STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
It might not be the summer symphony season he’d envisioned.
But Sun Valley resident Tony Price is still looking forward to planting a picnic on the Sun Valley Pavilion lawn and watching his friends in the Sun Valley Music Festival orchestra make music—even if it’s on the jumbo screen.
“It’s a chance to see friends—even from a distance, enjoy beautiful weather and great music. And, if we can’t assemble on the Pavilion lawn, we’ll have friends over and bring one of our TV screens out to watch the concerts on our patio,” he said.
The Sun Valley Music Festival announced Friday that its concerts will be held online this summer to mitigate the risk of the coronavirus in the Sun Valley Pavilion, the homes of housing hosts and in classrooms set aside for the Music Institute summer programs.
But the Summer Gala featuring Broadway stars Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Kelli O’Hara will be held go on, with the singers singing to their Sun Valley audience from the East Coast. And the Gala, which annual serves as the festival’s fundraiser, will be made free to everyone.
“Our hundred or so musicians are so sad we can’t gather in person—this is a reunion for them every summer. But they’re so happy to be making music as their home orchestras have been shut down. And the guest artists feel the same way,” said Derek Dean, executive director of the Sun Valley Music Festival. “They all want to make music and sing their hearts out for Sun Valley.”
There will still be 19 concerts beginning Monday, July 27, and ending Wednesday, Aug. 19. But the bigger orchestra concerts that require several rehearsals, such as Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances,” will be postponed to the 2021 season, Dean said.
Guests artists, such as Time for Three, pianists Daniil Trifonov and Orion Weiss, will still perform, as will violinist Leila Josefowicz and the Villalobos Brothers, a Mexican folk group. Some of the Beethoven pieces and lectures in honor of the composer’s250th birthday anniversary will still go on, while large orchestral programs will be moved to the 2021 season.
The Sun Valley Music Festival is the only orchestra in the country creating an entirely new season to be streamed online, as far as Neale and Dean know. Many companies are broadcasting videos from archives. And, so far, orchestras are taking a wait-and-see posture about whether they will return to the stage in person in the fall.
Dean spent all day Friday on the phone with Music Director Alasdair Neale trying to nail down the reimagined season.
The concerts will feature a treasure trove of music not normally heard with a big orchestra, said Neale. Among them, solos, small ensembles and at least a few online collages featuring the full orchestra.
“It’s a bit of a jigsaw puzzle because we hope to feature groups of musicians around the country, assuming they’re able to get together safely with those in their own communities,” said Dean.
The revised lineup, which will be filmed and streamed on the festival’s website, will be announced in June.
The prospects excite Price, who is a board member of the Sun Valley Music Festival.
“There have been some wonderful online musical performances from orchestras in Europe, but we want something that’s not a canned production from other organizations,” he said. “We’ll have the same musicians we see in the Pavilion every summer, and we’re spending a tremendous amount of attention and effort with the best technology to make super performances. Who knows? Maybe we’ll see a friendly competition in the vein of ‘Anything you can do I can do better.’ ”
Initial ticket purchases for the Gala were the best the festival had ever seen before things shut down due to the pandemic. The Aug. 3 program will feature a tribute to Earl and Carol Holding and their family. And tickets already purchased will be refunded with no action required by purchasers.
It as well as the other concerts will be broadcast at 6:30 p.m.
The Music Institute’s advanced classes will be held online, rather than having the students, who come from all over, staying in the Sun Valley Community School residential dorm and eating in the cafeteria.
Music teachers, some of whom are orchestra members of the orchestra, will focus on individual instruction, rather than ensemble work.
“In today’s world, music and vocal students audition online in front of a camera. So, this gives them practice in that,” Dean said.
Younger students in second through twelfth grades, might go online. Or, if it’s considered safe to do so, they may take part in a music camp outside with music games and the like.
“We’re watching the summer camps that are starting up in the next couple weeks,” said Dean. “We’ll wait and see how that goes before we decide anything.”
The Sun Valley Music Festival, founded 35-plus years ago, had its season cut short by the 2013 Beaver Creek Fire. Sun Valley Music Festival staff and board have been anguishing about what to do about this summer’s season since it became apparent that the coronavirus pandemic was upending everything.
“We had a lot of conversations about it,” said Price. “All of us were hoping it could be business as usual. But, obviously, these are not usual times. And under guidance from Derek, we realized that the safety of the audience and musicians had to come first and we needed to walk away from business as usual.”
Dean said the festival postponed its decision as long as it could.
“But our staff isn’t that big. We can’t plan two seasons in parallel. It might be better sitting outdoors wishing we were seeing a live Chamber concert this year than taking the chance and then not having it happen,” he said.
Dean said the response to a livestreamed Upbeat with Alasdair program featuring the orchestra’s assistant concertmaster and oboe player a few weeks ago showed the potential of broadcasting online.
“We had 400 people tune in in four minutes—it overwhelmed our little website, which had never had seen that volume ever. And, with those who turned into the archived program next day we had over 700 viewers—five times the audience that are able to turn out for Upbeat with Alasdair at the library,” he said.
“Our average audience for summer concerts is more than 3,000—with an upgraded server, I think we can handle more than 10,000 viewers tuning in from around the country.”
The concerts will not be recorded to preserve the uniqueness of a live concert.
If it’s possible to open the lawn safely, the Music Festival is considering putting a second big screen at the back of the lawn, along with additional speakers, to help space people out.
“We may have to limit capacity. Maybe we’ll chalk off grids and have people stay in their blanket inside a square. We don’t want lines so we’ll encourage people to come at certain times and leave in a staggered fashion. Maybe we’ll have reservations. We’ll learn a lot from watching how others attempt these sorts of gatherings,” Dean said.
Price is already salivating at the prospects.
“This is our 14th summer enjoying the Sun Valley Music Festival and each year seems to get better,” he said. “I thought the Upbeat with Alasdair presentation was terrific because it gave us the chance to see the musicians at home with their families. So, it was very personal. And I can’t wait to see what surprises the festival has in store for us this summer.”