Tippet Rise Art Center: Anything but ordinary

A pithy quote or observation; a description of a place or a performance... These, generally, are the things that end up becoming a write-up’s evocative scene-setter when reporting from an interesting corner of the musical world. Yet reflecting back upon my trip this past August to Tippet Rise Art Center in Fishtail, Montana, what has dawned on me is that this time it’s not so much a single image or memory that has abided with me since, but instead the overarching emotion I felt over my three days there: tranquillity, mingled with awe and curiosity.

Let me explain. Tippet Rise Art Center – a non-profit – was established in 2016 by artist-philanthropists Peter (pianist, writer-poet and collector of pianos) and Cathy (an abstract painter) Halstead, and presents a musical offering that sounds on the one hand perfectly standard – an annual summer concert season – but in a setting, shape and artistic context that is anything but. Surroundings-wise, Tippet Rise is a 12,500-acre working sheep and cattle ranch which itself sits within 22 million acres of legacy ranch land bought in the 1920s by wealthy city dwellers fleeing the Depression and has remained undeveloped since. To the North is Yellowstone National Park, with its own 2.2 million acres of precious ecosystem – meaning no flight paths over the entire territory. What this all adds up to is a truly vast expanse of rolling, canyon-pocketed grasslands stretching out either as far as the eye can see, or to the nearby Beartooth mountain range, with neither noise nor light pollution. This is true ‘Big Sky Country’ over which wild turkeys roam, deer and jackrabbits graze, and bears do what bears do. Everywhere you see the natural world just doing its thing – weather included, because this is blizzard country, and even in the summer the wind can suddenly appear to put on a formidable show of its own.

A view of Tippet Rise's Olivier Music Barn and Will's Shed, which offers visitor a place to eat, drink, and discuss performances ©Erik Petersen

That the Halsteads wound up in this remote place in 2009 was down to their longstanding dream, based loosely on the Aspen model, to ‘combine the arts in a special place’. Not being able to find the right such place for sale in Colorado, they visited Montana for the very first time, found Tippet Rise for sale, fell in love and bought it – and then 13 more ranches over the next three years. ‘Nobody had bought ranches here for 50 years,’ explains Peter. ‘Why would you live here when there’s nothing? No big stores. No movie theatres. So once they realised there was a sucker buying them…’

Needless to say, it’s an extraordinary setting in which to hear music. But what is even more extraordinary is how they’ve combined it with other arts, and set them all to work in harmony with the land itself. Spaced out across the ranch’s huge footprint are large-scale outdoor sculptures installed by some of the world’s foremost artists and architects, some so blended into the land that they look almost like natural phenomena, others using it as a backdrop against which to pop strikingly, albeit tunefully, out. Between June and September, the ranch opens to visitors who can travel between these extraordinary structures via walking and cycling trails. Then in August, the concert series devised by artistic advisor and pianist Pedja Mužijević dovetails in: five consecutive long weekends filled with adventurous, eclectic programming ranging from core classical to contemporary music that’s impossible to categorise, featuring a mix of interesting young artists and major international names – the latter often pianists, who get to choose from 14 Steinway grands, including two 1897 models and one that belonged to Horrowitz. At this point, a couple of the sculptures then suddenly reveal their dual purpose as acoustically innovative outdoor performance venues, the two most important being the 98-foot-long, 13-foot-tall Domo (Ensamble Studio, 2016) – an extraordinary creation looking from the outside rather like a clump of giant, prehistoric mushrooms, but purposefully designed for superior sound projection – and the brand new Geode (Arup, 2024) – four acoustically treated triangular shells facing into each other on one of the ranch’s highest panoramic points, the three audience shells magically catching the music being thrown from the artist’s.

The 13-foot-tall Domo's organic exterior hides carefully designed acoustics for superior sound projection ©Iwan Baan

If all this sounds like the vision of a couple obsessed as much by sound quality as by music, art and nature, then you’d be right, and the acoustical crown jewel in the Tippet Rise crown is another Arup design: the 150-seat Olivier Music Barn, looking from the outside as though it has always been there, and inside boasting a stunning wooden hall whose warm, immediate acoustic was initially inspired by Cathy’s desire to recreate the resonance and closeness to the music that she loves when Peter is playing the piano in their home. It’s design was also informed by research visits to the similarly barn-shaped and relaxed-feeling Snape Maltings hall, and various European ‘jewel-box’ music rooms such as at Austria’s Esterházy Palace. A state-of-the-art control room up above for recording completes the picture. ‘We really started from the inside out,’ emphasises Cathy. ‘We weren’t going to change a single acoustical quality for the architectural value – we wanted that beautiful sound, we wanted that wood and that warmth. Then we wanted a barn, and we wanted people to feel very comfortable in it’.

In case shelter is needed from Montana's unpredictable weather, the Olivier Music Barn is the ranch's 'acoustical crown jewel' and houses a state-of-the-art control room for recording ©Erik Petersen

And they are. Concert tickets – all $10, with under-21s free – are so in demand that they’re allocated randomly by lottery. People then come and make a day or weekend of it, exploring the trails and the artworks, eating good food in Will's shed, the centre’s canteen, attending the Halstead’s pre-concert poetry readings while being plied with home-made cakes and tea. People attend the concerts in their walking or cycling gear. Many wouldn’t have described themselves as listeners of classical music, but drawn by the whole, they’ve loved what they’ve found. Classical connoisseurs, meanwhile, might come for a major name (Marc-André Hamelin played a piano recital on my weekend), then be equally captivated by an artist or music entirely new to them. Basically, when the quality’s this good, and the setting so conducive to broadening your mind, you’re going to appreciate whoever and whatever you hear.

Plus, thanks to Tippet Rise’s highest-end recording capabilities – including a brand new mastering suite designed for Dolby Atmos – you might even be able to hear it again, because look online and you’ll find a steadily growing library of beautifully captured, high-definition music recordings and films of concerts that artists have been happy to have shared – all downloadable for free, by anyone in the world.

Geode is a new addition to the Art Center. Three of the four acoustically treated shells catching music 'thrown' from the performer's shell ©Kevin Kinzley

Back to my own visit, and there is perhaps one particular memory that encapsulates that potent feeling. Imagine walking out all alone across the waving grasses one warm afternoon to the ruin of an ancient homestead; musing over the giant Iron Tree (Ai Weiwei, 2013, pictured below) that you’d passed earlier on the trail, and the Haydn piano sonata to come; just taking in the vastness, the sound of crickets, and the smell of grass and wild sage; all of your senses buzzing, while feeling completely relaxed.

‘We wanted to create that magic that we had felt in other places’ beams Cathy Halstead. ‘We hoped that other people would feel it too – and they do.’ Yes, they do.

Ai Weiwei's Iron Tree is one of many large-scale outdoor sculptures installed by some of the world’s foremost artists ©James Florio