June 10, 2025 • 28 mins
In this episode, iHearMedia Chicago Region President Adam Kurtz sits down with Jeffrey Haydon, the President and CEO of the Ravinia Festival, the oldest outdoor music festival in the United States. Together, they explore the dynamic intersection of tradition and innovation in the performing arts.
Jeffrey shares insights into his journey from arts management to helming one of the nation's most iconic cultural institutions. From programming world-class performances to navigating the evolving expectations of modern audiences, he discusses the challenges and opportunities of leading a legacy organization into the future.Listeners will hear about Ravinia’s commitment to community engagement, music education, and diversity, as well as the behind-the-scenes strategy that keeps the festival thriving season after season.
Whether you're a fan of the arts, an aspiring cultural leader, or simply curious about what it takes to sustain a century-old institution, this conversation offers a compelling look at creativity, leadership, and the power of live music.
Jeffrey shares insights into his journey from arts management to helming one of the nation's most iconic cultural institutions. From programming world-class performances to navigating the evolving expectations of modern audiences, he discusses the challenges and opportunities of leading a legacy organization into the future.Listeners will hear about Ravinia’s commitment to community engagement, music education, and diversity, as well as the behind-the-scenes strategy that keeps the festival thriving season after season.
Whether you're a fan of the arts, an aspiring cultural leader, or simply curious about what it takes to sustain a century-old institution, this conversation offers a compelling look at creativity, leadership, and the power of live music.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to CEOs. You should know by iHeartMedia Chicago, the
podcast that brings you inspiring stories and insightful conversations with
Chicago innovators and business leaders that you should know.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It was funny when you mentioned Morgan Freeman you walked in,
because I was thinking, as looking at the lineup, I'm like,
what are the odds that he might bring Morgan Freeman
in here and we can just sit here and kick
it and talk about the Blues. And you didn't bring him,
so whatever.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Not that.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I don't mean to be like disappointed that Morgan Freeman
is in here. It's just gonna be us. But I'll
take it. It's fine. I'll try to emulate his voice, but
no one can best voice on the planet. Actually, it
would have made me feel inadequate, So I'm glad he's
not here. I do want to say welcome, thanks for
being here. I'm with Jeff Hayden, the President and CEO
of Ravinia. I appreciate you being here.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Thanks so much for having me on Adam. Of course, so.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I did have a question. Is your office actually at Revinya.
My office is actually at Revene, so you go there
every day. It's the best office in the world. You
sit there in the pavilion.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
If you're looking at the billion on the left hand side,
you see some office windows up there, and that's my
office looking out over the entire park every single day.
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
How great is that? I mean, do you ever you
ever do lunch on the lawn? You ever just like
take a blanket, spread it out and napp But don't
tell me you have not.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
So I want to I want to get into the
to the lineup in the summer season. I mean, you guys,
I don't want to get into it yet, but I
just want to point out that I feel like you guys,
you guys booked a banger of a season this summer.
I don't know if you've I don't know if you
feel differently about that versus past seasons. And I think
every season is great, But for this, for some reason,
I looking at the lineup and maybe it's a personal thing.
I don't know, but hats off, this season looks fantastic.
(01:42):
Thank you very much. Yeah, but we'll talk later. We'll
get into that in a minute. The reason we do
this podcast kind of what I was explaining to you
earlier is that I think I don't want to speak
for most people, but I think most people know in
this town what Ravenia is. I mean, it's a landmark
at this point, it's iconic, but they don't know who's
in charge, necessarily who runs it. I know, as a CEO,
you get out there, your name is out there a lot,
(02:04):
but you think, I don't know if you're a household
name around Chicago, but hopefully not. Hopefully not, but maybe
the idea is I want you to be a household name.
The idea is that people understand who's in charge, who's
here moving the economy in Chicago, who's doing special things
in our communities. And I think that's where you come
in and that's really why you're here. So before we
(02:24):
get into Revenie and everything you're doing, i'd love a
little background on you. If you're you know what drew
you to the job? Is it the arts? Are you
a musician? Do you just love music? How did you
get into the field. Give us a little something about Jeff.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Hayden All the above grew up in a family of
entrepreneurs in California and have an insatiable love of music.
Started off and the band played trumpet, got promoted all
the way down to Tuba, as my band instructor said,
promoted down exactly. Okay, that's what he said, and also
(02:59):
started singing in the choir. And so if you ever
saw the movie Mister Holland Opus, that was my music
teacher and inspired me to do what I do today.
And my entrepreneurial family inspired me on the creative side
of business. And so you can imagine my thrill when
I walked into college and realized, Wow, there's a business
side of this music that I love. This could be fun,
(03:20):
absolutely so coming out of college. So it was the track.
So in college, actually a University of Puget Sound had
a great program where students actually ran the whole music program,
the performing arts series there. Okay, so my buddy ran
pop in comedy and I ran cultural arts and we
(03:40):
produced a ton of shows before we graduated. And I
later on met and married my now wife in Chicago
and worked at Chicago Symphony and was recruited to run
music festivals shortly thereafter, and so I went to Ohi, California,
ran a very famous small music festival for contemporary music
(04:01):
outside of Santa Barbara and then was recruited to run
a music festival outside of New York City called Karamore.
And I've known of Ravinia forever. One of my old
friends was my predecessor at Revina, And when the call
came in the summer of twenty twenty to come, I said, absolutely,
(04:21):
it would be a delight to come.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, I can imagine you didn't hesitate for a second.
And it's sort of you mentioned your time with the
cso so this is sort of a welcome back.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Then, it's a homecoming. My wife's from here, we lived here,
we spent the first years of our marriage, and of
course Revenna is the top and best music festival in
the country, so what's not to like? Amen? Amen.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
So I did hear another interview with you, and you
said something that I thought was really cool. You called
Ravenea a thirty six acre oasis of inspiration, which is lovely.
Are you inspired every day when you're there? Is it
the artists that are inspired? Is it all the above?
Is it everybody? How does that? How does that impact you?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's the combination of all the different elements that are
different every single day. So actually, the founder, Lewis Eckstein
talked a lot about the oasis over Avinyon and how
this is for the betterment of humanity, and I think
music can save the world and we might not be
able to solve the actual problems, but we can inspire
(05:21):
the hearts and minds to be able to solve those problems.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Oh wow, So that leads me to I was going
to talk about this later, but I had heard you
say something that there are certain shows that you'll take
a loss on or you'll need other shows to subsidize them,
but you run with those shows because, loosely quoting, they
make the world a better place, which is amazing that
(05:46):
you would think that way. We work with a lot
of promoters and that is not really their manner of
thinking when it comes to their business planning. But here
you are putting something out just because it's wonderful. We
are a nonprofit organization and that makes us different than
Live Nation, AEG, all the other for profit companies. They
produced a lot of great events, but the purpose first
(06:07):
and foremost for them is to make a profit for
their investors. And we are a nonprofit organization because we
believe in the love and power of music, and so
we do a lot of things that actually lose money,
and as a result, we have to raise millions and millions.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Of dollars every year to subsidize them. And people believe
passionately in our mission that they are willing to give
millions and millions of dollars every single year to help
us do that.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
And I imagine as a CEO that is one of
your larger responsibilities is to go out and appeal for
donations and contributions and funds.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yes, there is a lot of fundraising, but you're asking
people to do something that they would love to do
by any means that they can.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
And that power of music, that love for music is
real when you walk, when you go up the Zigzag
and you walk through those gates, I mean, you know it,
you feel it. It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
One of the missions of the organization, in addition to
presenting music, is also to maintain a beautiful park, and
so when you walk in, it's very obvious. I believe
that we have the best lawn in all of Chicago land,
all country clubs aside, and we have ten thousand people
that sit on our lawn every night they don't and
(07:21):
we have beautiful sculptures we have beautiful trees. You know,
this is not Tinley Park, this is not the United Center,
It's not even close.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So everyone knows Ravine for what it is, for what
it means to summer and the concerts. I'm not sure
how many people are really fluent in what you guys
do outside of the sum the summer concerts series and
the way you impact the community and kids and reach
teach play. I mean, can you talk a little bit
more about because I think when you're out and you're
(07:50):
talking to people about donating, making contributions, you know, good
for them to know where their money is going, what
it's impacting. Can you talk about some of the things
Revene does outside of what everyone knows it for the
most Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
To me, it's the best cup secret that shouldn't be
so secret. We have two major programs. The first one
is actually a professional development training program for early professional
musicians and jazz and voice and in classical music. It's
the Staines Institute, and so we bring in the top instructors,
the top professionals from all over the world every single
(08:26):
summer and it's basically like a summer conservatory for twenty
something year olds. And they get a chance to work
with the best, to network with each other and to perform.
And our alumni now are on the stages of Carnegie
Hall of Jazz and Lincoln Center and Ravinia, so we
have a great track record. We actually had sixteen of
(08:48):
them nominated for Grammys just this last year, so we
think we're doing okay yea.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And I was absolutely going to ask you what it
must feel like to know that you're producing potentially the
next crop of just global talent, And it sounds like
you're already well aware because it's already happening.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
It's already happening. And that's just one element of what
we do. And the other one that you alluded to
is our Reach Teach, Play, music education and community engagement program,
and we actually are the music program for twenty thousand
students in Chicago, Land and beyond. So that means we're
putting musicians as artists and residents in classrooms that don't
(09:23):
have any music, and we're connecting music to the curriculum.
It means that we are actually putting instruments in kids'
hands that are that show some interest if they have
some talent, gets great. But we're more interested if they
have interest, and they're in orchestras in Londale and Austin
and Waukegan, and we'll give them lessons, they rehearse. Some
(09:45):
of them actually come to Ravinia to rehearse several times
a week, and they are actually quite a good orchestra.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
That's what I was saying, what it must be like to
have just sort of because you're kind of building from
the ground up of especially they didn't have a music program.
I'm sure there isn't much musical training in the backgrounds anyway,
and all of a sudden, there's a recital of sorts,
there's a there's a performance that was improbable. I guess
until you got involved. That's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I will never forget going to Lowndale for a holiday
music recital. We actually have a family music school there
as well, where we teach kids from the age of
nine or three really up to ninety and so you
actually have grandparents taking lessons with their grandkids and families
taking lessons together, and just having a grandmother sit next
(10:35):
to me and say, you have no idea how important
this has been for me personally and for our family.
Oh my god, I just do you love your job
drop mine. You know. It's like we bring music, we
sell ice cream, and we provide, you know, a beautiful place.
It's like, what's that like?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, and you're I mean, for your story, you're changing lives.
I mean, that's that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It's uh. I think it's really important today and any
day to have a place where you can go where
you just leave kind of the machinations of the world behind. Yep.
And when you look out on a sold out night
and there's fourteen thousand people out there, they're all singing
their favorite song together. They all came from very different communities.
(11:19):
They might have different religious backgrounds, political backgrounds, economic status,
doesn't matter. They are all one that night and they
realize they actually have more in common than they do.
That's different even if they look different.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, yeah, amazing. And I know, and I've heard you
say there's from a contribution standpoint, it's competitive out there.
I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of
great places to give, right They're all over the place,
even right here locally in Chicago. But when I hear
you tell a story of what that woman said to
you and what it's meant to her family. That really
it really brings it to life what Ravinia means and
(11:55):
can mean to people in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
So good bye, you, thank you, and I really applaud
the Board of Trustees for decades and decades who have
been the steward, yeah, of Ravinia, because this is not
something that happens overnight. This is a vision that has
passed down from generation to generation, and it's not stuck
in a tradition. It's a base of values that continues
(12:22):
to evolve. And they take their jobs very seriously. They
don't get in the way of you know, daily management,
but they do make sure that we stick to those values,
and they support it as generals as possible, and they
certainly lean on their friends to support it as generously
as possible.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
You can tell how well, I mean, the brand is
impeccable as far as I'm concerned, it's a special brand.
You know, I've always felt that way as long as
I've been here, you know, twenty five plus years. It's
always meant, you know, something beautiful and fun and collective.
It's just always meant a really great experience. And so yeah,
(12:59):
the board you have all continued that on really really well.
So I want to talk about the music, right, Absolutely,
We're about the music, you are, And so I did.
I was looking at the at the calendar as I do,
just as everyone else does, when the when it comes out,
when the news breaks, and so this year so far,
I saw some names, right, James Taylor, Nas the Roots,
(13:21):
ray La Montagne doing his record I believe, right, which
is super cool. I love that kind of stuff. I
think he's doing it. There was a John legend I
want to say, he is doing it, yes, yes, oh,
and Nas is doing allmatic exactly so Cynthia riuo Beck
with the cso Al Green. I mean, this is this is
a special summer that's off. Who did this? This is amazing,
(13:42):
we did it. It's yeah, it's great. So, I mean,
you know, how excited are you about about the season
that's coming up here.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
We've had a lot of enthusiasm for it, so much
so that our marketing director dragged me at four in
the morning to go to all the different TV stations
because they all wanted to talk about it on the
morning news when we announced it. And you know, again,
I give our staff and our board a lot of credit.
You know, Ravina for a long time was known as
(14:10):
solely classical music, and there were some pop shows, but
we have actually taken We still produce roughly the same
amount of classical music that we've always done, but over
the decades we have added lots of other music. We
had pop, we had rock, we have R and B,
we have country, you know, you name it, bluegrass, And
we have developed very devoted audiences and artist relationships over
(14:36):
the last few decades, so much so that if our
R and B doesn't seem to be quite what people
were expecting, we'll hear about it, which I love, Yeah,
because that would not have happened thirty years ago. And
the fact that that audience is just as devoted as
the classical music audience as the classic rock audience, to me,
that says that we are accomplishing our vision of music
(14:59):
being unified.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
It is and everybody, you know, everybody has their own
view of what the perfect concert calendar looks like. So
and I know you can't you can't make it perfect
for everybody. But the good news is, yeah, you're getting
feedback from your constituents, from your from your customers, which
is fantastic, and I guess you know you can use
that as you as you see fit to make adjustments whenever.
(15:22):
But I think this particular summer it checks a lot
of boxes across the board, all the all the genres
you just put out there. Did you feel you came
up short in a particular in a particular genre.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I think we did very well. I would have loved
to have seen one or two more country headliners this year, Okay,
And that's where the the I would say, unfair competition
of the industry plays. Yeah, I got mareon Morris. I
saw that Mare and Morris were really thrilled. Big guess.
It's a huge get so you know, she's holding it
up and you know, and to some extent, the Ninny
(15:57):
Gritty Dirt band, uh, you know, sort of on its
fair tour as well. So it's not that it's absent,
it's just i'd love to see, you know, a couple
more people with that. But I think, you know, picking
up on something you said earlier, I think the beauty
of Revinia is that a whole family can look at
the schedule and everybody can find something that they love,
that they're really excited about going, and hopefully they can
(16:21):
find something that they're intrigued about discovering because they know
and love Revinya, and even if they don't know an
artist as well, like you know, I want to try that.
I want to see that. And then third, this is
a place where you see people come with friends and families,
so there's that sometimes multi generational element or group element.
(16:44):
And to be able to share an experience, you know,
with your family or with the group, that's that memory
that you're going to remember, you know, when it's thirty
below in January, and that carries with you absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
And even if even if it's not an artist in
your wheelhouse, even if it's not the perfect band or performer,
you're in the world's greatest longe. It's lovely outside. You're
with to your point, you're with people that you appreciate
and love. How bad a night could it be?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
It's a people plan their whole summers around the Revenia schedule.
We hear and whenever we've delayed our announcement, we get
feedback that's like, no, we need you to announce now
because we need to plan the rest of our summer.
We don't want to miss a show.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, So I was I was looking at past artists
at Revenue over the years, and I was going to
ask you, you know, I know you've stood on the
stage obviously at some point, what it's like to stand
where Miles Davis has stood and Janis Joplin has stood
and Louis Armstrong.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I mean, do you feel that when you're up there?
It's pretty humbling and standing on that stage and you
realize all the greats have been on that stage. This
is a bucket list venue for artists to be able
to perform. And James Taylor just came liketlast year for
the first time in about ten years, and I was
(18:05):
there during a sound check and when he walked on stage,
he just took a minute and stood back and he said, Wow,
I'd forgotten how beautiful this place really is. And what
was really fun was at the end he went up
to the sound booth and he was talking with his
sound engineer, who's I would say, one of the top
(18:27):
five sound engineers in the world. Wow, and our sound folks,
and he said, it's not only the most beautiful place
I've played all year, and it's also the best sound
system that I have played on. What a huge compliment
to a venue. I thought, that's great because we actually
just invested over two million dollars for a new sound
system last year, and I thought that's a great endorsement.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
That's awesome. Awesome actually, speaking of investment, and we can
come back to the music. Did you want to touch
on the seventy five million dollar project that's that's either
in the works or about to be in the works.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Oh, that's yes, that thing.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
That thing, that small project that back to back to
you out generating contributions anyway. Right, So, Ravenia it's one
hundred and twenty years old and some of its stages
are that old and the newest stage is forty years old.
And when I arrived, that was something that I talked
with our board of trustees about, just saying, we need
(19:26):
to revitalize all of our stages.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
This is what we do and the world has changed
a lot, and we need to be competitive. And so
we spent several years actually studying how we should upgrade
our pavilion, the flagship stage of Venia, and it took
a lot of different people's input, and you know, of
course the scope grew and the budget grew, but we
(19:50):
are in it for the long term. We always want
to do things right for the long term, and so
we kicked out. We announced just in February a campaign
that we had started a couple of years ago internally
to raise over seventy five million dollars to renovate all
of our stages. And we're now at fifty three million dollars,
which is exciting, but it's still daunting to know that
(20:12):
there's still, you know, over twenty million to race, and
I'm sure it will need to be more than that
by the time we're done with all the stages. So
to me, seventy five is just kind of the first
pass of where we're going, but it is exciting. We
actually just finished, I think yesterday, phase one of the
pavilion renovation. What is phase one? So phase one is
something that most of the public won't see except when
(20:35):
you go to the bathrooms they on the inside the pavilion.
They'll be flush with excitement with brand new bathrooms in there.
So I have to use my dad pun. Sorry, that's
all right. But what's really exciting is we redid all
the infrastructure in the backstage during this first phase, so
(20:56):
we have a loading dock, we upgraded the electrical we
did all of the things that a modern venue needs
to have to support anything from Pitbull to the Chicago
Symphony to Caigo. We can do that more easily now
and we're very excited about it. And we will be
actually ending our season a couple weeks early this year
(21:17):
at the end of August, so that we can pick
up hopefully a few more weeks of construction, and we
won't start until mid July next year, so we pick
up more construction in the early summer because that's going
to be transformational for both the artists and the audience. Okay,
so you'll get like a full year of work done. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
(21:38):
And so when you're an audience member coming in in
July of twenty six, you're still going to see the
iconic roof of the pavilion. You'll walk up and you'll
still say, Wow, I'm still at Ravinia, but wow, this
is really up to date. This is great, Like all
the lighting's updated, all the seats aren't from a ball
(21:58):
a ballpark left over from nineteen fifty. You'll actually have
drink holders, you'll have cushions in your seats, you'll have
a lot more options for seating. The stage will be bigger,
so we can actually produce even bigger and more interesting
productions that are there for those that love the orchestra.
We have a whole brand new orchestra shell, and the
(22:19):
acoustics will be greatly improved.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Does that change the way that you'll be recruiting artists
moving forward?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Then it actually it's responding to how we're already programming artists.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Oh okay, we need to change this. We need to
change this really fast.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And you know, I think you know, I mean even
you know, maybe an example would be Caigo, which turned
a lot of heads this year when we programmed him,
and Caigo's team called us to come to Ravena. He said,
you know, this is an iconic venue. I am doing
solo shows and I want to play Ravena.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
And not hit the standard demographic of the Ravinia goer correct.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Exactly, And so you know, this was great. You know,
we always, of course want to have a few shows
that are going to speak directly to the twenty somethings.
We're not going to do a whole season of it,
because that's not really where they're congregating all the time,
but we do want them to come a couple of
times during the summer because we know later on. They're
going to move to the North Shore and they're going
(23:24):
to become our regular audience.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
But you know, they'll get out of the city for
a night, which I believe was the whole point of
the park back in the early nineteen hundreds was get
out of the city, get on this train and come
out here.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I love that, absolutely all the way back around. Absolutely,
very cool.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And so you know, Kigo's production is very different than
a lot of the other shows that we produce, and
so that's great. That's giving us a test to be
able to say what do we need to do for
the future of the pavilion to be able to support
more shows like Higo coming great, makes total sense. Good
luck with the twenty million, Thank you very much. You
know so I'm willing to take a couple bucks on
my way out, sure, sure, And the day is young.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
You have the rest of the day to go out
and get the money.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Well, I think you know. The one last thing on
that which is kind of fun is people have so
many great memories of being at Ravinia, and so for
really a once in a lifetime opportunity to name a
seat by a brick, name a star dressing room, to
sort of memorialize that memory with the family. People are
really excited about that.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
And they should be. If if you walk around Wrigley Field,
you can see there was an appetite for that, for
that kind of engagement. So that's great. Speaking of memories,
did do you have a favorite memory, like a musical
moment or something that resonates with you from Avinya.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I have so many favorite music memories for Avinya.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Already it was either that who's your favorite artist?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
But you know, I love you, I love the memory piece.
I'll tell you one that it doesn't hit a lot
of people's radar screen. That happened last year. We actually
speaking to the non profit part of Ravenia. So I
told you about the youth orchestras that we have. Yes,
they're part of an international group of orchestras called Elsa STEMA,
(25:09):
which was founded actually in all places of Venezuela before
it was communist and it still actually persists today despite
the political environment, and it has produced some very famous artists,
including Gustavo Dudamel, who is the most famous conductor alive today.
He was at the La philharmonicch He's now at the
New York Philharmonic, and he was able to get that
(25:35):
orchestra out of Venezuela last summer, right at the election time,
which is a very tenuous time in Venezuela, and he
took them on a I think it's a four or
five city tour of the United States, of which we
anchored that and so we have also anchored with Carnegie Hall,
(25:55):
with the Hollywood Bowl and Tanglewood. And this cost a
lot of money. We didn't make any money on this
at all, but to be able to have those kids
on the stage with our kids in front of the
world's greatest conductor, and not because he's technically I mean,
he is technically fantastic, but the love and the charisma
(26:17):
that he has is second to none. You can't love
music more than he does. And that inspired I know
hundreds of kids that day. Oh could it not.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
That's that's a lot happening on one stage.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
That's a lot. That's powerful. And if you close your
eyes and just listen to those kids in the orchestra,
they would be right up there along with a lot
of professional orchestras. Yeah, just because their kids doesn't mean
that they weren't good. I love that it's a great story.
Thanks for sharing that, So I will never forget that. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
So you know, before we wrap up, is there anything
else that you wanted to touch on that maybe we
didn't hit on, And certainly if you want to tell
people how they can give or how they know where
to buy tickets, that would be It's be a good.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Time to do that. Absolutely. Absolutely. I would just say
the role of the arts is really important in the
world and a lot of people might say, well, I
don't understand painting or I don't understand music, and I
would just invite people to be curious. The arts should
(27:25):
open up hearts and minds and you don't have to
understand the technical part of something to be able to
enjoy it. Just have to find one thing that interests
you and that's part of what will transform you and
change the world. And we hope that Revenne is part
of that journey. We think that we provide a pretty
(27:45):
user friendly environment to be open in hearts and minds
and with the summer coming up, it's a great time.
So go to our website Ravenna dot org. We have
one hundred great shows that are there. You can't go
wrong on the law or if you really want to
experience it, go in the pavilion. I mean it's uh,
there's not a bad seat in that house. You're not
(28:06):
gonna get a cheaper great seat than you would get
in the pavilion versus other venues. And you know, if
you do have a long experience with Revena, consider making
a gift. Help us fix up our stage, help us
support our reach, teach play music education program. Philanthropy comes,
you know, in single dollars and hundreds and thousands of dollars.
(28:29):
So the more important thing is that everybody's behind it.
It's a community effort, Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Jeff Hayden, President and CEO of Ravenya, thank you, Thanks
so much, Adam
Welcome to CEOs. You should know by iHeartMedia Chicago, the
podcast that brings you inspiring stories and insightful conversations with
Chicago innovators and business leaders that you should know.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It was funny when you mentioned Morgan Freeman you walked in,
because I was thinking, as looking at the lineup, I'm like,
what are the odds that he might bring Morgan Freeman
in here and we can just sit here and kick
it and talk about the Blues. And you didn't bring him,
so whatever.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Not that.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I don't mean to be like disappointed that Morgan Freeman
is in here. It's just gonna be us. But I'll
take it. It's fine. I'll try to emulate his voice, but
no one can best voice on the planet. Actually, it
would have made me feel inadequate, So I'm glad he's
not here. I do want to say welcome, thanks for
being here. I'm with Jeff Hayden, the President and CEO
of Ravinia. I appreciate you being here.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Thanks so much for having me on Adam. Of course, so.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I did have a question. Is your office actually at Revinya.
My office is actually at Revene, so you go there
every day. It's the best office in the world. You
sit there in the pavilion.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
If you're looking at the billion on the left hand side,
you see some office windows up there, and that's my
office looking out over the entire park every single day.
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
How great is that? I mean, do you ever you
ever do lunch on the lawn? You ever just like
take a blanket, spread it out and napp But don't
tell me you have not.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
So I want to I want to get into the
to the lineup in the summer season. I mean, you guys,
I don't want to get into it yet, but I
just want to point out that I feel like you guys,
you guys booked a banger of a season this summer.
I don't know if you've I don't know if you
feel differently about that versus past seasons. And I think
every season is great, But for this, for some reason,
I looking at the lineup and maybe it's a personal thing.
I don't know, but hats off, this season looks fantastic.
(01:42):
Thank you very much. Yeah, but we'll talk later. We'll
get into that in a minute. The reason we do
this podcast kind of what I was explaining to you
earlier is that I think I don't want to speak
for most people, but I think most people know in
this town what Ravenia is. I mean, it's a landmark
at this point, it's iconic, but they don't know who's
in charge, necessarily who runs it. I know, as a CEO,
you get out there, your name is out there a lot,
(02:04):
but you think, I don't know if you're a household
name around Chicago, but hopefully not. Hopefully not, but maybe
the idea is I want you to be a household name.
The idea is that people understand who's in charge, who's
here moving the economy in Chicago, who's doing special things
in our communities. And I think that's where you come
in and that's really why you're here. So before we
(02:24):
get into Revenie and everything you're doing, i'd love a
little background on you. If you're you know what drew
you to the job? Is it the arts? Are you
a musician? Do you just love music? How did you
get into the field. Give us a little something about Jeff.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Hayden All the above grew up in a family of
entrepreneurs in California and have an insatiable love of music.
Started off and the band played trumpet, got promoted all
the way down to Tuba, as my band instructor said,
promoted down exactly. Okay, that's what he said, and also
(02:59):
started singing in the choir. And so if you ever
saw the movie Mister Holland Opus, that was my music
teacher and inspired me to do what I do today.
And my entrepreneurial family inspired me on the creative side
of business. And so you can imagine my thrill when
I walked into college and realized, Wow, there's a business
side of this music that I love. This could be fun,
(03:20):
absolutely so coming out of college. So it was the track.
So in college, actually a University of Puget Sound had
a great program where students actually ran the whole music program,
the performing arts series there. Okay, so my buddy ran
pop in comedy and I ran cultural arts and we
(03:40):
produced a ton of shows before we graduated. And I
later on met and married my now wife in Chicago
and worked at Chicago Symphony and was recruited to run
music festivals shortly thereafter, and so I went to Ohi, California,
ran a very famous small music festival for contemporary music
(04:01):
outside of Santa Barbara and then was recruited to run
a music festival outside of New York City called Karamore.
And I've known of Ravinia forever. One of my old
friends was my predecessor at Revina, And when the call
came in the summer of twenty twenty to come, I said, absolutely,
(04:21):
it would be a delight to come.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, I can imagine you didn't hesitate for a second.
And it's sort of you mentioned your time with the
cso so this is sort of a welcome back.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Then, it's a homecoming. My wife's from here, we lived here,
we spent the first years of our marriage, and of
course Revenna is the top and best music festival in
the country, so what's not to like? Amen? Amen.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
So I did hear another interview with you, and you
said something that I thought was really cool. You called
Ravenea a thirty six acre oasis of inspiration, which is lovely.
Are you inspired every day when you're there? Is it
the artists that are inspired? Is it all the above?
Is it everybody? How does that? How does that impact you?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's the combination of all the different elements that are
different every single day. So actually, the founder, Lewis Eckstein
talked a lot about the oasis over Avinyon and how
this is for the betterment of humanity, and I think
music can save the world and we might not be
able to solve the actual problems, but we can inspire
(05:21):
the hearts and minds to be able to solve those problems.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Oh wow, So that leads me to I was going
to talk about this later, but I had heard you
say something that there are certain shows that you'll take
a loss on or you'll need other shows to subsidize them,
but you run with those shows because, loosely quoting, they
make the world a better place, which is amazing that
(05:46):
you would think that way. We work with a lot
of promoters and that is not really their manner of
thinking when it comes to their business planning. But here
you are putting something out just because it's wonderful. We
are a nonprofit organization and that makes us different than
Live Nation, AEG, all the other for profit companies. They
produced a lot of great events, but the purpose first
(06:07):
and foremost for them is to make a profit for
their investors. And we are a nonprofit organization because we
believe in the love and power of music, and so
we do a lot of things that actually lose money,
and as a result, we have to raise millions and millions.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Of dollars every year to subsidize them. And people believe
passionately in our mission that they are willing to give
millions and millions of dollars every single year to help
us do that.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
And I imagine as a CEO that is one of
your larger responsibilities is to go out and appeal for
donations and contributions and funds.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yes, there is a lot of fundraising, but you're asking
people to do something that they would love to do
by any means that they can.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
And that power of music, that love for music is
real when you walk, when you go up the Zigzag
and you walk through those gates, I mean, you know it,
you feel it. It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
One of the missions of the organization, in addition to
presenting music, is also to maintain a beautiful park, and
so when you walk in, it's very obvious. I believe
that we have the best lawn in all of Chicago land,
all country clubs aside, and we have ten thousand people
that sit on our lawn every night they don't and
(07:21):
we have beautiful sculptures we have beautiful trees. You know,
this is not Tinley Park, this is not the United Center,
It's not even close.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So everyone knows Ravine for what it is, for what
it means to summer and the concerts. I'm not sure
how many people are really fluent in what you guys
do outside of the sum the summer concerts series and
the way you impact the community and kids and reach
teach play. I mean, can you talk a little bit
more about because I think when you're out and you're
(07:50):
talking to people about donating, making contributions, you know, good
for them to know where their money is going, what
it's impacting. Can you talk about some of the things
Revene does outside of what everyone knows it for the
most Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
To me, it's the best cup secret that shouldn't be
so secret. We have two major programs. The first one
is actually a professional development training program for early professional
musicians and jazz and voice and in classical music. It's
the Staines Institute, and so we bring in the top instructors,
the top professionals from all over the world every single
(08:26):
summer and it's basically like a summer conservatory for twenty
something year olds. And they get a chance to work
with the best, to network with each other and to perform.
And our alumni now are on the stages of Carnegie
Hall of Jazz and Lincoln Center and Ravinia, so we
have a great track record. We actually had sixteen of
(08:48):
them nominated for Grammys just this last year, so we
think we're doing okay yea.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And I was absolutely going to ask you what it
must feel like to know that you're producing potentially the
next crop of just global talent, And it sounds like
you're already well aware because it's already happening.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
It's already happening. And that's just one element of what
we do. And the other one that you alluded to
is our Reach Teach, Play, music education and community engagement program,
and we actually are the music program for twenty thousand
students in Chicago, Land and beyond. So that means we're
putting musicians as artists and residents in classrooms that don't
(09:23):
have any music, and we're connecting music to the curriculum.
It means that we are actually putting instruments in kids'
hands that are that show some interest if they have
some talent, gets great. But we're more interested if they
have interest, and they're in orchestras in Londale and Austin
and Waukegan, and we'll give them lessons, they rehearse. Some
(09:45):
of them actually come to Ravinia to rehearse several times
a week, and they are actually quite a good orchestra.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
That's what I was saying, what it must be like to
have just sort of because you're kind of building from
the ground up of especially they didn't have a music program.
I'm sure there isn't much musical training in the backgrounds anyway,
and all of a sudden, there's a recital of sorts,
there's a there's a performance that was improbable. I guess
until you got involved. That's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I will never forget going to Lowndale for a holiday
music recital. We actually have a family music school there
as well, where we teach kids from the age of
nine or three really up to ninety and so you
actually have grandparents taking lessons with their grandkids and families
taking lessons together, and just having a grandmother sit next
(10:35):
to me and say, you have no idea how important
this has been for me personally and for our family.
Oh my god, I just do you love your job
drop mine. You know. It's like we bring music, we
sell ice cream, and we provide, you know, a beautiful place.
It's like, what's that like?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, and you're I mean, for your story, you're changing lives.
I mean, that's that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It's uh. I think it's really important today and any
day to have a place where you can go where
you just leave kind of the machinations of the world behind. Yep.
And when you look out on a sold out night
and there's fourteen thousand people out there, they're all singing
their favorite song together. They all came from very different communities.
(11:19):
They might have different religious backgrounds, political backgrounds, economic status,
doesn't matter. They are all one that night and they
realize they actually have more in common than they do.
That's different even if they look different.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, yeah, amazing. And I know, and I've heard you
say there's from a contribution standpoint, it's competitive out there.
I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of
great places to give, right They're all over the place,
even right here locally in Chicago. But when I hear
you tell a story of what that woman said to
you and what it's meant to her family. That really
it really brings it to life what Ravinia means and
(11:55):
can mean to people in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
So good bye, you, thank you, and I really applaud
the Board of Trustees for decades and decades who have
been the steward, yeah, of Ravinia, because this is not
something that happens overnight. This is a vision that has
passed down from generation to generation, and it's not stuck
in a tradition. It's a base of values that continues
(12:22):
to evolve. And they take their jobs very seriously. They
don't get in the way of you know, daily management,
but they do make sure that we stick to those values,
and they support it as generals as possible, and they
certainly lean on their friends to support it as generously
as possible.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
You can tell how well, I mean, the brand is
impeccable as far as I'm concerned, it's a special brand.
You know, I've always felt that way as long as
I've been here, you know, twenty five plus years. It's
always meant, you know, something beautiful and fun and collective.
It's just always meant a really great experience. And so yeah,
(12:59):
the board you have all continued that on really really well.
So I want to talk about the music, right, Absolutely,
We're about the music, you are, And so I did.
I was looking at the at the calendar as I do,
just as everyone else does, when the when it comes out,
when the news breaks, and so this year so far,
I saw some names, right, James Taylor, Nas the Roots,
(13:21):
ray La Montagne doing his record I believe, right, which
is super cool. I love that kind of stuff. I
think he's doing it. There was a John legend I
want to say, he is doing it, yes, yes, oh,
and Nas is doing allmatic exactly so Cynthia riuo Beck
with the cso Al Green. I mean, this is this is
a special summer that's off. Who did this? This is amazing,
(13:42):
we did it. It's yeah, it's great. So, I mean,
you know, how excited are you about about the season
that's coming up here.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
We've had a lot of enthusiasm for it, so much
so that our marketing director dragged me at four in
the morning to go to all the different TV stations
because they all wanted to talk about it on the
morning news when we announced it. And you know, again,
I give our staff and our board a lot of credit.
You know, Ravina for a long time was known as
(14:10):
solely classical music, and there were some pop shows, but
we have actually taken We still produce roughly the same
amount of classical music that we've always done, but over
the decades we have added lots of other music. We
had pop, we had rock, we have R and B,
we have country, you know, you name it, bluegrass, And
we have developed very devoted audiences and artist relationships over
(14:36):
the last few decades, so much so that if our
R and B doesn't seem to be quite what people
were expecting, we'll hear about it, which I love, Yeah,
because that would not have happened thirty years ago. And
the fact that that audience is just as devoted as
the classical music audience as the classic rock audience, to me,
that says that we are accomplishing our vision of music
(14:59):
being unified.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
It is and everybody, you know, everybody has their own
view of what the perfect concert calendar looks like. So
and I know you can't you can't make it perfect
for everybody. But the good news is, yeah, you're getting
feedback from your constituents, from your from your customers, which
is fantastic, and I guess you know you can use
that as you as you see fit to make adjustments whenever.
(15:22):
But I think this particular summer it checks a lot
of boxes across the board, all the all the genres
you just put out there. Did you feel you came
up short in a particular in a particular genre.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I think we did very well. I would have loved
to have seen one or two more country headliners this year, Okay,
And that's where the the I would say, unfair competition
of the industry plays. Yeah, I got mareon Morris. I
saw that Mare and Morris were really thrilled. Big guess.
It's a huge get so you know, she's holding it
up and you know, and to some extent, the Ninny
(15:57):
Gritty Dirt band, uh, you know, sort of on its
fair tour as well. So it's not that it's absent,
it's just i'd love to see, you know, a couple
more people with that. But I think, you know, picking
up on something you said earlier, I think the beauty
of Revinia is that a whole family can look at
the schedule and everybody can find something that they love,
that they're really excited about going, and hopefully they can
(16:21):
find something that they're intrigued about discovering because they know
and love Revinya, and even if they don't know an
artist as well, like you know, I want to try that.
I want to see that. And then third, this is
a place where you see people come with friends and families,
so there's that sometimes multi generational element or group element.
(16:44):
And to be able to share an experience, you know,
with your family or with the group, that's that memory
that you're going to remember, you know, when it's thirty
below in January, and that carries with you absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
And even if even if it's not an artist in
your wheelhouse, even if it's not the perfect band or performer,
you're in the world's greatest longe. It's lovely outside. You're
with to your point, you're with people that you appreciate
and love. How bad a night could it be?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
It's a people plan their whole summers around the Revenia schedule.
We hear and whenever we've delayed our announcement, we get
feedback that's like, no, we need you to announce now
because we need to plan the rest of our summer.
We don't want to miss a show.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, So I was I was looking at past artists
at Revenue over the years, and I was going to
ask you, you know, I know you've stood on the
stage obviously at some point, what it's like to stand
where Miles Davis has stood and Janis Joplin has stood
and Louis Armstrong.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I mean, do you feel that when you're up there?
It's pretty humbling and standing on that stage and you
realize all the greats have been on that stage. This
is a bucket list venue for artists to be able
to perform. And James Taylor just came liketlast year for
the first time in about ten years, and I was
(18:05):
there during a sound check and when he walked on stage,
he just took a minute and stood back and he said, Wow,
I'd forgotten how beautiful this place really is. And what
was really fun was at the end he went up
to the sound booth and he was talking with his
sound engineer, who's I would say, one of the top
(18:27):
five sound engineers in the world. Wow, and our sound folks,
and he said, it's not only the most beautiful place
I've played all year, and it's also the best sound
system that I have played on. What a huge compliment
to a venue. I thought, that's great because we actually
just invested over two million dollars for a new sound
system last year, and I thought that's a great endorsement.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
That's awesome. Awesome actually, speaking of investment, and we can
come back to the music. Did you want to touch
on the seventy five million dollar project that's that's either
in the works or about to be in the works.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Oh, that's yes, that thing.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
That thing, that small project that back to back to
you out generating contributions anyway. Right, So, Ravenia it's one
hundred and twenty years old and some of its stages
are that old and the newest stage is forty years old.
And when I arrived, that was something that I talked
with our board of trustees about, just saying, we need
(19:26):
to revitalize all of our stages.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
This is what we do and the world has changed
a lot, and we need to be competitive. And so
we spent several years actually studying how we should upgrade
our pavilion, the flagship stage of Venia, and it took
a lot of different people's input, and you know, of
course the scope grew and the budget grew, but we
(19:50):
are in it for the long term. We always want
to do things right for the long term, and so
we kicked out. We announced just in February a campaign
that we had started a couple of years ago internally
to raise over seventy five million dollars to renovate all
of our stages. And we're now at fifty three million dollars,
which is exciting, but it's still daunting to know that
(20:12):
there's still, you know, over twenty million to race, and
I'm sure it will need to be more than that
by the time we're done with all the stages. So
to me, seventy five is just kind of the first
pass of where we're going, but it is exciting. We
actually just finished, I think yesterday, phase one of the
pavilion renovation. What is phase one? So phase one is
something that most of the public won't see except when
(20:35):
you go to the bathrooms they on the inside the pavilion.
They'll be flush with excitement with brand new bathrooms in there.
So I have to use my dad pun. Sorry, that's
all right. But what's really exciting is we redid all
the infrastructure in the backstage during this first phase, so
(20:56):
we have a loading dock, we upgraded the electrical we
did all of the things that a modern venue needs
to have to support anything from Pitbull to the Chicago
Symphony to Caigo. We can do that more easily now
and we're very excited about it. And we will be
actually ending our season a couple weeks early this year
(21:17):
at the end of August, so that we can pick
up hopefully a few more weeks of construction, and we
won't start until mid July next year, so we pick
up more construction in the early summer because that's going
to be transformational for both the artists and the audience. Okay,
so you'll get like a full year of work done. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
(21:38):
And so when you're an audience member coming in in
July of twenty six, you're still going to see the
iconic roof of the pavilion. You'll walk up and you'll
still say, Wow, I'm still at Ravinia, but wow, this
is really up to date. This is great, Like all
the lighting's updated, all the seats aren't from a ball
(21:58):
a ballpark left over from nineteen fifty. You'll actually have
drink holders, you'll have cushions in your seats, you'll have
a lot more options for seating. The stage will be bigger,
so we can actually produce even bigger and more interesting
productions that are there for those that love the orchestra.
We have a whole brand new orchestra shell, and the
(22:19):
acoustics will be greatly improved.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Does that change the way that you'll be recruiting artists
moving forward?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Then it actually it's responding to how we're already programming artists.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Oh okay, we need to change this. We need to
change this really fast.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And you know, I think you know, I mean even
you know, maybe an example would be Caigo, which turned
a lot of heads this year when we programmed him,
and Caigo's team called us to come to Ravena. He said,
you know, this is an iconic venue. I am doing
solo shows and I want to play Ravena.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
And not hit the standard demographic of the Ravinia goer correct.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Exactly, And so you know, this was great. You know,
we always, of course want to have a few shows
that are going to speak directly to the twenty somethings.
We're not going to do a whole season of it,
because that's not really where they're congregating all the time,
but we do want them to come a couple of
times during the summer because we know later on. They're
going to move to the North Shore and they're going
(23:24):
to become our regular audience.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
But you know, they'll get out of the city for
a night, which I believe was the whole point of
the park back in the early nineteen hundreds was get
out of the city, get on this train and come
out here.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I love that, absolutely all the way back around. Absolutely,
very cool.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
And so you know, Kigo's production is very different than
a lot of the other shows that we produce, and
so that's great. That's giving us a test to be
able to say what do we need to do for
the future of the pavilion to be able to support
more shows like Higo coming great, makes total sense. Good
luck with the twenty million, Thank you very much. You
know so I'm willing to take a couple bucks on
my way out, sure, sure, And the day is young.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
You have the rest of the day to go out
and get the money.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Well, I think you know. The one last thing on
that which is kind of fun is people have so
many great memories of being at Ravinia, and so for
really a once in a lifetime opportunity to name a
seat by a brick, name a star dressing room, to
sort of memorialize that memory with the family. People are
really excited about that.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
And they should be. If if you walk around Wrigley Field,
you can see there was an appetite for that, for
that kind of engagement. So that's great. Speaking of memories,
did do you have a favorite memory, like a musical
moment or something that resonates with you from Avinya.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I have so many favorite music memories for Avinya.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Already it was either that who's your favorite artist?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
But you know, I love you, I love the memory piece.
I'll tell you one that it doesn't hit a lot
of people's radar screen. That happened last year. We actually
speaking to the non profit part of Ravenia. So I
told you about the youth orchestras that we have. Yes,
they're part of an international group of orchestras called Elsa STEMA,
(25:09):
which was founded actually in all places of Venezuela before
it was communist and it still actually persists today despite
the political environment, and it has produced some very famous artists,
including Gustavo Dudamel, who is the most famous conductor alive today.
He was at the La philharmonicch He's now at the
New York Philharmonic, and he was able to get that
(25:35):
orchestra out of Venezuela last summer, right at the election time,
which is a very tenuous time in Venezuela, and he
took them on a I think it's a four or
five city tour of the United States, of which we
anchored that and so we have also anchored with Carnegie Hall,
(25:55):
with the Hollywood Bowl and Tanglewood. And this cost a
lot of money. We didn't make any money on this
at all, but to be able to have those kids
on the stage with our kids in front of the
world's greatest conductor, and not because he's technically I mean,
he is technically fantastic, but the love and the charisma
(26:17):
that he has is second to none. You can't love
music more than he does. And that inspired I know
hundreds of kids that day. Oh could it not.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
That's that's a lot happening on one stage.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
That's a lot. That's powerful. And if you close your
eyes and just listen to those kids in the orchestra,
they would be right up there along with a lot
of professional orchestras. Yeah, just because their kids doesn't mean
that they weren't good. I love that it's a great story.
Thanks for sharing that, So I will never forget that. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
So you know, before we wrap up, is there anything
else that you wanted to touch on that maybe we
didn't hit on, And certainly if you want to tell
people how they can give or how they know where
to buy tickets, that would be It's be a good.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Time to do that. Absolutely. Absolutely. I would just say
the role of the arts is really important in the
world and a lot of people might say, well, I
don't understand painting or I don't understand music, and I
would just invite people to be curious. The arts should
(27:25):
open up hearts and minds and you don't have to
understand the technical part of something to be able to
enjoy it. Just have to find one thing that interests
you and that's part of what will transform you and
change the world. And we hope that Revenne is part
of that journey. We think that we provide a pretty
(27:45):
user friendly environment to be open in hearts and minds
and with the summer coming up, it's a great time.
So go to our website Ravenna dot org. We have
one hundred great shows that are there. You can't go
wrong on the law or if you really want to
experience it, go in the pavilion. I mean it's uh,
there's not a bad seat in that house. You're not
(28:06):
gonna get a cheaper great seat than you would get
in the pavilion versus other venues. And you know, if
you do have a long experience with Revena, consider making
a gift. Help us fix up our stage, help us
support our reach, teach play music education program. Philanthropy comes,
you know, in single dollars and hundreds and thousands of dollars.
(28:29):
So the more important thing is that everybody's behind it.
It's a community effort, Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Jeff Hayden, President and CEO of Ravenya, thank you, Thanks
so much, Adam
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.