Musical Destinations
Jeremy Pound flies to Montana, where the Beartooth Mountains provide the backdrop to a new arts centre that aims to brings music and art together in perfect harmony
Jeremy Pound enjoys art and music in the big outdoors in the wide-open US state of Montana
Covering an area of 147,000 square miles, around three times the size of England, Montana is vast. It is also one of the least populous of all the US states: just over one million people, all told. If you were looking for somewhere to build a concert hall that sits in glorious isolation, I’d suggest this would be just the place to do it.
And that is exactly what Peter and Cathy Halstead did. When, in 2010, a 10,000-acre sheep and cattle ranch came up for sale on the rolling hills just north of the Yellowstone National Park, the Halsteads – he is a pianist and photographer, she an artist, businesswoman and, significantly, heir to a drinks business fortune – saw the chance of realising a long-held ambition: to create a large sculpture-cum-music park, in which visual and aural artforms combine. Artists were promptly commissioned and Alban Bassuet, a leading acoustic designer and engineer, brought on board as director and all-round good ideas man. In summer 2016, Tippet Rise Art Center was ready to open its gates for its inaugural season.
Tippet Rise is theoretically ‘in’ the small town of Fishtail, but the long, long drive along a windy track tells a different story: this place is miles from anywhere. And when
‘Our programming is about music that interacts with the art’
we do eventually get there, the ranch itself stretches out as far as the eye can see – scan the distant horizon, and you can just about pick out a sculpture here, a sculpture there.
Immediately in front of us, though, is the Olivier Music Barn. Built out of local timber and meticulously planned by Bassuet and his acoustics team, this 150-seat concert hall also boasts spectacular views, as directly behind the stage is a large window looking out onto the Beartooth Mountains. The hall is also equipped with an impressive range of Steinway pianos – when Stephen Hough plays a recital later this evening, he takes the controls of a 1940 New York model for Schubert and Franck in the first half, then switches over to a modern Hamburg one for Liszt and his own Sonata in the second.
But music at Tippet Rise doesn’t begin and end at the Olivier Barn. Head around the ranch – either by car or on a bike, avoiding errant sheep as you go – and you come across various large art installations, each positioned to make the most of the surrounding landscape. These can be admired in their own right but also provide a stage for performances. During my visit, for instance, the sound of John Luther Adams’s multiple-percussion work Inuksuit fills the natural amphitheatre surrounding the web of wooden beams that is Stephen Talasnik’s
Satellite No. 5: Pioneer; on other occasions, Ensamble Studio’s megalithic Domo provides the backdrop. At both installations, the clarity of sound is exceptional.
‘Iniksuit is going to have an impact on other performances of that type that we may do here,’ Tippet Rise’s music director Christopher O’riley tells me soon after the
performance. ‘I think it’s really important to have such a thread – namely, that our programming here is not just about availability of performers; it’s about music that really interacts with the landscape, and interacts with the art.’
O’riley may take responsibility for the programming, but you can take it as read that Peter Halstead (left) has a major say. This is, after all, someone for whom the phrase ‘hands on’ might have been invented. As each concert begins, it is Halstead who, in trademark floppy hat, stands up to introduce the performers; the engaging programme notes in the season’s booklet are almost entirely his work; and, as we all mingle afterwards and admire the setting sun, he and Cathy can be seen chatting away and enthusing with performers and concert-goers alike. Tippet Rise itself may be remote, but its gregarious founders are anything but.