More summer nights with the Rail Splitter at Ravinia

16th president will be honored with music, dance

Hang on to your top hat, friends, because there are more Lincoln highlights at Ravinia '09, under the umbrella title of "Mystic Chords of Memory":

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• July 16: One of America's greatest baritones, Thomas Hampson, celebrates 250 years of American song, including Lincoln-themed works, in a recital at the Martin Theatre.

• • July 18: Ravinia's annual gala features Copland's "A Lincoln Portrait" with James Conlon conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and narration by legendary soprano Jessye Norman.

• • Aug 12: Soprano Michelle Areyzaga sings Lita Grier's "Anne Rutledge," based on the woman long thought to be Lincoln's mistress.

• • Sept. 10-11: The Lincoln Trio, which has been traversing across the Illinois landscape to locales like Springfield, Wheaton, Urbana and Decatur, stops in Highland Park for a performance of Lawrence Dillon's "The Better Angels of Our Nature," a work to be narrated by Ravinia president and CEO Welz Kauffman.

• • Sept. 17 and 19: Harlem-based Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company performs choreographer Bill T. Jones' newly commissioned "Fondly Do We Hope ... Fervently Do We Pray," co-composed by Jerome Begin, Christopher Lancaster and George Lewis Jr. The theatrical piece also includes the Lincoln-inspired works "Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition" and "100 Migrations." Kartemquin Films ("Hoop Dreams") is producing a feature film detailing Jones' work from its birth to its September performances.

Bryant Manning