BY KAREN BOSSICK
Sun Valley Music Festival musicians will take on a challenging John Williams score when they perform the music to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” as the movie is screened at the Sun Valley Pavilion this summer.
And those who watch the film from the Pavilion lawn will have better viewing, thanks to a screen that’s higher than it has been in the past.
“Last year the screen was lower than we had hoped because of the discrepancy in the original engineering drawings,” said Derek Dean, executive director of the Sun Valley Music Festival. “So, we went to some effort this year working with Sun Valley Resort and with RLB Architecture and we were able to raise the screen pretty significantly so it’s quite a bit higher than last year.”
The Music Festival used a pulley system to move the motors to the back of the screen so it can go all the way up to the top of the poles, and the resort allowed the festival to lower the ground at the same time. Now the screen sits 10.5 feet above ground on the side closest to the Pavilion and 8 feet, 3 inches on the side farthest from the Pavilion.
“It’s safer because no one will hit their head and everyone has a better view,” said Dean. “No one wants to be sitting on the couch watching TV when somebody stands up and walks in front of them. We worried that when it was lower that people moving around on the lawn might block somebody’s view. Now, that’s less likely to happen.”
The screen will get its first test at 6:30 p.m. Monday, July 29, when the Sun Valley Summer Symphony opens its month-long summer season with Meechot Marrero, a young Puerto Rican star who will sing numerous songs and arias. She will return on Aug. 1 to sing Schubert’s “The Shepherd on the Rock.”
“Meechot Marreo took part in our gala performance of ‘Carmina Burana’ in 2022. It was a tiny part so she came all the way out here for a few days and sang less than 10 minutes. So, Alasdair said, ‘Why don’t we bring Meechot back because everybody loved her and we got so little of her. We asked her: What are some of your favorite things you might like to sing? So, we’re going to be performing those—it’s always nice to let an artist do something they love.”
Dean has been wanting to bring cellist Yo-Yo Ma to the Sun Valley Music Festival since Dean took over as executive director in 2013. He reached out to Ma’s management within months of arriving in Sun Valley and finally scored a three-way collaboration with symphony organizations in Kalispell, Mont., and Jackson, Wyo., to get Ma to come for the Sun Valley Music Festival’s Gala Performance on Aug. 5.
“It’s a long way to fly from Massachusetts to Sun Valley for 37 minutes of music. But making a round trip from Massachusetts to Kalispell to Sun Valley to Jackson makes sense,” said Dean. “His music is stunning, otherworldly. When he plays, I feel I’m in the presence of some kind of genius. The sound that he produces, the emotion he conveys is unlike anything else. I’ve seen him several times and met him in person. He’s a generous, kind, extraordinarily friendly man and a wonderful artist.”
Other guest artists include Garrick Ohlsson, a pianist who is renowned for his interpretations of Chopin. Ohlsson, who won first place in the Warsaw Chopin piano competition in the 1970s, will play several Chopin pieces on Aug. 20 and return to perform Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” with the Festival Orchestral on Aug. 22.
“We didn’t think he could come because he was booked for concerts in Poland. But it ended up that he was traveling to the West Coast that week so we figured why not have him spend three days with us in a sort of layover,” Dean said. “We said: Can you come early and play your favorite Chopin playlist? And, as it turns out, it’s the first time the Sun Valley Music Festival has had a solo piano recital. We are so fortunate to have him.”
On Aug. 2 the Sun Valley Music Festival will perform the world premiere of a piece composed by Andy Akiho for the Festival with cellist Jeffrey Zeigler in mind.
“Alasdair has the task of conducting a piece for the first time, which is interesting because there’s no recording on YouTube to listen to for guidance. So, he’s listening to it in his head as he reads the score,” said Dean. “Similarly, the musicians will be learning and performing something they never seen and never heard and they will play it for the first time.”
That piece is one of two world premiere’s the Festival Orchestra will perform, the other being a fanfare written by Timothy Higgens for the 40th anniversary season. That will lead off the opening night on July 29.
“Everybody’s amazed that it’s been 40 years,” said Dean. “Some tell us they’ve been with us the entire time—that they were there for the first concert in Elkhorn. It’s amazing that the symphony has lasted all these years. When Carl Eberl and his wife Julianne founded it, it had no guarantee it would survive—they famously had to use two cars as collateral to borrow the money to pay the musicians the first time.”
The Eberls would probably be amazed to see the 11,000-plus people expected to attend the live performance of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” conducted by Vinay Parameswaran on Aug. 17.
A fully lit LED screen to compensate for the fact that it’s still light outside will be rented and hung inside the Pavilion. It will take a day to hang it and get it working and another day to take it down so there will be no concert the day before or the day after. Musicians’ stands will be lighted to keep it dark on stage.
“John Williams’ music is very difficult, very hard, so the orchestra will need two days of rehearsals. And. with movie scores, the music never stops so there’s always music in the background,” said Dean. “In a normal concert musicians play two or three pieces and there’s a break. Movie music just goes and goes and goes. It’s hard on the musicians because they have very few breaks, very little time to do any correcting in the moment, so they need the extra rehearsal time.”
There are a hundred movies available now for orchestras to play along with.
“Everybody loves John Williams—last year’s Pops Concert featuring John Williams music drew a record crowd of 11,000. So, we thought about doing ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’ But we did’ Star Wars’ the last time around and there’s a lot of the same music in ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ ” said Dean. “There was new movie out with Indiana Jones last year that was pretty popular so that made us think maybe we should do the original’ Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Last Ark.’ It’s a nice gift for the community on our 40th anniversary.”
The Sun Valley Music Festival—the largest admission-free classical music festival in the nation--drew an estimated 55,000 fans last year, in part due to a growing interest in the Chamber Music recitals, which now sometimes feature two dozen musicians on stage.
Chamber music concerts have attracted as many as 3,000 people in the past couple years—a far cry from the 400 they were limited to at the Church of the Big Wood.
“We used to do the concerts at the Church of the Big Wood, but we moved to the Pavilion because of COVID,” said Dean. “We found the audiences were so large that we couldn’t go back inside where we could only seat 400.”
The Sun Valley Music Festival starts July 29 and runs through Aug. 22 in the Sun Valley Pavilion. All performances start at 6:30 p.m. and all are free with the exception of Yo-Yo Ma’s Gala Performance, which helps fund the other concerts.
Opening Night
Monday, July 29
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Meechot Marrero, soprano
Timothy Higgins: Fanfare – Commissioned by the Sun Valley Music Festival – World Premiere
Select songs
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25, “Classical Symphony”
Festival Chamber Orchestra
Tuesday, July 30
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Juliana Athayde, violin
Stephanie Childress, conductor
Piazzolla/Desyatnikov: The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires
Mozart: Symphony No. 36 in C Major, K. 425, "Linz"
Chamber Concert
Thursday, August 1
Meechot Marrero, soprano
Susan Warner, clarinet
Peter Henderson, piano
Milana Elise Reiche, violin
Chris Tantillo, viola
Emileigh Vandiver, cello
Stephen Tramontozzi, bass
Schubert: The Shepherd on the Rock
Schubert: Quintet for Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass, and Piano in A Major, D. 667, Op. 114, “Trout”
Festival Chamber Orchestra
Friday, August 2
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Jeffrey Zeigler, cello
Andy Akiho: Concerto for Cello – Co-Commissioned by the Sun Valley Music Festival – World Premiere
Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks
Festival Orchestra
Sunday, August 4
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Stephanie Childress, conductor
Williams: Olympic Fanfare and Theme
Johann Strauss, Jr.: On the Beautiful Blue Danube
Wagner/Hutschenruyter: The Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre
Rossini: Overture to William Tell
Ravel: Boléro
Festival Orchestra — Gala Benefit Concert
Monday, August 5
To be announced
Chamber Concert
Wednesday, August 7
Sir Stephen Hough, piano
Jeremy Constant, violin
Polina Sedukh, violin
Adam Smyla, viola
Amos Yang, cello
Cécile Chaminade: Étude de concert, Op.35, No. 2, “Automne”
Sir Stephen Hough: Sonatina Nostalgica
Dvořák: Quintet No. 2 in A Major for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 81
Festival Orchestra
Thursday, August 8
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Sir Stephen Hough, piano
Alex Orfaly, timpani
Gabriela Ortiz: Antrópolis
Grieg: Concerto in A Minor for Piano, Op. 16
Festival Orchestra
Sunday, August 11
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Mahler: Symphony No.6 in A Minor, “Tragic”
Festival Orchestra
Tuesday, August 13
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Stephanie Childress, conductor
Jeremy Constant, violin
Amos Yang, cello
Peter Henderson, piano
Jessie Montgomery: Strum
Beethoven: Concerto in C Major, Op. 56, “Triple”
Festival Orchestra
Wednesday, August 14
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Leonidas Kavakos, violin
Quinn Mason: A Joyous Trilogy
Brahms: Concerto in D Major for Violin, Op. 77
Festival Orchestra — Pops Night
Saturday, August 17
Vinay Parameswaran, conductor
Williams: Raiders of the Lost Ark Live in Concert
Festival Orchestra
Monday, August 19
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Stephanie Childress, conductor
Jonathan Dimmock, organ
Britten: Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a
Saint-Saëns: Symphony No.3 in C Minor, Op.78, “Organ Symphony”
Chamber Concert
Tuesday, August 20
Garrick Ohlsson, piano
Chopin: Nocturne in F Major, Op. 15, No. 1
Chopin: Nocturne in B Major, Op. 9, No. 3
Chopin: Barcarolle in F-sharp Major, Op. 60
Chopin: Fantaisie in F Minor, Op. 49
Impromptu No. 1 in A-flat Major, Op. 29
Mazurka in C-sharp Minor, Op. 50, No. 3
Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 31
Festival Orchestra
Thursday, August 22
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Garrick Ohlsson, piano
Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Respighi: The Pines of Rome