Baroque festival celebrates 20th anniversary

It was a happy celebration for the musicians of the Montana Baroque Music Festival, but halfway through their Wednesday performance, security entered and went to the stage to check the identification of bass player Andrew Harmon.

Most of the group kept playing as Aaron Cain shined his flashlight in Harmon's eyes for identification verification. Though he was dressed for the part, when a security man arrives on a scene singing in German, it might be a clue that it's part of the performance. "I thought it was perfect and hilarious. Someone in the hallway thought he was an actual security guard," said Adam LaMotte, the festival's artistic director and one of the violinists.

"Nightwatchman" was one of eight pieces in Wednesday evening's concert by the nine musicians that performed in the annual three-day concert at Quinn's Hot Springs Resort. The veteran musicians included: LaMott, Greg Ewer, Matthias Maute and his wife Sophie Lariviere, Victoria Gunn, Andrew Harmon, John Lenti, Joanna Blendulf (Cain's wife), and Carrie Krause of Bozeman and the only Montanan of the group.

Titled the "Greatest Hits for Our 20th Anniversary," last week was the Montana Baroque Music Festival's 20th year to perform at Quinn's, which began with the former nonprofit organization the Sanders County Arts Council leading the way to bring musicians from around the world to Quinn's with the help of the resort manager, Denise Moreth, resort owner, the late Andre Melief, and former Plains resident Jean Morrison, who now lives in Mexico. The musicians had a group phone call to Morrison on Wednesday to thank her for having the insight to start the festival.

"It went swimmingly. The audience was very responsive, seemingly enjoying every bit of it," said LaMott. "And we musicians had a blast performing. As it was our 20th year, we pulled out a lot of repertoire from our past years, so it was a greatest hits festival of sorts," he said.

All of the musicians have done the show for several years, though LaMotte is the only one who has participated from the start. All have more than 30 years experience under their belts and all have been playing since childhood, said Ewer, a violinist from Portland, Ore. The present group traveled from Oregon, Indiana, Washington, Montana, and Canada to perform. They collectively agree on the pieces and get the selected music about two weeks before the show, rehearsing individually until the Monday when they arrive at Paradise. Once at the resort they practiced three hours each day throughout the week.

During intermission each day, Lenti gave a lesson to the crowd on his theorbo, a 14-string instrument that dates back to 1600, the start of the baroque period, which went to the 1750s. He used the instrument during the Thursday performance. Gunn gave a special solo segment with her nyckelharpa, a Swedish string instrument that is slightly larger than a violin with strings and keys.

The performance included eight pieces on Tuesday and nine on Thursday, including an encore piece called "Chaccona" to pay tribute to Melief. The musicians also donned cowboy hats for their last number. One hundred and forty-five people attended the performance the first night, followed by 136 on Wednesday and 170 on Thursday, said Silvia McSwain, the event manager at the resort. McSwain said that the majority of attendees came from outside Sanders County with a man from Pennsylvania, but she believes the number of local folks is growing at about 30% this year. Three-quarters of the people attend all three performances, she added.

"This was my first, but it won't be my last. They were wonderful," said Andrea Globokar of Salt Lake City. "It's world class music in such an aesthetically perfect environment," said Bob Crowder of Thompson Falls.

McSwain this year changed the arrangement format to have the musicians in front of the glass doors with the mountains behind them. She received positive feedback from several guests on the change. LaMott said the musicians liked it, too.

"They are incredible. If we didn't love them, then we wouldn't have come back year after year," said Lynn Poitras of Missoula, who missed only one year. Poitras added that she likes the performance in Paradise Hall versus outside, like they used to have it. "One year, we were sitting out on the grass with our umbrellas and the rain and lightning came," she said.

The musicians added a bit more humor to their act this year, mostly at the expense of viola musicians. LaMott told the crowd that the only difference between a violin and a fiddle was that the violin has strings and a fiddle has "strangs," he said with a Southern accent. In the last number on Thursday, Maute invited guests to get up and dance, though only one couple did toward the end of the piece. "We like to create a casual atmosphere and musical jokes are always fun to include. I guess we were feeling giddy with excitement and any jokes that came to mind weren't hampered at all," said LaMott.

"This was a special year, as it's our 20th year, a huge milestone," he said "It is a testament to the power of music, the power of the beauty of the surroundings, and the power of the connection to our audience, some of whom have been with us since the beginning."