Bravo! Vail: In the hall of the mountain king

This article was originally published in our Autumn 2024 issue. Click here to subscribe to our quarterly print magazine and be the first to read our January 2025 issue features.

The mountain air carries scents of flowers from the garden just outside the entrance. It’s green everywhere, from the grass blanketing the ground to the evergreens that calmly fence the space, and beyond that, the endless trees that cover the mountains behind the open amphitheatre. The Colorado resort of Vail is a skier’s paradise of white snow in the winter, but come summertime, the cozy village is set against this vibrant forest.

Clouds threaten to pass overhead, but the crowd on the lawn is ready, armed with rain jackets, umbrellas – and even tarps – along with their picnic blankets and dinner spreads of sandwiches, fruit and grain bowls. A few couples in the theatre seats under the awning, between the stage and the lawn, crack open boxes of buttery popcorn. As birds, squirrels and those mountains listen in, the orchestra begins to play.

For six weeks from late June to the beginning of August, the Bravo! Vail festival presents performances every day, including a chamber music series, intimate ‘soirees’ at private residences, community concerts at churches, libraries and the ‘Music Box’ – a mobile stage created during the pandemic – and orchestral performances at the open-air Gerald Ford Amphitheater, a short walk from the centre of Vail Village.

It’s an ambitious programme with talent to back it up. The New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Dallas Symphony Orchestra have residencies every summer, and each year Bravo! Vail invites an international chamber orchestra, along with special guests and soloists. In 2024, the Sinfónica de Minería of Mexico, led by conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto, opened the festival, while soprano Susanna Phillips and clarinettist Anthony McGill performed as part of the ‘soiree’ series, Daniil Trifonov joined the chamber music series and Fabio Luisi conducted an Anna Clyne co-commission with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The festival has already announced that the Chamber Orchestra of Europe will perform in 2025.

En plein air: Vail residents and visitors from across the region – and the world – flock to the ski town each summer for the six-week festival

Without a private jet, it’s not exactly easy to get to Vail. The nearest major city is Denver, at least a two- hour drive through the mountains – thankfully, on an easy highway. Once there, you have to contend with the altitude, which is no joke at 2,500m. It’s a testament to Bravo! Vail’s growth and quality, then, that people fill the lawn every day and, according to festival leadership, musicians are happy to make the trip.

‘We also proudly own the fact that we are a classical music festival,’ says pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, who has served as artistic director of Bravo! Vail since 2011 and is responsible for much of the creative programming.

Bravo! Vail aims to enchant everyone from classical music aficionados who travel from Tanglewood to Wolf Trap to Santa Fe each summer, to families looking for relaxing evening entertainment after biking Gore Creek Trail, to locals who call the valley home, explains executive director Caitlin Murray. ‘How do you strike the balance that no matter which end of that spectrum you’re on, you’re feeling welcomed?’ she asks. With engaging programming that reflects the variety and depth of classical music as an art form, the festival answers. That is to say, while it’s certainly not a buttoned-up and serious environment (you can only be so serious when a squirrel joins you onstage), there are no gimmicks. The festival sets out to prove you don’t need to pander to make classical music exciting.

‘No matter what it is, it’s going to be high quality and it’s going to be fun,’ says Murray. ‘That’s a big part of this, too. We take ourselves very seriously and we do what we do very well, but this is a fun, beautiful, wonderful place to be. And we try and make sure that we channel that joyful spirit into what we do.’

In her decade-and-a-half of leadership, McDermott has built out the series that make Bravo! Vail, including ‘Classically Uncorked,’ which highlights more modern classical music with wine pairings. She also established Vail as a space for chamber music ‘by putting together musicians so that it’s only happening here,’ she explains. Rather than have a quartet stop by as part of a regional tour, for example, McDermott aims ‘to incorporate, when possible, orchestral musicians with visiting artists, with soloists, with young artists.’ And every season, the festival commissions a short work for each of the orchestras, demonstrating its commitment to contemporary music. ‘It’s not presenting a concert,’ she says, ‘it’s producing a concert.’

Regular festivalgoers recognise McDermott because she introduces concerts and, in addition to artistic directing, performs throughout the summer. Sometimes, that means taking a microphone to explain the programme and thank donors, before turning around to sit at the piano and play a Beethoven concerto. (She acknowledges it can be ‘challenging,’ but for something like an opening night, ‘I want to greet the audience.’)

McDermott and Murray have also grown the festival’s year-round educational and community-focused work. The Bravo! Vail Music Makers Haciendo Música provides music lessons for kids in Eagle and Lake County. ‘Haciendo Música’ is Spanish for ‘Music Makers,’ which speaks to the sizeable Latino population in Colorado that Bravo! Vail engages with. Sinfónica de Minería was the first Latin American orchestra to have a residency at the festival, a decision McDermott admits was ‘overdue.’ On opening night, the audience sang along to The Star-Spangled Banner – and, enthusiastically, to the Mexican national anthem too.

‘No matter what it is, it’s going to be high quality and it’s going to be fun’: Vail’s programming reflects its surroundings

The festival has partnered with local organisations to aid the work they do, with food drives and volunteer sign-ups at concerts and music programmes at summer camps like Roundup River Ranch, which hosts children with serious illnesses. Performances also take place throughout the valley in community centres, senior citizen living communities, hospitals, and more, for those who can’t make it to Vail itself.

While the festival brings many tourists to Vail, its overtures to the community demonstrate both an intention to grow a local audience as well as gratitude for how they have embraced it. ‘This is a resort community, [and] there can be a transient nature to it, but at its heart, it’s a small town,’ says Murray, who lives in the area herself. Banners for Bravo pepper Vail, and waiters and retail workers light up when it’s mentioned. There is pride and affection that goes both ways.

McDermott has announced she will step down after the 2026 season, ending a 16-year tenure in which ‘she has taken it to a new level entirely,’ according to Murray. Thanks to the pianist’s work in developing the programmes and brand, Murray says, ‘it’s going to be a new chapter for Bravo, but we’re in a great position.’

On a blustery evening in late June, the 3,000-strong crowd hustles into the Ford Amphitheater grounds. Parents with small children eye the sky as they pull out crayons, while an older couple waits for their friends. A small crowd fills the seats for a pre-show talk by Heeseung Lee, assistant professor in music history and theory at the University of Northern Colorado. ‘Attending a concert is a multi-sensory experience,’ she advises. ‘Coming to a concert is a journey.’

Wind swoops down the mountain, passing over Gore Creek, stirring the blooms behind the stage and ruffling sheet music secured with paper clips. It prickles the skin of a couple with their adolescent daughter, a violinist and pianist with Haciendo Música. With Colorado hardiness, they settle comfortably in their lawn chairs, just as they do five times a summer, while conductor Prieto takes the stage. The clouds dissipate. The oboists and clarinettists pick up their instruments to start the Ravel suite, and the sun shines warmly through the amphitheatre. We take a breath together, and the music begins.