Evolution of a festival m
A look at the birth and growth of Music in the Mountains

Musicians perform under the Festival Tent at Durango Mountain Resort during the 2010 installment of Music In the Mountains. In the last 25 years, MITM has grown from an upstart that featured 11 musicians to this year’s festival with 250 performers playing 35 concerts./Photo by Stephen Eginoire

by Page L. Buono

Twenty-six years ago, Mischa Semanitzky and his wife Jenny St. John ventured to Durango on the suggestion of their friend Foxie Mason. A part-time Durango resident, Mason suggested that the town housed great potential for Mischa and Jenny’s vision of a summer classical music festival. As fate would have it, musicians of the Dallas Fine Arts Chamber, founded by Mischa, soon found themselves out of the 100-degree temperatures and humidity of Dallas summers and in the mountains of Colorado. The music festival soon grew to be unmatched by any in the region.

“We started thinking, there has to be a better place than Dallas to spend our summers,” Mischa said. “And when we visited, we discovered that in Durango there was literally nothing going on musically in the summertime.”

At the time, there was a small theatre program in Durango, and Mischa partnered with them to perform the “Peter and the Wolf,” along with other musical theatre productions.

“We all saw the opportunity for expansion, and we began to build,” Mischa said.

With generous contributions from Fort Lewis College, Burns Bank (now Bank of Colorado), and the Ballantine Family Foundation, the festival garnered sufficient support to begin the next year, in the summer of 1987.

Durango Ski Corp. and Purgatory Resort got behind the festival and signed a contract for a series of summer concerts, beginning what would be a quarter-century partnership. The budget for Music in the Mountains (MITM) the first year was $15,000 – a drop in the bucket compared to its million dollar budget in 2009.
“It’s so interesting looking back,” Mischa said. “The first summer we started with 11 musicians, and by only the second summer, it had more than doubled in size to include 24 musicians.”

Twenty-five years later, the festival boasts nearly 10 times the number of musicians and concerts as its start-up year.

Greg Hustis, who became artistic director when Mischa retired in 2008 and who has been involved as a musician since the beginning, said his love for the program grows with his love of Durango and the region.

“I started the second year,” Hustis said. He remembers arriving in Durango late at night and parking his car and tired self in the allotted housing at Purgatory Village. “I looked out the window in the morning, and almost dropped my teeth.”

As the festival extended its roots in Durango, Mischa recognized the need to reach out to the broader community, and in the second year added a “Family Festivo” at Durango’s Rotary Park, as well as expanding “Peter and the Wolf” to Ignacio.

“We knew early on that we wanted to be really involved in the community,” Mischa said. “That started with the ‘Peter and the Wolf’ and an afternoon in the park down in Durango.”

Now, in addition to the main festival at Durango Mountain Resort, MITM has shows at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College and has had a presence in Pagosa Springs.

The festival has grown and evolved over the years, always nurtured and inspired by Mischa, but with invaluable input from others. In 1997 musician Arkady Fomin brought the New Conservatory of Dallas – which he founded – to the festival, giving local youth and participants from all over the country an opportunity to train with world-class musicians.

Additionally, Hustis proposed adding chamber concerts to the now three-week long festival, and four were added to the program in 1997.

“Mischa was really good about letting people run with their ideas,” Hustis said. “I remember telling him I thought it would be good to add chamber music to the festival, and he basically said ‘OK, make it happen.’” Hustis said that sort of support fostered a lot of creativity among those involved.

Perhaps most influentially, MITM has reached out to the community through its Music in the Mountains Goes to School Program, which began in 2000 and was co-founded by Mischa and then Board President Ann Flatten. At the time, the program offered more than 20 instructional sessions and mini-concerts for area schools. The following year, in the interest of cultivating a love of arts in local children, Conservatory Music in the Mountains added a new children’s program, “Kids with Strings Attached,” for beginning musicians.

“So many school systems don’t support the arts,” Hustis said. “9-R has embraced MITM and its involvement in the schools. It is a very important program that we hope to continue and to grow.”

Mischa added that the program has created an excellent opportunity for MITM to remain present and active in the community year-round. “We’ve been so pleased with the way the community has responded,” he said. “And we’ve had a marvelous time working in the schools.”

The festival has received wide support from the community and broader region for the unique influence it provides, but it hasn’t been without tough times.

Two summers in particular stand out to MITM employees and board members as especially challenging – the fires of 2002 and the collapse of the economy in 2008.

“During the fires we had huge problems with bears,” Mischa said. “I found it amusing that when the bears broke into the tent and began eating the musicians’ sheet music, they only consumed the trombone player’s part.” Mischa added that his anecdote about bears in Durango is now a standing joke amongst his musicians back in Dallas as well. He also said they chose not to play “The Firebird Suite” by Igor Stravinksy as they had earlier planned out of respect for the locals.

The economic collapse saw the festival’s budget of nearly $1 million in 2009 drop by nearly a quarter in 2010. Greg Hustis and Guillermo Figueroa, newly introduced as music director and conductor after Mischa’s retirement, were charged with creating a vision in line with budget restrictions.
“My hat goes off to Greg and Guillermo for their ability to work within a budget a quarter smaller than the previous year and still deliver an outstanding festival,” said Susan Lander, executive director of MITHM.

Hustis added, “People really rallied around MITM, and that says a lot.”

Gary Derck, CEO of Durango Mountain Resort, said the festival is a major undertaking, particularly given the recession. “Certainly Mischa is the father, but it takes a lot of hard work from a lot of people to make it happen,” he said.

This year, the festival will feature more than 250 performers and host more than 35 concerts, including performances by world famous soloists Vadim Gluzman (14 years with MITM), Avi Reichert (13 years), and Angela Yoff (11 years). It will also feature such bands as Stringfever, 3 Twins Broad Band, and a return performance by the Mambo Kings.

Special events will include a Pops Night Benefit Dinner and Concert; a special performance by Stringfever; the 25th Anniversary Gala Celebration, Reception and Surprise Concert (invitation only); and “Delectable Duo,” an intimate evening with Vadim Gluzman (violin) and Angela Yoffe (piano) at the Glacier Club.

 “Watching the festival continue to develop so beautifully has been as gratifying as building it,” Mischa said from his home in Phoenix as he prepares to make his way back to Durango. In coming weeks, Semanitzky will be honored by his many supporters, and to their delight, he will guest conduct a performance on July 30.

Music in the Mountains kicks off on July 11 and runs through July 31. The festival features 35 concerts in and around Durango. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.musicinthemountains.com or stop by the office located at 1063 Main Avenue.