Classical

Ravinia Festival, the Chicago area concert series that claims to be America's longest running music festival, announced its popular music schedule, supplementing the previously released Chicago Symphony Orchestra repertory season schedule.

The most in-demand tickets could be for two performances by Sting backed by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra as well as shows by Crosby, Stills & Nash, Sheryl Crow, and Carrie Underwood.

But there are a huge number of major stars in every popular music genre, including Backstreet Boys, Big Head Todd And The Monsters, Bobby McFerrin, Buddy Guy, Cheap Trick, Colbie Caillat, Dave Brubeck Quartet, Earth, Wind & Fire, Garrison Keillor, George Benson, Jethro Tull, John Hiatt & The Combo, Nancy Wilson, Nelly Furtado, Peter and Paul, Poi Dog Pondering, Procol Harum, Sheryl Crow, Soulive, Squeeze, Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers, The B-52s, The Beach Boys, The Bodeans, The Cat Empire, The Four Tops, The Levon Helm Band, The Moody Blues, The Ramsey Lewis Trio, The Swell Season, The Temptations, Train, and Vince Gill.

Ticket sales opened for the 2010 Tanglewood season, including the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, on February 14. The season begins on June 26 with a live broadcast of Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keilor and follows with a full schedule of performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops throughout July and August. The prestigious summer series also includes a handful of popular music concerts, including a much anticipated joint appearance by James Taylor and Carole King.

The season ends over Labor Day weekend with the annual running of Tanglewood Jazz, featuring performances by Kurt Elling, John Pizzarelli, The Lengendary Count Basie Orchestra and lots more. Reserved seating prices range from $18 to $115; one day lawn passes are priced at $34. For complete information

Spoleto Festival USA reaffirms its place among the most important performance arts festivals with its diverse and risk-taking 2010 season program announced this week.

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You know how much we like tag clouds at Festival Preview, so we were a sucker to try out the cloudmaker Wordle with our booking data to see how it would look. This graphic displays artists booked as featured performers at multiple 2010 festivals, with the size determined by the number of bookings. The data is current as of January 1, 2010.

View the chart on the Wordle site here.

The first thing you notice is the preponderance of country and bluegrass artists. That is because festivals of those genres announce their lineups earlier than rock festivals and some other categories. We plan to display more charts and rankings of our booking data, so you should see familiar rock names in future displays.

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