Home is where the music is: Toasting the 50th anniversary of Walk Festival Hall – JH News&Guide
Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman, Sharon Isbin, Maxim Shostakovich, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, New York Philharmonic, Audra McDonald, Renee Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Norah Jones …
A guest list like that requires appropriate accommodations. And for 50 years, the Grand Teton Music Festival has been able to welcome such world-class musicians — not to mention the 1,700-plus players from orchestras, ensembles and conservatories throughout North America who have populated the Festival Orchestra over the decades — with what they deserve, and what many did not expect, in Walk Festival Hall in Teton Village.
This summer, the festival marks the 50th anniversary of its heart and its home, its foundation and its facade, the site of hundreds of singular musical experiences enjoyed by tens of thousands of audience members.
“We owe the hall — and the vision behind the hall — everything,” Sir Donald Runnicles, music director for the Grand Teton Music Festival since 2005, said via email. “It is a remarkable instrument which we play every summer.”
This year, the festival’s 63rd season, the hall will host 28 concerts featuring some three dozen guests. The first program of the season, a chamber music program with works by Mozart, Brahms, Bernhard Garfield and Christopher Lowry, starts at 7 p.m. Thursday with the week’s guest soloist, violinist Augustin Hadelich, joining for Dvorak’s Terzetto for two violins and viola.
…“Being in Jackson Hole,” Runnicles said, “being with this orchestra, being in our hall, and being in this community are the highlights of my year. It’s a gift that keeps giving. It’s an inspiration that keeps inspiring.”