Envisioning Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, do pasty and pristine wilderness spring to mind?
How about Pagliacci and Puccini? Not so much.
Yet since 1991, Pine Mountain Music Festival has presented
opera, symphony concerts and chamber music around the Keweenaw and
nearby areas each summer.
This year, PMMF offers 41 performances in Marquette,
Houghton, Iron Mountain, Ontonagon, Michigan, and Land O’Lakes,
Wisconsin. With a theme of “Myth, Fairy Tale and Fantasy,”
concert-goers will be treated to the operas “La Cenerentola”
(Cinderella) and “Hansel and Gretel” and a host of concerts.
It all began in 1991 when Laura Deming, a cellist with the
Lyric Opera of Chicago orchestra, found herself in Iron Mountain,
Michigan. Her husband, a Methodist minister, transferred to a
congregation there.
“Laura got the idea to have a week of chamber music concerts
in the area with her colleagues at the Lyric,” says Kathy Tompkins, the
festival’s executive director. “People wanted more.”
More they got. The next summer, PMMF staged its first opera.
It added Houghton with an operatic revue, “Stage Hits, Opera to
Broadway.”
Talented high school students learn from orchestra member mentors
in the Pine Mountain Music Festival’s unique youth program. It’s one of
the draws for the professionals. PHOTO COURTESY OF PINE MOUNTAIN MUSIC FESTIVAL
“Both the audience and the performers loved that, because people
knew many of the pieces, and performers got to sing their favorites,”
says Kathy.
PMMF is unique for several reasons, not the least being its rustic
roots. Summer music festivals exist in communities nationwide, but few
are so far outside of major cities.
Despite the remoteness, people attend the festival in droves -
roughly 7,000 U.P. residents and visitors last year. Considering the
Keweenaw is home to about 40,000 people, that’s a high percentage of
folks opting for high culture.
PMMF attracts performers from all over the country, including the
University of Miami-based Bergonzi String Quartet, which has been the
festival’s resident quartet for more than a decade.
Bergonzi’s Glenn Basham, who is also concertmaster of the Naples (Florida) Philharmonic, explains PMMF’s youth program.
“Many orchestras around the country have youth programs of some
kind, but we’re the only one that focuses on high school students,”
says Glenn.
PMMF auditions high school musicians nationwide, who compete to
spend the summer playing with a professional orchestra. For a young
musician serious about the field, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime,
tantamount to a White House internship for an aspiring politician.
The number of spots available depends on the caliber of students who audition.
“If we find two outstanding violists, okay, we’ll use both of
them,” Glenn says. “If we don’t find a talented-enough cellist, we
won’t have a student in that slot.”
Typically, about 20 students play with PMMF each year.
“It’s a delicate balance,” says Glenn. “We want to give this
experience to talented kids, and yet, people pay money to come and hear
these concerts, so we have to make sure we sound as good as possible as
a whole. That’s the challenge.”
To that end, the adults take the high schoolers under their collective wing in a mentor/apprentice role.
Far from being a burden to the professionals, it’s one draw that brings them back year after year.
“We just love it,” Glenn admits.
“You have a student sitting next to you in the orchestra pit
on opening night, so excited, so nervous. “It reminds you of your first
time playing with an orchestra, and of why you got into this in the
first place.”
The high schoolers stay in chaperoned dormitories on the
Michigan Technological University campus and have intense practice
sessions before the adult musicians arrive. The summer is a whirlwind
from then on.
“We rehearse, we work with the students, and then we have the
performances,” Glenn says. “When we do get time off, we like to hike
and go for picnics by the lake and just enjoy the beauty of the area.”
It sounds, well, idyllic. And it is. Except for the cold,
hard reality of money. When it comes to funding the arts, money
continues to be a struggle.
“Let’s just say it keeps us on our toes,” Kathy says.
Compounding the tightly cinched non-profit purse strings is
the modest income level in the U.P., where the median household income
in the communities that PMMF serves is just $32,000.
“That doesn’t leave a whole lot left over to buy expensive
concert tickets,” Kathy says. “That’s why we keep prices low. We are
not going to make it impossible for locals to attend these concerts,
period.”
Generous U.P businesses and individuals do help.
“We’ve got some music lovers who are very good to us,” she says. “I wish we had 10 more of them.”
The Dow Foundation this year offered a matching grant for new contributions up to $100,000.
The festival pinches pennies where it can. Its yearly budget
hovers near $700,000 … an amount spent by some companies to stage just
one opera.
“We do pay our performers, but not premium rates,” she says.
“And in terms of wining and dining them … there isn’t any of that in
the budget, but volunteers sometimes host events.”
Performers get perks of a different kind. Local people put up
visiting performers in their homes. Those like Glenn, who brings his
family, rent apartments on campus and enjoy the beauty of the local
landscape.
“I can’t imagine summer without coming to the U.P.,” says
Glenn. “It’s really our second home. We bring our kids, who just love
it. Being from Florida, we’re used to oppressive heat in the summers.
We love coming to the U.P. It’s idyllic there. Like heaven.”
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