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Strings Music Festival: Live performance matters

Ali Mignone/For Steamboat Today
The Strings Classical Season opens June 25 featuring the Strings Festival Orchestra with violin soloist Chee-Yun performing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto.
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Strings upcoming events

• 12:15 p.m. Thursday, June 23 — Music on the Green: Coventry Quartet (at the Botanic Park)

• 8 p.m. Thursday, June 23 — Clint Black

• 7 p.m. Saturday, June 25 — Opening Night Orchestra

• 8 p.m. Sunday, June 26 — The Fab Four

Tickets are available at 970-879-5056 and stringsmusicfestival.com.

In an age of immediate and ever-present digital entertainment — insomniacs rejoice — what’s the purpose of live performance? Why pay money to go somewhere to listen to live music with a whole bunch of people you don’t know when you could listen to an error-free recording from the couch only five feet from your refrigerator?

Strings upcoming events

• 12:15 p.m. Thursday, June 23 — Music on the Green: Coventry Quartet (at the Botanic Park)

• 8 p.m. Thursday, June 23 — Clint Black



• 7 p.m. Saturday, June 25 — Opening Night Orchestra

• 8 p.m. Sunday, June 26 — The Fab Four



Tickets are available at 970-879-5056 and stringsmusicfestival.com.

Let’s be honest: Part of the reason to go to a live show on a concert stage is because things might go wrong. Onstage train wrecks can be highly entertaining and provide great cocktail-party conversation fodder. Plus, really good performers are often at their best when they’re speaking off-script to recover from a flub. At the very least, they start to look pretty human.

But hoping-for-hilarious-failure aside, as audience members, why should we care whether we’re at a live event or listening to a recording in the comfort of our own homes?

I’ve written about this before, noting that the audience is a vital part of any live performance. Without an audience, no matter how beautifully they play and interact with each other, musicians are just rehearsing. But what the audience gets from being there in person is engagement — with the artists, with the music itself and most importantly, with each other.

There’s a guy in the front row nodding his head to the beat, matching our tapping feet. There’s a woman closing her eyes at our favorite part. There’s a smattering of claps for a tricky section, and we join in, swelling the applause until the musician gives a little bow to acknowledge the love from the crowd.

At a live performance, you’re not just a passive passenger along for the ride. You are part of the show, and your reactions matter. It can turn into a loop of awesomeness: Your seatmates are having fun. The musicians see that and play even better. You see that, and you have more fun. The people across the aisle see you having more fun, and then they … you get the picture.

I understand the desire to listen to a favorite piece of music in private, where you can sing along into the hairbrush or wave your spoon to conduct an invisible orchestra. I also understand the pull of wanting to be alone with the music: no cell phone calls during the oboe solo, no drunken guy standing in the way during the guitar riff, no crackly candy wrappers interrupting the quiet bits.

A recording is the same every time you play it, and that has a certain beauty. But each live performance is unique — whether from variations in tempo, funny mistakes that become part of the show or your own engagement level with the music and the other music lovers in the room.

And I think that’s worth exploring whenever possible. Hope to see you at the pavilion this summer.

Ali Mignone stage manages for Strings Music Festival, among other things. When she’s not telling roadies and musicians what to do, you can find her hiking, biking or skiing around the Yampa Valley and blogging at thequirkyquill.com.


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