Ravinia Festival’s Reach Teach Play programs brought their inspiring music education to the forefront as two programs, the Ravinia Lawndale Family Music School and Sistema Ravinia, showcase their students’ hard work. The winter orchestra concert, which was held at the Kehrein Center for the Arts on December 12 at 5 p.m., and the student showcase at the Douglass Park Cultural and Community Center on December 16 at 10:30 a.m. featured students from Chicago public schools and communities who have been receiving comprehensive music training and education through these programs. On December 12, students from Catalyst Circle Rock and George Rogers Clark in Austin, Gregory Math and Science Academy, and Frazier International Magnet School in Lawndale will present music skills learned through Ravinia’s El Sistema-inspired orchestra program, Sistema Ravinia. Ravinia’s El Sistema program is a highly successful intensive orchestral program that fosters social development through exceptional music training for 4th–12th-grade students in under-resourced Chicago and Lake County public schools. Inspired by the influential El Sistema model, students in the program receive daily ensemble and orchestral instruction.

Photo Credit: Ravinia Festival