Breaking Barriers Festival celebrates food and music leaders for fourth edition

Returning for a fourth season, Ravinia’s Breaking Barriers Festival this summer explores the theme of women leaders in food and music over three days/nights July 25-27.

Introduced by Ravinia Chief Conductor Marin Alsop in 2022, the female-focused Breaking Barriers Festival celebrates underrepresented artists and leaders in music, and their achievements in advancing visions for classical music’s future.

Co-curating this summer’s Breaking Barriers lineup with Alsop is Molly Yeh, star of the Food Network’s “Girl Meets Farm” and the author of the award-winning memoir/cookbook Molly on the Range: Recipes and Stories from an Unlikely Life on a Farm, as well as Home Is Where the Eggs Are and Sweet Farm! Yeh also taps into her musical roots as a Juilliard-trained percussionist.

For the 2025 edition of Breaking Barriers, Alsop and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra invite audiences to embark on a sonic journey across the globe. New this summer will be specially created food offerings inspired by works on the July 25-26 programs. On July 25, with an add-on ticket, patrons can enjoy food by guest celebrity chefs Maneet Chauhan, Jacqueline Eng, Sarah Grueneberg and Mika Leon at preconcert tasting stations, as well as attend presentations with the chefs in a casual setting.

The first performance explores the intersection of global adventure, music and culture. Opening the program is Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade, drawing inspiration from the Middle Eastern folk-tale collection 1,001 Arabian Nights, followed by Reena Esmail’s RE/Member, a work blending Western and Indian traditions that celebrate the beauty of returning home. An excerpt from Chicago-based composer Tim Corpus’ Great Lake Concerto, which evokes the spirit of an iconic landscape, features soloists Vadim Karpinos, CSO assistant principal timpani, and Ed Harrison, principal timpani of Lyric Opera of Chicago. Gershwin’s Cuban Overture, inspired by the composer’s two-week trip to Havana in 1932 and love for Afro-Cuban music, rounds out the program on July 25.

For the second program on July 26, Chauhan and Eng will be joined by Chicago-area chefs Grace Goudie, Beverly Kim and Sarah Stegner in creating small bites to pair with the musical selections; tastings are included with the cost of a concert ticket. During both of these programs, the chefs will explain their culinary pairings in introductions to the works.

This second performance is conceived as a smorgasbord of bite-sized chamber works, with co-curators Alsop and Molly Yeh introducing French and pan-American pieces performed by CSO musicians and guests.

The Greek god Pan inspired both Debussy’s Syrinx and Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. With Principal Flute Stefán Ragnar Höskuldsson and other CSO winds, the latter work also features Molly Yeh herself on percussion, in a chamber-ensemble arrangement by Néstor Bayona. Copland’s bluesy Quiet City showcases cinematic English horn and trumpet solos. Astor Piazzolla’s Libertango combines jazz with the Argentine dance form, and Victoria Bond’s Bridges, a work written for Assistant Principal Clarinet John Bruce Yeh (father of Molly) and his ensemble Birds and Phoenix, is a lively East-West fusion of folk and jazz.

At the second program’s center is Bernstein’s Le Bonne Cuisine, a cycle of humorous songs set to recipes from a French cookbook, sung by Steans Institute Singers Program Fellow Kaylyn Taylor Baldwin, along with Program Director Kevin Murphy on piano.

Capping her three-week residency at Ravinia and the 2025 Breaking Barriers Festival, Alsop leads a CSO program on July 27 that embraces the richness of life and the people met along the journey. Alsop and the CSO capture the spirit of the Mediterranean in Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony; Principal Clarinet Stephen Williamson is the soloist in Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, a work inspired by jazz and travels in Brazil. The program culminates with Elgar’s Enigma Variations, a series of musical portraits of the British composer’s closest friends. Note: for this concert, patrons may visit the restaurants and grab-and-go market in the dining pavilion.

The inaugural 2022 festival centered on women on the podium and also recognized two milestone anniversaries: the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship in its 20th year of supporting young women conductors’ careers and the 100th anniversary of the birth of Margaret Hillis, the pioneering conductor and founder of the Chicago Symphony Chorus.