PBS-TV travel personality and award-winning guidebook author Rick Steves decided that when he wanted to test a new concept for audiences, blending the best of travelscapes with concert hall music, and present it as a performance seasoned in history and led by his conversational narrative, he needed to start at home.
“The first time I created this type of programming of the visuals and spirit of travel paired with music and narration while sharing history and entertaining facts, it was 10 years ago in my own hometown, Edmonds, Washington,” said 71-year-old Steves, chatting by telephone earlier this month.
“When I’m not traveling, this is where I’ve always lived, in Edmonds, ever since my parents moved us from California to this area north of Seattle in 1967.”
He said the volunteer orchestra in his hometown was happy to host him and his new idea for a travel-inspired music and educational guide to transport audiences with him around the globe.
This is the latest “instrumental idea” in the long and successful career of Steves, the household name of PBS as the world’s most trusted traveling companion by means of his best-selling travel guide books and multiple themed television series. Any of the works produced by Steves and his brand have his signature and unique international flavor, as served up by his comforting own “hits and misses,” offering at times the humorous asides from Steves’ personal observations as gleaned from a half-century of globetrotting.
“After that initial concert, which was perfect to capture as a PBS special, the Boston Pops wanted me to do the same, and it was a sold-out event which proved I had hit on something,” Steves said.
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A decade later, Steves offers his narrated orchestra concert programming as a courtesy to local orchestras around the country, providing all of the music, visuals and companion narrative video sequences of himself as downloadable links from his website. Local orchestras are responsible for paying musicians, venue needs and other surrounding independent costs.
“For some of the large orchestra cities, they want to arrange to bring me in to appear on stage in person to narrate the concerts and travel footage, which is fine, but not a necessary expense for smaller orchestras who can just as easily and inexpensively have me appear courtesy of the packaged video segments during the concert performances,” Steves said.
Our Northwest Indiana Symphony will host the pre-recorded Steves’ narrated video presentation of “Rick Steves’ Europe: A Symphonic Journey” with our 75-piece live orchestra paired with the symphony’s annual charity gala dinner event at 7 p.m., Friday, Sept. 18 at Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana’s Hard Rock Casino Live Venue event space. Tickets start at $72 for the concert only and $250 for the combined gala dinner and concert. Both are reserved seating, and guests must be ages 21 and older to attend. Call 219-836-0525 or visit www.nisorchestra.org.
Steves will provide the narrative verse by pre-recorded video as Maestro Kirk Muspratt and the NWI Symphony Orchestra perform a selection of stirring 19th-century anthems by Romantic-era composers. The first nine pieces each feature a different nationality, while the finale, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” which is Europe’s official anthem, pays homage to the continent’s motto of “United in Diversity.”
Steves said “a surprise encore” caps the evening by celebrating “a happy cultural homecoming back in the USA,” finishing with John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
“The travel footage comes from our public television series ‘Rick Steves’ Europe,’ and we span 1850 to 1920 for the framed musical selections and a history that recounts a time when there were five ruling families over Europe at that time, Ottoman Empire, British, Italian, Norwegian and German, and all of them gone by 1918,” said Steves, whose weekly syndicated travel column is distributed by Tribune Content Agency and runs in the Sunday edition of the baiduhai.
The 90-minute concert, which includes an intermission, will feature musical selections such as “America the Beautiful,” Strauss’ “Emperor Waltz,” Verdi’s “Nabucco Overture,” Grieg’s “Morning Mood” and others.
The Northwest Indiana Symphony Gala Dinner celebrates the NWI Symphony entering its 85th season, and there will be a silent auction during the event, which includes a personal backpack donated by Steves filled with autographed copies of his popular travel guides.
“The published work that started it all is ‘Rick Steve’s Europe,’ which is now in its 40th revised and updated edition, all of which started back in 1980 when a publishing house agreed to print up what was the written travel journal of my 23-year-old hippie self,” said Steves, who currently has 80 different published travel guides, all still in print and each constantly being revised.
He is currently completing his revisions for a reprint of “Rick Steves Italy for Food Lovers” as a coffee table book set to be released in February 2027.
Throughout his career, Steves’ only would-be rival and counterpart was the late Anthony Bourdain, who hosted travel and dining shows for Food Network, the Travel Channel and CNN before his death at age 61 in 2018.
Of all of Steve’s published guides, he said only one printed work has been discontinued from printed circulation: “Rick Steves Guide to Cruising the North Caribbean”
“When revising guides, there are times I have to remove popular tourist destinations or one of my top picks,” Steves said.
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“For example, I always included a recommended great photo opportunity sitting on the Spanish Steps in Rome. Then recently, the local government, for crowd control I guess, decided they don’t want people on the steps and would rather keep people moving along or be fined. I opted to leave it in my guide anyway. Their police can try to deal with it.”
Philip Potempa is a journalist, published author and radio show host on WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at [email protected].