VAIL! Mountains and Music: Perfect

 

When I was planning a trip to the mountains of Colorado with my son, my one request was that we choose a place that had live music available to us in the evening.  I was aware that Aspen has a famous music and arts school with many concerts but I didn’t know about Vail. 

To my surprise this ski resort, an hour southwest of Denver, is the home of Bravo!Vail a full throated music festival with a full array of concerts, and events. During the month of July, the festival played host to four major orchestras, one week for each ensemble. The lineup was Academy of St. Martin in Fields with Joshua Bell, the Dallas Symphony, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic.

I was there for the NY Phil’s week which made me feel I had hit the mother lode.  I found the experience to be nearly perfect: hiking through the stunning 8-10,000 ft. mountains during the day (no humidity, no mosquitoes), and listening to a world class orchestra in the evening.

Throughout the country, the arts have become a great draw for well healed tourists.

Owen Hutchinson, who heads up the lovely Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek, CO (20 minutes from Vail) told me, “We have many wealthy people from places like Chicago, Dallas, and Phoenix who have second houses in this area. When they come here, they want to have the same kind of arts opportunities as they do at home, and they support our offerings.”

Although the Vilar only holds 530 seats, the patrons get to watch ballet, Broadway shows, and artists like Yo-Yo Ma. The concert hall is acoustically brilliant and beautiful to look at, but the auditorium is buried totally into the mountain below Beaver Creek’s ice-skating rink. From the outside, one cannot see the performing arts center at all.Very bizarre, but it works.

Vacation hot spots are now realizing that music and the arts in general are a huge draw to upgrade summer business.

Bringing music out amongst the trees, mountains and flowers gives the listening experience an added value of visual beauty to the sonic beauty.

Most major symphony orchestras have had summer homes for several decades: Chicago has its Ravinia, Boston its Tanglewood, Cleveland its Blossom and many others. Also, Interlochen, Stratford (Ontario), Ashland, Oregon, Chautauqua and other venues present a cornucopia of events – lectures, plays, concerts, musicals. 

No doubt, summer arts is big business.

One complaint that was heard several years ago, was that summer classical concerts pandered to a lower brow classical audience.  The concerts were pops oriented and light classical. 

I have not found that to be true lately.  The two concerts I heard in Vail, a good example, were the real thing and the orchestra brought out their exciting new musical director rather than the assistant and all the section leaders were on board – probably enjoying the semi-vacation of being in the mountains.

Hearing the concerts in July was a medicinal balm for me. Without hearing live music for 18 months, these concerts washed over me like a sensuous cloud.  Also, it was a preview of how audiences will likely throng back to the concert halls in the fall.

The first concert was the NY Phil string quartet. Everyone seemed so eager to hear (and play) music again that the entire evening was a love fest. The audience was totally quiet, emersed in the emotion of the music, soaking up the first beautiful sounds they had heard in a long time. 

The musicians were on the edge of their seats communicating with each other with every twinge of an eye or nod of a head. These were all orchestral players, born ensemble players.

The only flaw in the program was Anne-Marie McDermott whose piano was added to the string quartet to perform the Shuman Piano Quintet.  She was far louder than the ensemble required, often covering the delicate musical lines of her fellow musicians. Her chamber music skills did not compare with that of the string players.

The next night’s concert took place in Vail at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater – a beautiful facility with permanent seating under a roof, with lawn seating behind. Total occupancy is 2245 and all seats were taken for the NY Phil’s opening night.

The orchestra’s music director, Jaap van Sweden, was on the podium. Piano soloist in the Beethoven Concerto No. 4 was Russian sensation, Daniil Trifonov. The concert only featured two works, but they were both powerhouses – the Beethoven concerto and the Mozart Symphony no. 40.

Van Zweden was intense and his classical version of the philharmonic was totally responsive to his every musical desire.  Pianist Trifonov seems to have replaced Evgeny Kissen as the reigning Russian piano superstar. His playing was lyrical, creative, and technically powerful.  Piano and orchestra played as one unit. This is one virtuoso we must pay attention to.

A visit to Vail confirmed the fact that great symphonic music is a genius pairing with the adventures and beauty of a mountain hiking vacation.