Garritson’s piano program reimagines composers’ themes

By Brad Gischia

ThePine Mountain Music Festival brings some of the best musicians in the world to Upper Peninsula stages. Dr. Lindsay Garritson is the pianist with the Bergonzi Trio and has been invited to also present a piano program this year.

“The directors of the Pine Mountain Music Festival gave me a lot of flexibility in what I wanted to present,” Garritson said. “I chose a variety of composers and time periods. I would say that the theme of them all is ‘reimagined.’”

Garritson will present pieces that have inspired other composers to write variations on those original themes. “The idea is that a composer will take a group of notes, sometimes originally composed, sometimes inspired by someone else, and write those notes in different and dramatic ways,” she said. One of the pieces she has chosen is by Beethoven, which she classified as “more of a traditional variation.”

Garritson has also chosen to play pieces by Reena Esmail, a contemporary composer of Indian descent. She said, “What I love about her music is that she’s classically trained but takes elements of her Indian heritage and suffuses them into her music.” Esmail takes a series of notes and writes variations on those notes. “She works in an amazing way that I think a lot of audiences wouldn’t be familiar with,” Garritson said. “She fuses the two cultural worlds together in a very beautiful way.”

Another piece Garritson will present will be a Debussy variation on his work The Sunken Cathedral paired with a work inspired by that piece by Australian composer Carl Vine. “The Debussy piece is very classical, very French sounding from the Impressionist era of classical music,” Garritson said. The Vine composition is titled Three Pieces and was premiered by Garritson last year. “Presenting them together is a good contrast and a great way to show the way that variations work,” she said.

“The program will weave contemporary composers and traditional composers in an accessible way,” Garritson said. She’s selected a wide variety of composers, including Latin composer Tanya Leon, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Garritson said Leon fuses elements of her Cuban heritage into her music.

Garritson hopes that her program will draw new fans to the genre. “We as people and a culture are constantly being told that classical music is dying,” she said. “Audiences are shrinking, organizations are trying to find ways to keep audiences engaged, and that’s been the case for many, many years.” Garritson, however, is ever hopeful: “As a performer and a musician, I’m amazed at how many wonderful musicians and composers there are. I keep learning about new ones all of the time.”

She added, “Classical music is very much alive and well. Composers are taking old themes, and more traditional ways of writing classical music and infusing their unique cultural backgrounds into it. That’s why I wanted to include these kinds of pieces because it’s important to constantly showcase what people are doing.” providing classical music experiences at an affordable rate. We want to keep our finger on the pulse of what it is that people are listening to and figuring out what keeps them coming. Right now we have the freedom to test the waters a little and attract people that might not realize they’re fans of classical music.”

For more information on schedules, tickets or to donate, go to pinemountainmusicfestival.com.

Brad Gischia is a writer and artist native to Upper Michigan. He has published two children’s books and done illustrations for both comic books and novels.