Selena Gomez and I are scheduled to meet at a low­key coffee shop in Encino. Not wanting to keep the superstar waiting, I arrived at nine, 20 minutes early. As I was catching up on e­mails, Selena quietly scooted into the seat next to me. No bodyguard. Not even a drop of makeup. She was ten minutes early and no one else in the restaurant looked up so much. Selena was wearing Bebe shorts. She had a baby face and ordered a hot chocolate.

    After making small talk about what she wore for the shoot, she dived into the subject of her career. Selena declared 2012 the year of movies. She filmed three: Spring Breakers, a drama; The Getaway, an action flick; and Hotel Transylvania, a comedy. Each is a marked move away from the teen style that made her a household name.

    Now that her Disney days are behind her, Selena is at that unstable point in a child star's career where she is trying to grow up—both as a person(she turned 20 in July)and as an artist. “Being part of the Disney Channel was such a blessing, and I'm super happy with what my show accomplished, but acting is something I would like to take on more seriously.” She continued, “I don't necessarily feel accomplished. I want to create a whole different person when it comes to acting.”

    Selena has been working fulltime since she was seven years old and scored a role on Barney&Friends. In 2007, when she was offered the lead in Wizards of Waverly Place, Selena, her mother, and her stepfather uprooted from Texas to LA , where they are settling now.

    Does Fame Drive You Crazy?

    Since 1904, Ravinia Festival has been Chicago's “sound of summer”, a place where you can meet up with your friends, have a wonderful time and hear some of the greatest music in the world. We've got stars on the stage and stars in the sky, and it's all within your reach. But there's more to Ravinia than merely the world's greatest music. For as many people who walk through Ravinia's gate each summer, there are just as many ways to enjoy what we call “The Ravinia Experience”. For some, it all starts with a picnic picked up along the way, greeting your friends at your favorite spot on the lawn.

    Ravinia Dining

    Whether you want to add a bottle of wine and some cheese to your picnic on the lawn or sit down to a meal, Ravinia has a wide variety of choices and we welcome you to explore them all.

    Ravinia gifts

    There are two locations for your shopping convenience! Visit our Main Store in the Dining Pavilion. There you will find different CDs, jewelry, games and more. Or fill your more immediate needs at the shop located behind the Martin Theatre.

    How to Buy Tickets

    Online

    Tickets for the 2018 season begin to go on sale online on Tuesday April 25. Ravinia Festival's online ticketing makes ordering tickets for your favorite performances easier than ever before. It is available 24 hours a day at www.ravinia.org.

    Click on the date of your choice to select an event, select your seats and add it to your ticket order. Once you have selected all the events you wish to attend, simply enter your payment information and submit your order.

    By Phone

    Phone sales for the 2018 season start on Monday May 22.

    Order tickets by phone by calling 847-266-5100.

    Monday- Friday: 10: 00 am-5: 00 pm

    Saturday/Sunday: Closed

    I.M. Pei, the Chinese-American, who was regarded as one of the last great modernist architects, has died at the age of 102.

    Although he worked mostly in the United States, Pei will always be remembered for a European project: His redevelopment of the Louvre Museum in Paris in the 1980s. He gave us the glass and metal pyramid in the main courtyard, along with three smaller pyramids and a vast subterranean (地下的) addition to the museum entrance.

    Pei was the first foreign architect to work on the Louvre in its long history, and initially his designs were fiercely opposed. But in the end, the French—and everyone else—were won over. Winning the fifth Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1983, he was thought as giving the 20th century "some of its most beautiful inside spaces and outside forms … His talent and skill in the use of materials approach the level of poetry."

    After studying architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, Pei set up his own architectural practice in New York in 1955.

    Designing the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in 1964 established him as a name. His East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1978 changed people's ideas of a museum. The site was an odd trapezoid (梯形) shape. Pei's solution was to cut it in two. The resulting building was dramatic, light and elegant—one of the first crowd-pleasing cathedrals of modern art.

    Though known as a modernist, and notable for his forms based on arrangements of simple geometric (几何的) shapes, he once urged Chinese architects to look more to their architectural tradition rather than designing in a western style.

    In person, I.M. Pei was good-humored, charming and unusually modest. His working process was evolutionary, but innovation (创新) was never an intended goal.

    "Stylistic originality is not my purpose," he said. "I want to find the originality in the time, the place and the problem."

    I grew up on a farm outside Port Clinton, Ohio. I was the youngest son, with four brothers and four sisters, plus a girl my relatives took in when she was in sixth grade and was raised along with us.

    By the late 60s, most of us were married and had families of our own. One day, while we were visiting my parents in late summer or early fall, Dad mentioned he'd always wanted a Crimson King maple tree for the yard. Mom agreed that they were pretty.

    Like many parents, mine were hard to shop for, so I figured this was a great opportunity to get them something they'd appreciate. I checked the price at work and decided it was a bit more than I could afford but all of my brothers and sisters agreed to help.

    In northern Ohio, people don't plant maple trees at Christmas, so we decided to surprise Mom and Dad with a special Christmas in October before the ground froze. We asked my aunt if she'd help us with the trick, and she called my parents in advance to say she was coming for a Sunday visit. Then my sisters and sisters-in-law went into action, planning a big holiday turkey dinner.

    On the chosen Sunday, we all met at my house and loaded the trees in a pickup truck. I dressed up as Santa Claus, though at the time I weighed about 140, so all the padding(填料) in the world couldn't make me look like St. Nick. Then off we went, nine or ten cars loaded with people and food, plus the pickup truck.

    When the truck arrived at my parents' house, Dad came out of the back door, convinced something was wrong. He and Mom were amazed when we told them why we were there.

    When Christmas rolled around, of course, we couldn't go to our parents' house empty-handed, so Mom and Dad got double presents that year. Almost half a century later, I still drive by the old farm and smile when I see those big, handsome trees.

    Banff National Park is Canada's first national park. In 1883, on the Canadian Rocky Mountains, three railway workers discovered a natural hot spring, and from there the park was born. Nowadays, it is one of the world's popular tourist spots with great mountain scenery. Every year, millions of people visit it for its wonderful views.

Banff National Park is part of UNESCO's Canadian Rocky Mountain World Heritage site. Located in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, the park has perfect mountains like those on postcards. They are from 45 to 120 million years old, with the highest in the park, Mount Forbes, coming in at 11,850 feet.

    Banff National Park is 80 miles west of Calgary. Calgary's international airport is serviced by major national and international carriers with many flights arriving daily. Open year­round, it offers amazing wildlife viewing and sightseeing, plus many shopping and dining choices, any time of the year. Summer is popular for hiking, mountain biking and cycling, photography, and climbing. The best time for viewing the seasonal color is fall, when the trees turn yellow.

    In winter, the mountain makes exciting downhill (速降) and cross­country skiing. In fact, three major downhill ski resorts (度假胜地) operate within the park. Lake Louise Ski Resort, Sunshine Village, and Mount Norquay combine to offer a large area for skiing, not to mention the backcountry trails available throughout the park. The ski season, which runs from November to May, is one of the longest in North America. Visitors can also enjoy wildlife tours, ice walks, and dogsleds (雪橇).

    Weather in the Canadian Rockies can change quickly. A single day can have a mix of sunshine, snow, wind, and rain, so you should change your clothes. In summer, temperatures average a high of 70 (21 ℃), and daylight lasts until 11 p. m. Autumn brings cool nights and fresh air. Winters can be very cold. In January, the average temperature is 7 ℃ below zero, but by April it is 9 ℃.