Festival offers fitting finale for violinist

Monica Huggett discovered northwest Montana while cycling to Spokane in 2003. She met Jean Morrison in her travels, and the two brainstormed the Montana Baroque Music Festival, a tradition spanning almost two decades in Paradise.

Huggett was one of eight performers at the festival this year, held at Quinn's Hot Springs Resort. It was special for Huggett as she has decided to retire, and Thursday night's performance was her last.

This year, in the resorts' events center along the Clark Fork River, more than 150 people enjoyed three nights of concerts for the 18th baroque festival on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Huggett has been with the Montana festival every step of the way, so it was a fitting choice for the violinist's final performances as she prepares to retire after a career spanning five decades.

"I'm going bloody blind," Huggett said of her having macular degeneration and having difficulties seeing the music. She used larger print on her music stand along with a special light to help during the performance. Much of Tuesday's performance was dedicated to Huggett, but she performed in only two pieces on Thursday. Both times, she received standing ovations.

The crowd consisted of people from Sanders County, Missoula, Bozeman, Washington and Oregon. Denise Moreth, General Manager of Quinn's, said the first year it was almost all people from Oregon who followed the musicians. Many people have been at the resort for each of the 18 festivals. Moreth said one couple, the Norths from Oregon, take a train to Whitefish and rent a car to attend the baroque festival. "They haven't missed even one," Moreth said.

"It has been lovely to play for people that just came to enjoy the music," Huggett said after Thursday's performance. "This festival at Quinn's was designed to appeal to everybody."

The festival last week at Quinn's felt like an evening among friends in the intimate setting of the event center. "These guys are amazing," Moreth told the crowd prior to the performance. "Where else can you get this intimacy with this talent?" Musicians interacted with the crowd between pieces, and John Lenti answered questions about his lute and guitars during the intermission. They also signed festival posters after the show.

Adam LaMotte has been with the baroque festival since its inception and has now taken over as artistic director for Huggett. "I think it's important that when you're an older musician that you know when to step aside and let the younger ones step up," said Huggett, who served as artistic director for four years before handing that role over to LaMotte. "It's good for them. It makes them dig deeper and develop."

LaMotte told the story during Wednesday's performance of how he met fellow festival violinist Greg Ewer when they were kids. They didn't know each other that well in middle school but connected in high school. They both attended the High School for Performing and Visual Arts in Houston and discovered both played the violin in orchestra. "In middle school playing the violin is not something you really boast about," LaMotte joked. "The rest is history," he said, as he and Ewer have been playing together since. Both violinists now live in Portland. The duo then played three movements of Jean-Marie Leclair's "Duo in A Major" and one of Louis-Gabriel Guillemain's piece of the same name. Listening to LaMotte and Ewer, concert goers could tell they had been playing together for decades.

The final piece in Wednesday's performance was "L'Inghilterro (from the Four Nations)" by Antonio Vivaldi. During the introduction earlier in the evening, LaMotte said it was a version reconstructed by Mattias Maute, who performed with flutes and recorders during the festival. "This is Matthias's version of what Vivaldi might have written," LaMotte said. The crowd laughed as if they knew exactly what LaMotte was talking about, another testament to the tradition of concert goers who attend the festival each year. Before starting the musicians on the Vivaldi performance, Maute told the crowd that he "had some time during the pandemic" and reconstructed three movements of the piece, the final of which he dedicated to Huggett.

"It started in a small tent-like building by Jean Morrison and Monica and just grew from there," Moreth said Thursday as she presented Huggett with several gifts before the violinist's final performance.

This was Maute's 13th year with the Montana Baroque Music Festival. He acknowledged Huggett Wednesday evening, telling her how much it meant to meet her. "You are a phenomenal musician, a phenomenal violinist and a phenomenal character," Maute told her.