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S THE TYPE OF PERSON generally predisposed to wander around with hypermodern indie bands jamming in my earphones over, say, a Shostakovitch quintet for piano and strings, I expected the 39th Telluride Chamber Music Festival to be a learning experience. I have plenty to learn, after all. My entire understanding of the famous Russian composer Igor Stravinsky stems from having watched the French film Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky during a short-lived foreign-film phase, and I’m fairly positive I’ve forgotten all that my childhood piano teacher ever taught me. My expectations going in were as follows: 1. I’ll make mother proud by suddenly becoming cultured and 2. There will probably be violins. I did not expect to tear up. And I definitely didn’t expect to head home and purchase Debussy for Daydreaming: Music to Caress Your Innermost Thoughts from Amazon.com that evening. On the first Friday concert, after a Brahms sonata for violin and piano, players took the Sheridan Opera House stage and broke into Debussy’s String Quartet (No. 1, his only). And somewhere in the swelling of the cello and the dancing of the violin, I found myself in love, heartbroken, hopeful, lonely, and dizzy with happiness. The aura of the whole thing stuck around
through the Shostakovitch quintet and into the reception, where I’m fairly positive I started gushing to cellist Stephen Harrison like some kind of crazed cello groupie. Luckily Harrison is a tall, affable guy who didn’t (as I had slightly feared) start quizzing me on my classical music knowledge. One truly striking aspect of the festival is its inviting atmosphere and accessibility. In addition to a concert in the park and two Friday evening performances, the festival has two Sunday matinee showings and a free children’s concert. Violins, decorated with paint or collage are auctioned for the benefit of the Telluride Chamber Music Society. These violins lined one reception table while small construction-paper violins, crafted by the kids’ program at the Wilkinson Public Library, covered the walls. The packed children’s concert took place at 11 a.m. on the second Friday, and featured young musicians in addition to the professionals, with ice cream after the performances. Finally, the festival concluded with the San Francisco Opera’s Erin Neff singing a Spanish-inspired program as persona Lola del Fuego, a switch from the purely instrumental performances usually found in chamber music. This is not your grouchy, second-grade piano teacher’s music festival. It’s the converging of people taken by the same transporting magic I discovered and ready to fill the world with more.