STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Alasdair Neale traced the tempo in the air through 276 pages of music he’d spent the past year memorizing.
French horn musicians sounded their horns from the promenade of the Sun Valley Pavilion
The drums rolled and rolled and rolled.
Members of the American Festival Chorus plus six local singers sang of the resurrection behind the strong voices of Sopranos Sasha Cooke and Julie Adams.
And after 80 glorious moments of Gustav Mahler’s powerful Second Symphony, the 35th season of the Sun Valley Music Festival came to an end.
More than 50,000 attendees turned out for the more than 25 concerts and events that made up this summer’s festival.
Sun Valley Resort Owner Carol Holding took her place among the thousands of people who turned out for the final performance of the 2019 Sun Valley Music Festival.
The crowd included hundreds of children, even though it was a school night. And a multitude of golden retrievers, mini-Aussies and other dogs took their spot on the Pavilion Lawn, their tails tapping in time to the symphony under billowing clouds tinged in majestic shades of reds and purple.
“We encountered the whole gamut of human emotions through musical interpretation,” the Festival’s Board President Susan Monson told the audience as she recounted the season that began on July 29.
The popular Time for Three will be back for the 2020 Sun Valley Music Festival, said Derek Dean, the symphony’s executive director.
“And you have never heard what they’re going to play,” he added, describing how the trio would play a newly commissioned piece by the Sun Valley Music Festival and other orchestras.
But first there will be the second annual Winter Festival Feb. 27 through 29 at the Argyros Performing Arts Center.
Dean recounted how one supporter approached him following last year’s inaugural Winter Festival with “a serious concern.”
“There’s no way you’ll ever top it,” the supporter said.
Stay tuned.