Ravinia’s George Stelluto plays in Peoria — and now around the world

George Stelluto, an associate conductor of the Ravinia Festival, is a jack of all trades. He has served as a guest conductor for many acclaimed ensembles, including the Atlanta, Milwaukee and San Diego symphonies, and in major concert halls of Europe, Asia and South America. From 2006 to 2016, he was resident conductor at New York’s Juilliard School, where he prepared the orchestra for visiting guest conductors. His first such assignment was rehearsing Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin for legendary maestro Pierre Boulez. “So, no pressure there,” Stelluto said with a chuckle.

Stelluto will be centerstage when he makes his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut Aug. 15, leading Ravinia’s annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular, which features the famed Russian composer’s 1812 Overture, complete with cannons. This year’s program, which went through several iterations due to COVID-19 protocols, also showcases two other Tchaikovsky masterworks: the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture and Symphony No. 5. “That was the idea — to do a selection of real favorites as the return of that program to Ravinia,” he said. (The concert is completely sold out in the pavilion and on the lawn.)

His anchor post is music director of the Peoria (Ill.) Symphony Orchestra, where he will start his 12th season this fall. It is a per-service or part-time orchestra, which draws musicians from Chicago, Bloomington, Ind., and St. Louis, as well as central Illinois. The ensemble presents one subscription concert a month from September through May, plus a range of auxiliary projects. Among them are two televised concert series, “SoundBites” and “Musical Discoveries,” which are broadcast across central and southern Illinois via public televisions stations in Peoria and Champaign.

During 2020-21, when the orchestra was forced to cancel in-person performances, it turned its entire season into a series of concerts that were broadcast regionally via public radio and television. The programs were filmed in Peoria at Grace Presbyterian Church, which has fine acoustics as well as six high-definition cameras. Highlights included a program with Grammy Award-winning bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green, who did a week of virtual outreach, along with his performance.

Of his Peoria tenure, Stelluto said, “It’s been a real pleasure, because we’ve got a really good board and a great staff. Especially during COVID, we have courageous people down there, and we never shut down our season. I have to say I really couldn’t have been happier with the organization and the musicians. We were able to keep everybody employed and keep ourselves out there, providing cultural leadership for the region.”

At Juilliard, where he received an artist’s diploma in 2006 (he also holds two degrees from Yale), Stelluto directed programs for the school’s dance, theater and jazz departments. “I hate to use this hackneyed term, but it just became part of my DNA that you were going to do collaborative things,“ he said. ”I was exposed to this whole set of projects that really broadened my whole perspective, and I think that is really valuable.”

As part of that diversity, Stelluto also is involved in arts advocacy, education and arranging. In addition, he has become in demand nationally as a conductor of live-to-picture programs in which a film is screened as an orchestra performs the work’s score. He did a presentation of the film “La La Land” (2016), which won six Oscars, at Ravinia in 2017 with the Milwaukee Symphony; he went on to conduct the program in Milwaukee, Atlanta and Philadelphia. He has also led live-to-picture concerts of the “Harry Potter” films, “Love Actually” and other titles.

Stelluto’s post at Ravinia came about through James Conlon, the festival’s music director from 2005 to 2015. The two met at Juilliard when Conlon made a guest conducting appearance there. During that residency, Conlon happened to attend the New York City Ballet on a night that Stelluto was conducting The Nutcracker. (Stelluto worked as a cover conductor at NYCB in 2005-2007.) During intermission, Conlon texted Stelluto with praise, and the next day, he asked him if he would like to be his assistant at Ravinia. Stelluto jumped at the chance and was appointed as an associate conductor in 2011.

In addition to covering all of the CSO concerts at Ravinia, which means being ready to substitute for an assigned conductor if necessary, he also serves as an adviser to the sound crew, helping to determine amplification levels for the festival’s concerts. In addition, he has conducted a sprinkling of family concerts. “It’s a number of things,” Stelluto said of his duties, “and they can change from day to day.”

Besides his concerts in 2021-22 with the Peoria Symphony, Stelluto doesn’t know exactly what else he has coming up. Because of the pandemic, some orchestras are announcing their seasons later than usual. “I’m waiting to see what happens,” he said.

Down the road, he would like to land a permanent post with a larger orchestra. He hopes to follow the path of famed conductor Kent Nagano, whose first music directorship came in 1978 with the Berkeley (Calif.) Symphony Orchestra and loyally maintained that post through 2009, as he added titles with larger ensembles around the world.

“I would love to have that kind of situation,” Stelluto said, “where I could get some bigger opportunities on a regular basis, but use that growth to enhance a place like Peoria.”