Get the feel of the baton at 'Virtual Maestro'

Many classical music devotees have a secret dream: they want to stand in front of a symphony orchestra with a baton, conducting great works by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler. What a sense of power that must bring!

Of course, in the real world, conducting an orchestra is the culmination of years of study, and only a handful of college and conservatory-trained musicians actually get the opportunity to experience how Arturo Toscanini or Sir Georg Solti must have felt with nearly 100 musicians literally in the palms of their hands (with or without a baton).

Well, the Ravinia Festival has just the thing for you dreamers out there with the unveiling of "UBS Virtual Maestro," coinciding with this week's arrival of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for its annual summer residency.

Set up in a special tent near the north side of the Martin Theatre, this interactive exhibit uses the latest computer-game technology to allow you to "conduct" a virtual orchestra (on a large plasma-screen monitor) utilizing the Nintendo Wii wand as a baton. Each aspiring maestro can use the wand to control the tempo or volume of selected pieces from the classical repertoire. The members of the orchestra will even stand and applaud the conductor's performance afterward.

"This is such a welcomed exhibit, because the role of the conductor may be one of the most misunderstood in all or performance art," said Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kauffman. "Ostensibly, the most important man on stage comes out and turns his back to the audience the whole evening making magical gestures. This ingenious game gives everyone just a glimpse into what's going on up there."

And yes, it's just a glimpse. Once you enter the booth, the Virtual Maestro experience will last just a few minutes, simply because of the high demand among Pavilion and lawn patrons to give it a try. Three well-known works are programmed into the computer from which to choose: music from the final movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, an excerpt from Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique" and the well-known finale from the "William Tell" Overture by Gioacchino Rossini.

The booth will be open from the time the park opens until the performance begins, and again at intermission.

The UBS Virtual Maestro has already been a big hit during the 2007-08 season at the Philadelphia Orchestra's concerts at Verizon Hall and by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall. The exhibit has also made successful visits over recent months to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and Utah Symphony.

In conjunction with its Virtual Maestro, UBS is also sponsoring a "Ravinia Trivia" contest, in which visitors are asked to answer 20 general music questions, with game cards available this month throughout Ravinia Park. The grand prize will be an invitation to a private reception attended by Ravinia music director James Conlon on Aug. 17, along with lawn admission to that night's Michael Feinstein concert. The 25 second-prize winners will receive two tickets to selected CSO concerts. Entry deadline is Aug. 1.