Anne-Marie McDermott reflects on 2023 Bravo! Vail season: ‘Completely exhilarating, artistically thrilling’
Tom Cohen/Courtesy photo
By Aug. 4, Anne-Marie McDermott and her Bravo! Vail staff will be in need of a little TLC.
“We’re basket-cases by the end of the festival,” McDermott said last month as her 13th summer as artistic director winds down its final week.
“But it’s incredibly satisfying. You know, things have gone well and then you can spend three days in bed catching up on eating and sleeping,” she laughed.
All kidding aside, the seven-week festival has been a rousing success. McDermott felt it was the first “normal” summer since the pandemic.
“It feels like everyone is kind of treating it like a celebration — musicians and audience alike,” she said.
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Four week-long stays by world-class orchestras (with all four musical directors in attendance, a rarity), three commissioned pieces, continued community educational expansion and a balance of young prodigies and old favorites soloing at the front of Gerald Ford Amphitheater — filled nightly by Vail’s notoriously generous crowd — made for a “completely exhilarating, artistically thrilling” season from the first downbeat to the final fermata.
“I can’t believe it’s my 13th summer here,” she said. “It feels as fresh as it ever did.”
Variety is the spice of life
“I personally think it’s important for the public to see that the artistic director is also an artist themselves,” said McDermott, who practices piano two hours daily between welcoming visiting ensembles at the auditorium in the morning and attending various afternoon fundraisers and other functions before the evening concerts.
“I think by doing that also, I feel like I’m able to attract other musicians to come here,” she elaborated.
The direct benefits to Bravo! from McDermott’s choice to wear multiple hats — in addition to 90-100 annual performances, she’s also a regular international contest jury member — were clearly evident this season. There were six early-career competition winners featured at the festival.
Yunchan Lim, who became the youngest gold-medal winner in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition’s history in 2022, performed Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the New York Philharmonic.
“His playing is kind of miraculous,” McDermott said.
Rachmaninov’s second was performed by Bruce Liu, the 2021 winner of the international Chopin Piano Competition, during the Philadelphia Orchestra’s stay. McDermott plucked Van Cliburn runner-up Anna Genuishene and fellow finalist Ilya Shmukler for a joyfully laborious — and glorious — walkthrough of all nine of Sergei Prokofiev’s piano sonatas over two concerts as part of the Immersive Experiences series. Finally, Jonathan Mak and Illia Ovcharenko, winner of the 2022 Honens International Piano Competition, were selected as the two Bravo! piano fellows.
Though she’s a self-professed “piano nut,” McDermott’s rolodex reaches outside the piano world, too. Russian-Israeli violinist Maxim Vengerov made his Bravo! Vail debut performing Mendelssohn’s concerto in E minor with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the end of June. On July 2, both cellist Jan Vogler and Colombian vocalist Lido Pimienta also made their festival debuts.
“One thing I realized early on as artistic director is that variety is key; I just try to find that good balance of introducing new artists and bringing back beloved artists,” McDermott said. “The festival is globalizing in a lot of ways.”
Next year, McDermott will invite the festival’s first visiting Mexican orchestra, Orcquesta Sinfonica de Mineria. Unbeknownst to McDermott — who has performed with the ensemble and recently began a Beethoven piano concertos recording project with them — conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto happens to own a home in Beaver Creek.
“It’s a big step forward for Bravo! branching out, bringing an orchestra from Latin America,” she said. “So, I’m very proud of that and very excited for that.”
‘We have really one of the greatest audiences in the world’
The Gerald Ford Amphitheater audience has proven adept at accomplishing one of McDermott’s primary objectives when she signed on in 2010: make the soloist feel like a rockstar on stage. Even though it’s not Orchestra Hall or Lincoln Center, many of the performances provide peeks at the next big star.
“That’s the cool thing,” McDermott stated. “We’re getting some of these artists at the very beginning of their careers.”
The festival harnesses similar energy to inspire and cultivate local young artists at the beginning of their careers as well. Vengerov met with Music Makers Haciendo Musica — an educational project Bravo! started about a decade ago — backstage after his performance.
“We’re finding more and more ways with connecting with this incredible community. It’s a real priority for us,” she said.
“We’re not looking to create a new generation of classical music superstars, but what we’re trying to do is break down the barriers for young people to attend a concert and realize how fun and thrilling it is.”
In a valley where sports often take center stage, McDermott is keen on capitalizing on the summer-long presence of the world’s best musicians to cultivate the community’s music education garden. The Presto Club gives kids 8-14 a pre-concert social event and a chance to sit together and eat during the concert while going through an interactive booklet. There’s also an invitation to post-concert artist meet-and-greets. And then there’s summer intensives — five-day camps for students to receive coaching and instruction as they prepare solo and chamber works/compositions for a final-day performance.
Still, seeds planted during a Joe Alessi performance need watering for 12 months.
“Where we’ve been focused is, ‘how can we actually have an impact on these local kids year-round?” McDermott asked. “We have to contribute to this community that gives us so much.”
While McDermott knows she can’t take her classical music-loving audience for granted and the need for education is urgent, she doesn’t believe a musicology degree is required to become a Beethoven believer, per se.
“I don’t think people need to know anything. Truly, I don’t,” she said. “I think you come, you sit there, you hear the Philadelphia Orchestra on stage — you’re going to be impacted.”
It’s one reason why she considers herself blessed to have the resources to create such a comprehensive and high-caliber calendar every year.
“We’re all really lucky,” she said. “This festival is unique in the world.”
