In the summer of 1987, the notion of classical music ever gaining a foothold in the Vail Valley seemed like a remote prospect to Jerry Jones, then president of Beaver Creek Resort.
“I was out in the plaza handing out to tickets to anybody who would take them, because we virtually could not sell them,” the Edwards developer and real estate broker recalls. “We did everything to promote it, and we had very limited success.”
But the days of performers outnumbering audience members are long behind the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, which marks its 20th-anniversary season with a lineup of 37 concerts kicking off June 24 and running through Aug. 2.
Not only has the festival managed to take root, but it has also become a nationally recognized summer classical series. In Colorado, it is second in size only to the longer-established Aspen Music Festival.
“It’s a known entity,” said violinist Toby Appel, a festival regular since its founding. “In the beginning, no one knew anything about it. If you asked them if there was some music going on in Colorado, they would say, ‘Absolutely, go to Aspen.’ That’s no longer the case.”
In 1987, John Giovando, executive director of Music from Angel Fire (N.M.), was contemplating the establishment of a second festival somewhere else. And Jones and others were looking for ways to attract people to the still-fledging Beaver Creek, which he described as a ghost town in the summer.
The two entities connected, and Music from Angel Fire presented a few trial concerts at Beaver Creek’s Village Hall that summer. Despite the struggles selling tickets, Giovando, Jones and others believed in the region’s potential, and Bravo! was incorporated that fall.
“There was really very little going on in terms of culture before we got there, so it was a new canvas, a completely new canvas,” said founding artistic
director Ida Kavafian. “So it was a venture that was a little bit scary.”
Things started modestly. During its first summer in 1988, the festival operated on a $675,000 budget and presented six concerts, which drew 2,100 people. Its office was over a garage in Vail’s Lionshead district.
“It was so cramped that if people were working at a computer, they had to get up to let people in the room,” Kavafian said.
Since then, the annual budget has climbed to more than $7 million, and attendance soared to 60,534 in 2006. At the same time, the artistic quality has steadily improved. Agents for major soloists such as pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet now angle for engagements.
“It’s that kind of phone call that we certainly didn’t get 10 years ago,” said flutist Eugenia Zukerman, who took over as artistic director in 1998.
Shift to orchestras
Bravo! focused exclusively on chamber or small-ensemble offerings originally, but the emphasis has gradually shifted to orchestral music. It first presented the Rochester (N.Y) Philharmonic in 1989, and it later became the country’s only festival to present three orchestral residencies each summer.
The big turning point came in 2003, when the New York Philharmonic began what has become an annual residency. The orchestra gave the series an instant credibility boost and helped increase attendance by more than 23 percent in just two years.
The festival’s success with the Philharmonic led to its engagement this year of the world-class Philadelphia Orchestra. And it’s possible that another major orchestra could take Rochester’s place after its contract expires this year.
“Whereas Ravinia or Blossom or Tanglewood gives you one of the great orchestras, Bravo! Vail now gives you a selection of them,” said Alan Fletcher, the Aspen Music Festival’s president and chief executive officer, comparing Bravo! to other top classical festivals.
Also boosting the festival was the 1998 opening of the 530-seat Vilar Center for the Arts in Beaver Creek, which provides an accoustically superior setting for chamber music, and an overhaul of Vail’s Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in 2001.
While the bulk of the festival’s offerings are held in those two venues, concerts also take place in other sites across the Vail Valley, including the Gypsum Town Hall, Eagle Ranch and several grand residences each summer.
Such a geographical reach sets Bravo! apart from virtually all its peers, which typically present performances in one city or even one venue.
Emphasis on classics
While the festival has commissioned new works from each of its 19 annual composers-in-residence, its focus has stayed primarily on familiar classical repertoire, with several pops concerts thrown in along the way.
“When you hear music in an outdoor setting where there are concession stands and you can eat and you can drink, many of them (audience members) do not want to be taxed intellectually,” Zukerman said. “They would just like to hear the ‘New World Symphony’ over and over. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I think a balance is really important.”
While Giovando envisioned much of the growth the festival has enjoyed, he admits that he underestimated the “grief” that would come with it, everything from building a viable board to securing enough artist housing.
Jones, a board member for about 10 years, said disagreements among supporters emerged almost immediately.
“It became very, very political – fights over who got the back page of the program and who was invited to what. But that competition and interest helped build Bravo!,” he said.
The biggest crisis the festival has faced was a loss of funding from New York investor Alberto Vilar, the namesake of the Vilar Center. In 2000, he pledged $500,000 annually for three years, with half to cover the costs of the Philharmonic’s visits.
But a technology stock crash and other setbacks forced him to renege on his commitment, and the festival had to scramble for money elsewhere. Among other things, it established the Friends of the New York Philharmonic, with a required membership commitment of $15,000-$30,000 annually.
As festival leaders look to the future, they do not foresee any significant changes in the basic structure of the series, but they hope to find a way to lengthen its season and add more performances.
“It’s extremely compact at the moment,” Zukerman said. “There are so many concerts and there’s so much going on day by day that I personally feel we need some breathing room between concerts and so do the artists.”
But the festival has to share its facilities, which it does not own, with other organizations, including the Vail International Dance Festival, which has a new artistic director and ambitions of its own.
“What our desires are is to keep this upward growth going artistically,” Zukerman said. “I don’t think we’re ever going to want to take a step backwards. Who does?”
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
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Bravo! Vail Valley
Music Festival
CLASSICAL MUSIC|Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, Vail; Vilar Center for the Arts, Beaver Creek; and other venues across the Vail Valley; June 24-Aug. 2|
FREE-$225|877-812-5700 or
vailmusicfestival.org.
Talks on for orchestra to take Rochester's spot at Bravo fest
The Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival is in discussions with at least five orchestras, including the Minnesota Orchestra, to replace the Rochester (N.Y.) Orchestra when its residency contract expires this summer.
Eugenia Zukerman, the festival’s artistic director, did not rule out the possibility that Rochester might return, but she quickly added that the festival has a history of rotating ensembles on its roster.
“Nothing can ever really be counted on to stay the same,” she said. “It just depends on what orchestras need to do and what we need to do at this point. At this point, I can’t say we know for sure what is happening in ’08.”
Each summer, the festival hosts summer residencies – typically eight to 10 days – by three orchestras. This year’s lineup features Rochester, the New York Philharmonic and the debut of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Eight different orchestras have performed in Vail since its first season in 1988, including Philadelphia. Of those, Rochester has appeared more than anyone else, making appearances in 18 summers since 1989.
But with two other world-renowned orchestras on its lineup this year, the festival is under pressure to replace Rochester – a well-regarded mid-level orchestra – with a higher-caliber ensemble.
“Since the New York Philharmonic has come, many orchestras have come to us, and they want to come to Vail,” Zukerman said. “Yes, Minnesota is an orchestra that we’re talking to. Quite a number have come to us, and I could name you five with whom we’ve talked.”
– Kyle MacMillan
