Classical Voice North America: In A Sunny Vale Where Hemingway Sheltered, Free Concerts Resound

Classical Voice North America
By Thomas May

SUN VALLEY, Idaho — A couple of golden eagles wheeling across the sky offered a dramatic welcome during my inaugural visit to the Sun Valley Music Festival. Viewed on the drive into town from nearby Friedman Memorial Airport, these fabled messengers of Zeus complemented the stark majesty of Bald Mountain with their agile flight. The area’s most-prominent Rocky Mountain peak towers 9,150 feet into the heavens and has been beckoning serious ski lovers since the area was first promoted as a winter sport destination — part of a pioneering campaign by Union Pacific Railroad in the late 1930s.

“Baldy” and its less-elevated, ski beginner-friendly sibling Dollar Mountain stand guard over Sun Valley, forming an iconic backdrop to the Pavilion and adjacent lawn where the Sun Valley Music Festival each summer presents nearly a month’s worth of events. The Pavilion is situated alongside another Sun Valley landmark with powerful cultural associations: the storied Sun Valley Lodge, a linchpin in the aforementioned campaign, which has long been an attraction for literary pilgrims.

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