The Poetry Foundation and Ravinia present the world premiere of the chamber orchestra version of Leonard Bernstein's Songfest, Bernstein's commission for the United States bicentennial set to music the work of nationally treasured poets Conrad Aiken, Anne Bradstreet, Julia De Burgos, Gregory Corso, E.E. Cummings, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Frank O'Hara, Edgar Allan Poe, Gertrude Stein, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Walt Whitman. Alexander Platt conducts the Ensemble Dal Niente with singers from the Lyric Ryan Opera Center and original poems read by players from Writers' Theatre in Platt's own arrangement.
