC labels and has won awards for his recordings of the works of Zemlinsky. He has also inaugurated a new series of 20th century works with CAPRICCIO, which includes works by Erwin Schulhoff, Viktor Ullmann, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Dmitri Shostakovich and Bohuslav Martinu.

He was named an Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 1996, and in September 2004 he was promoted to Commander - the most prestigious honor awarded by the Ministry of Culture in France. In September 2002, Conlon received France's highest distinction - the Légion d'Honneur - from the President of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac.