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Castleton Festival: 'A tremendous opportunity for our community'
We had a song we used to do in my band, Trapezoid - “In Beauty I Walk.” Lorraine Duisit adapted it from a Navajo night chant. We walk in beauty here in Rappahannock--the beauty of friends, of community, of nature, of art. The lines blur between what’s art and what’s life when you live in a place like this.Of all the concerts I’ve ever attended as an audience member, almost all of my top 10 were at Lorin and Dietlinde Maazel’s Theatre House in Castleton--Pepé Romero, Jose Cararras, Emanuel Ax, James Galway, the Britten operas and the astounding opening concert with Maestro Maazel, Yefim Bronfman and David Frankel. In a county where the beautiful is our ordinary, the concerts at the Theatre House are the most extraordinary of experiences.
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to experience the theatre from the other perspective—as a performer. There are only a handful of times in my whole career where I felt as completely connected to my audience and to the music. It happened because we were performing for a crowd of friends, because of the gracious welcome of our hosts, the exquisite beauty of our surroundings, and because the stage had been anointed by the music of the masters who had previously performed there.
Now the Maazels are proposing a yearly Castleton Festival. It’s a tremendous opportunity for our community, for the young artists that get to perform in the festival, and for this old guitar player to be inspired to keep reaching further.
I trust we will all recognize the gift the Maazels bring to this community and that we will fully support the festival. Their commitment to bringing the world’s finest music into the intimacy of small theatre is an extraordinary gift to us all.
Paul Reisler
Kid Pan Alley
Washington
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