Summer Music Festivals in Mammoth

We are heavy in the midst of music concerts and festivals. The Jazz Festival was a huge success with hoards of jazz fans walking with their programs, colorful garb and festival badges from the Hollar to the Church site to the Whiskey Creek tent or or taking the friendly green and red trolleys down to Grumpy's and Big Top.

My 17 month old daughter was asked to draw the winning raffle tickets from a bucket and was enthralled with the tuba on stage. Now she thinks every instrument is called a tuba and is favorite word of the week.

Currently we have the Felici Trio's Chamber Music Unbound Music Festival workshop and concert series (July 18- August 3). Brian, Rebecca and Wen-Ting bring their Indiana University classmates to Mammoth to help instruct chamber music workshops and then perform concerts at night. They are all professional musicians who double as outstanding teachers as well. Brian, Rebecca & Wen-Ting (pictured) are amazing people and hard workers and they have brought so much to the Mammoth Lakes community that they deserve as much support as we all can give.

So after listening to us amateur chamber musicians all day and instructing us on how to listen to and communicate with each other (the essence of playing chamber music), these talented violinists, cellists and pianists also rehearse and then wow us in the evenings with their diverse concerts. It is fun to see workshop attendees from years past come from all over the state adjust to the altitude and dryness (keeping their wood instruments just the right humidity level, etc.)

The 12th Annual Bluesapalooza is on deck for August 3-4 with bands and brews at the fabled Sam's Wood Site nestled in the trees along Minaret Blvd just below the Whiskey Creek corner. Good times and good food, just be ready for some drunkenness.

Then to wrap up the summer's musical events is the Sierra Summer Festival during August 5-11. We celebrate the 30th anniversary of the festival this year (I have only been part of it as a orchestra member for 4 years and on the Board of Directors for the past year). It is such like a family reunion with conductor Bogidar Avramov as the patriarch of the family and concert mistress Maria Newman as the popular cousin who everyone wants to be like. Bogidar, Maria, and the other section leaders come together year after year and in between rehearsals, old friends reunite on hikes and in shopping malls. The symphony orchestra is a great mix of professionals and us amateurs who get to sit in the presence of such great talent and soak up all of their knowledge (and humor). My buddies in the horn section will no doubt crack up at our section leader, Steve Durnin's, hilarious wisecracks.

I cannot perform this year as my wife is due with our 2nd kid that week. I will dearly miss not being able to play Mozart's Don Giovanni, Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz on the 10th and 11th. But then again, I can't miss the birth of my child, either. At least I got to participate by finding housing for many of the musicians from property owners who so generously donate their condos and homes for a week (thank you!). I hope to see the concert if I'm not in the delivery room. There are, in addition, several other events and mini concerts that week, too.

My hope is that Mammoth continues attracting fine musical talent and that it keeps fulfilling a niche for interesting and profitable festivals/races/retreats/etc. The locals musicians have benefited from these festivals and try to carry on the activity through the year by performing in the Eastern Sierra Chamber Orchestra led by Felici's Brian Schuldt and with one or two musicals per year, and of course by attending the Felici Trio's amazing concerts throughout the year. Maybe Mammoth's current branding efforts should consider the slogan "Mammoth isn't just for skiing anymore."