Ravinia Festival 2017: Summer is almost here

The temperature is 20 degrees. There's snow on the ground. But today is a sign that Summer is right around the corner because Ravinia has released their 2017 schedule.

The Ravinia Festival, in north suburban Highland Park, has featured outdoor musical acts for more than one hundred years. The concerts feature all genres of music. Past performers range from Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to Janis Joplin and Frank Zappa.

If you're a classical music lover, you can still sit in the Pavillion for $25 and on the lawn for $10, for all their Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts. Popular music will cost you more but there's a wide variety of performers.

Tony Bennett makes his yearly appearance on August 4th. Aretha Franklin has said she'll be retiring at year's end, so this could be your last chance to see her. She performs on June 17th. Another interesting pairing is Stephen Stills & Judy Collins. They had a relationship in the late 1960's which led to Stills writing his classic song "Suite:Judy Blue Eyes". Among the other pop/rock concert performers include Alanis Morissette, Stevie Nicks, Sammy Hagar and Santana.

Ticket price range from $33 to sit on the lawn for some shows to paying $70 on the lawn & up to $200 for Pavillion seats for Stevie Nicks. That makes you yearn for the days where you could sneak into Ravinia through the hole in the fence.

Here's a look at the entire schedule.

It may be cold outside today, but summer and Ravinia is just a few months away.

Here's a piece about Bonnie Raitt who I saw at Ravinia last summer.

It's easy to become a blog subscriber. On the right side of the screen, put in your email address, click below and that's it! No spam and you can quit whenever you like.