Lakenotes: A Tribute to Lake Michigan’s Majesty

Lake Michigan has long served as a creative muse for artists across various disciplines, including visual arts, music, and literature. In a continuation of this artistic tradition, Black Moon Trio premiered Lakenotes: Seasons of Lake Michigan at Ravinia on August 2, 2026. This multi-dimensional performance commemorates the lake’s mystery and majesty through music, poetry, and videography.

The event featured several talented artists, including visual artist Lincoln Schatz, video editor Dylan Connell, composer Stacy Garrop, poet Kathryn Haydon, and musicians Jeremy Vigil on piano, Khelsey Zarraga on violin, and Parker Nelson on horn. Erik Soderstrom, senior director of programming at Ravinia, notes that Lakenotes offers a captivating journey, revealing how Lake Michigan changes not only seasonally but also on a weekly, daily, and hourly basis. “It’s stunning to see the lake reflected in music, word, and image, and it reminds us that the lake becomes a part of all of us who live around it,” Soderstrom shares.

This concert is a collaboration between three artists, each using their unique approach. Poet Kathryn Haydon explores the lake’s varied moods through her lyricism, while visual artist Lincoln Schatz captures its vast palette with videography and photography. Composer Stacy Garrop reflects the lake’s natural rhythms through contemporary chamber music. The result is a multi-tiered sensory experience, offering artistry and poetic contradictions encapsulated in the essence of Lake Michigan.

Parker Nelson, director of arts and administration for Black Moon Trio, shares that the trio–with Zarraga on violin, Nelson on horn, and Vigil on piano–performed music they curated by incorporating elements from all collaborators. “After recent Ravinia renovations, the Sandra K. Crown Theater has become an exciting multimedia performance venue, a space just right for us to explore and create an immersive experience for our audience,” Nelson explained. Stacy Garrop’s piece, Tracing Waves Across a Year, serves as the core musical work, co-commissioned by Ravinia and Black Moon Trio, accompanied by Mainframe Tropics by Mason Bates, Horn Trio by Carson Cooman, and Probuzení Perel (Awakening of Pearls) by Jiří Pazour. Inspired by Kathryn Haydon’s book, Unsalted Blue Sunrise: Poems of Lake Michigan (2023), Garrop shares, “The form of the poems helped me create forms in music – autumn clouds in a brooding sky, uneasy churning waves translated into sound, just as the lake freezing up in winter became slow slides in the strings surrounded by silence.”

Joanna Rolek, executive director of the Lake Forest/Lake Bluff Chamber of Commerce, attended the performance and expressed her surprise at the show’s impact. “I was surprised by the impact this performance had on me, and fascinated by how the ripple and rhythm of water finds its way into the music,” Rolek commented.

The concert blended auditory and visual elements with emotional and ecological themes, offering audiences musical improvisation right on stage. Nelson described how the trio improvised directly off Schatz’s photographs. Haydon believes Lake Michigan is woven into the sense of place for those living in Chicago and the north shore, becoming part of our lives. “That connection to the wildness of the lake can’t help but change you,” Schatz remarks, adding that at some point, the lake becomes more than just a visual subject but a partner in conversation. “You realize that rather than remaining a subject, the lake has become a partner, a participant in the conversation.”