Jackson Hole, Wyo.
One of the best places in this country to hear classical music in summer lies in the shadow of the Tetons, the uncommonly majestic mountain range standing in the westernmost portion of this sparsely populated and rugged state. That in itself is not surprising: Excellent warm-weather performances of works from the classical canon can also be heard in Aspen and Vail, in the Colorado Rockies. And if we're twinning music and natural beauty, then the summer festivals of Tanglewood, in Massachusetts, and Marlboro, in Vermont, stake their own strong claims.
But the Grand Teton Music Festival, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this season, is different. Unlike Marlboro and Aspen, it does not aspire to improve young musicians. Nor does it serve as a showcase for one major orchestra, as Tanglewood does for the Boston Symphony; or as a place where burnished ensembles alight to entertain the rich, as happens in Vail when the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Dallas Symphony visit.
Grand Teton Music Festival
www.gtmf.org
Through Aug. 20
Instead, the Teton Music Festival, which this year began in early July and runs through Aug. 20, is a place where some of this country's best orchestral players gather annually to make music with each other. It is, as several longtime participants noted, a safe haven for them to revive flagging spirits after a busy season. "We come here for two months, so we can survive the next 10," said Gail Williams, a professor at Northwestern University who played horn in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for nearly two decades.
Despite her 19 years at the festival, Ms. Williams is far from the longest-serving member of the orchestra: Twenty-five players are singled out in this year's program for service of more than a quarter century. (Cellist Marcia Peck of the Minnesota Orchestra is the current record holder, having spent 41 seasons here.)
The festival began in the early 1960s as part of a broader effort to bring culture to a part of the country rarely associated with sophisticated artistic expression. In the early years, amateurs shared music stands with the professionals, and the orchestra was itinerant. Things changed in 1967 with the arrival of Ling Tung, initially as a guest conductor and then, the following year, as the festival's first real music director. The Chinese-born violinist turned conductor was educated at the Curtis Institute and later spent six seasons with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Together with his then-wife, Margot Walk (a quietly tireless promoter of the festival and now its board president), Tung raised standards and began using his connections to lure better-quality musicians to the festival. He did so partly by extolling the region's attributes, namely its stunning setting as a musical Shangri-La.
But the pitch was usually more effective in retrospect. For it often took considerable effort to draw urban and urbane musicians to this relative backwater. Even now, those arriving here by air must walk the tarmac after landing and then drive on winding two-lane roads to reach their accommodations and the 750-seat performance space. That venue, constructed among the ski lodges and lifts in a cluster of buildings called Teton Village, opened in 1974 and was dedicated as Walk Festival Hall in 1990. In 2007 it underwent extensive renovations to its exterior, but its unassuming interior, which resembles a high-school gymnasium, was left untouched to preserve its surprisingly fine acoustics.
Once they have visited, though, most musicians are eager to return to this valley. That makes competition for the limited number of spots keen—some 250 orchestral players will pass through here this year, performing a mix of chamber and orchestral music from warhorses (symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and Tchaikovsky) to premieres (works by Sebastian Currier, Jennifer Higdon and Matthias Pintscher).
All the players—more than 60 of whom arrive as couples—are approved by the Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles, best known in the U.S. for his recently completed tenure as music director of the San Francisco Opera. Mr. Runnicles became music director here in 2006, succeeding the Japanese conductor Eiji Oue, who held the job from 1997 to 2003, following Tung's retirement. "There is no such thing as tenure here," Mr. Runnicles said over lunch last week, referring to the ensemble, "but I inherited a great orchestra, and people take it very seriously."
The atmosphere at concerts, which are very well attended considering how many people in this area are temporary residents, is relaxed and informal (everyone dresses casually) and tickets—which top out at $53 for the weekend orchestra concerts—are very reasonably priced considering the caliber of the music making. In addition to the fine orchestra, world-class soloists are not uncommon. The violinist Gil Shaham, for example, appears this weekend, and the pianist Yefim Bronfman and the soprano Christine Brewer arrive in August.
Last weekend, Osmo Vänskä, music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, guest conducted the orchestra in a program that sandwiched a new work for harp and orchestra by Mr. Currier between an overture by Verdi and Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique" Symphony. The performances of the older works were fervid yet poised, and Mr. Currier's "Traces," a co-commission with the Berlin Philharmonic, emerged as a deeply felt piece, with Mr. Vänskä, harpist Naoko Yoshino and the orchestra revealing remarkable rapport given their necessarily limited rehearsal time.
The festival is the largest nonprofit performing-arts organization in Wyoming, in part because its small donor base is especially generous. Despite—or perhaps because of—the region's limited population, many rich people have homes in the area and give generously to the festival, even as they support similar organizations elsewhere in the country.
For now there is no talk of grand plans for a new hall or tours or recordings. The festival's minders seem content that the organization has reached the half-century mark. And the orchestra members, nearly all of them serving with far more famous ensembles throughout the country, do not seek glory here. It is enough that the festival exists as a place for renewal.
If there is a bittersweet note to this 50th-anniversary season, it is that Tung died of brain cancer in May, before he could return to the festival he nurtured for so long. He was scheduled to conduct a Berlioz overture at this summer's anniversary gala on July 2. His absence is palpable among the players, many of whom were first courted to come here by him. But they have honored his memory in the best possible way—by giving committed, ebullient and fresh performances of music that feels at home on the range.
Mr. Mermelstein writes for the Journal on classical music and film.
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