VOA慢速英语20060724b

THIS IS AMERICA - Making Beautiful Music Under the Stars at Ravinia and TanglewoodBy Jerilyn Watson

Broadcast: Monday, July 24, 2006

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. This week -- making music under the sky. Steve Ember and Faith Lapidus tell you about two of America's best known open-air music parks.

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It is late summer at Ravinia Park, in the American Midwest, near Chicago, Illinois. The night is hot. But the wind cools the darkness. The Chicago Symphony¹ Orchestra² is performing Symphony Number One by Johannes Brahms. Thousands of people are in the park.

A husband and wife sit on the ground, far from where the music is coming. Their two little boys look at picture books. When the sky becomes dark, the boys sit close to their parents. Every so often, they all look up, beyond the trees, at the stars. The sound of the Brahms music surrounds them.

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As someone once said, Music played outside, especially after dark, is one of the great pleasures of summer. Millions of Americans attend outdoor concerts each summer. The concerts are performed at parks across the country.


The Pavilion at Ravinia Park

Some American music parks serve as the summer home for a city orchestra. At these parks, musicians may play well-known classical music, like the Brahms symphony. Or they may play folk music, jazz or popular music.

Ravinia Festival park is about thirty kilometers north of Chicago. The park has a large area of open land where people sit on the ground. People also can sit inside, in a pavilion. The front and sides of this kind of building are open so everyone can see the performers.

The music of some of the great composers floats out from the pavilion into the summer darkness. Listen as Betty Buckley sings How Long Has This Been Going On? by George Gershwin.

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People have been enjoying summer on this same land for almost a century. During the early nineteen-hundreds the area had a baseball field. There were rooms for eating and dancing. And there was an open-air theater.

An early version³ of the present Ravinia Festival opened in nineteen-eleven. By nineteen-nineteen, it had become a summer home for some of the world's great performers. Over the years visitors heard performances by George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein. For people who liked jazz, there were Benny Goodman, Harry⁴ James and Lionel Hampton.

The great economic Depression forced the Ravinia organization to close in nineteen-thirty-one. But several years later, businessmen formed the Ravinia Festival Corporation⁵. They brought the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to the park in nineteen-thirty-six.

One of the most famous conductors to lead the symphony orchestra at Ravinia is James Levine. He was appointed music director in nineteen-seventy-three. He was thirty years old. He continued serving at Ravinia until nineteen-ninety-three.

Ravinia's fame has now spread far beyond the city of Chicago. There is good reason to believe that Ravinia will be offering summer music in the park for many years to come.

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Musicians perform at Tanglewood

Another of America's most famous music parks is called Tanglewood. The Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood is in the Berkshire Mountains, in the northeastern state of Massachusetts. It is the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Boston Pops Orchestra also performs at Tanglewood.

Listen as John Williams leads the Boston Pops Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus⁶ singers in the traditional spiritual, Deep River.

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Tanglewood exists mainly because of Serge Koussevitsky. Born in Russia, he earned great success in Europe as a musician. He also formed his own orchestra. Then he came to the United States.

Koussevitsky began leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra in nineteen-twenty-four. His dream of presenting music in a beautiful mountain area came true in the middle nineteen-thirties. That is when he led the Boston orchestra in its first concerts at Tanglewood.

Koussevitsky also helped open the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood in nineteen-forty. The center has provided⁷ classes for some of America's most promising⁸ music students. One was Leonard Bernstein, remembered as one of the country's best composers and conductors. Bernstein himself later directed students at the music center.

Another famous American composer, Aaron Copland, served as Koussevitsky's first assistant director at Tanglewood. The two men prepared programs of music written by composers hundreds of years earlier. They also prepared programs by modern composers who wrote pieces for the Boston Symphony. And the orchestra played the works⁹ of two composers Koussevitsky had helped make famous in Europe: Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky.

Over the years, Tanglewood has also won praise for presenting operas. Here is music from one of these traditional stories told through song: Falstaff, by Giuseppe Verdi.

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Classical, jazz and folk music all are popular at Tanglewood. We leave you now with the music of Bill Crofut of the United States and Benjamin Luxon of England. They sing the American folk song Simple Gifts combined with the British Lord¹⁰ of the Dance.

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Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson. It was produced by Caty Weaver¹¹. I'm Faith Lapidus.

And I'm Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another report about life in the United States on the VOA Special English program, THIS IS AMERICA.

1 symphony   

n.交响乐（曲），（色彩等的）和谐

参考例句：

• The Ninth Symphony of Beethoven is a famous one.贝多芬的第九交响乐非常有名。
• They play over the whole symphony.他们把整个交响乐重新演奏了一遍。

2 orchestra   

n.管弦乐队；vt.命令，定购

参考例句：

• He plays the violin in an orchestra.他在管弦乐队中演奏小提琴。
• I was tempted to stay and hear this superb orchestra rehearse.我真想留下来听这支高超的管弦乐队排练。

3 version   

n.版本；型号；叙述，说法

参考例句：

• His version of the events is pure supposition.他对这件事的说法纯属猜测。
• What is your version of this matter?你对这件事情的看法 怎么样？

4 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

5 corporation   

n.公司，企业&n.社团，团体

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation. 这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• The inflation did the corporation up. 通货膨胀使这个公司破产了。

6 chorus   

n.合唱，合唱队，齐声

参考例句：

• Never before have I heard this song sung in chorus.我从来没有听过这首歌的合唱。
• The children repeated the words after her in chorus.孩子们跟她齐声朗读单词。

7 provided   

conj.假如，若是；adj.预备好的，由...供给的

参考例句：

• Provided it's fine we will have a pleasant holiday.如果天气良好，我们的假日将过得非常愉快。
• I will come provided that it's not raining tomorrow.如果明天不下雨，我就来。

8 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

9 works   

n.作品，著作；工厂，活动部件，机件

参考例句：

• We expect writers to produce more and better works.我们期望作家们写出更多更好的作品。
• The novel is regarded as one of the classic works.这篇小说被公认为是最优秀的作品之一。

10 lord   

n.上帝，主；主人，长官；君主，贵族

参考例句：

• I know the Lord will look after him.我知道上帝会眷顾他的。
• How good of the Lord not to level it beyond repair!上帝多么仁慈啊，竟没有让这所房子损毁得不可收拾！

11 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。