STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK

PHOTOS BY JOANNE WETHERELL

Colleagues created a song in honor of Alasdair Neale’s birthday this week and Joanne Wetherell and her cohorts at RE/MAX Sun Valley had two birthday cakes made as the Sun Valley Music Festival director celebrated a milestone birthday.

Sun Valley Music Festival to End with Three Memorable Concerts

But, in the end, it was a caboodle of girls and others on the lawn who enjoyed the chocolate and vanilla cakes as Alasdair was whisked off for a toast.

The 2022 summer season of the Sun Valley Music Festival draws to a close this week. But the three remaining concerts should prove oh-so-fun.

• Tonight—Sunday, Aug. 14--is the wildly popular Pops Night followed by a Lawn Party.

  The evening, featuring Broadway music conductor Andy Einhorn and Broadway vocalists Christy Altomare and Nicholas Christopher, will include such familiar and beloved pieces as “The Sound of Music,” “Tonight,” “Over the Rainbow,” “Star Wars Theme” and John Philip Sousa’s “The Washington Post March.”

  And DJ Masonic, aka electronica music guru Mason Bates, will return to host the Festival’s third Lawn Party following the concert, with a special guest appearance by the Time for Three string band.

• Tuesday, Aug. 16, is Hornucopia, which features 16 brass players performing such songs as “Beauty and the Beast,” “Moon River” and even “Amazing Grace,” with the help of three percussion players, a bass player and pianist Peter Henderson.
• And the grand finale takes place on Thursday, Aug. 18, when the Festival Orchestra performs Richard Strauss’s “An Alpine Symphony,” considered a perfect song for the setting. It’ll include a heckelphone, Alpen cowbells, a thunder sheet and a wind machine before the thunderstorm is whisked away and sun sets.

The concerts, which begin at 6:30 p.m., are free.