Excerpt from Touches of Sweet Harmony

Posted Oct 24, 2008 at 05:36 PM in General, Classical, Behind The Scenes

Have you ever wondered how Britt Festivals started? In 2006, John Trudeau, the founding music director and first conductor of the Britt Festival Orchestra, published a book about his experience of seeing his lifelong dream of starting a music festival become become a reality. The book is a detailed account of the beginning of Britt, starting in the early 1960s.

For a taste of the book, here's a humorous moment from Trudeau's book, Touches of Sweet Harmony.

No Bells, Just Smelly
Even in serious music, lighter moments can happen. I can recall several concerts where unexpected events took both the orchestra and the audience by surprise. On one beautiful evening on the hillside in 1964, the orchestra opened the concert with Mozart’s Overture to the Marriage of Figaro. The piece starts out at a lively pace and sustains that pace to the very end.

We were approximately a third of the way through the overture when I noticed a restlessness in the back of the orchestra. Some musicians, particularly the clarinet, bassoon and French horn players were rolling their eyes toward the sky while others appeared to be sniffing the air around them and raising their eyebrows in a querulous manner. As we continued playing, more and more players became aware of their colleagues reactions, until finally an objectionable odor reached the front of the orchestra and the source of the problem became evident.

A skunk had decided to take up residency under the pavilion and as the music progressed, it, too, progressed from the back of the structure to the front. The “perfume” was still fairly well confined to the stage area, but as it wafted up the hill, the audience began to stir as well. One could detect soft-spoken words, giggling, and just a slight bit of panic with some people moving farther up the hillside in hope of escape.

We finished the overture—in somewhat record time—to a mixture of laughter and applause. I couldn’t resist turning to the audience and saying, “Thank God he doesn’t write our reviews.” At that point everyone seemed to relax a bit except, of course, our general manager, Ron Bartlett, who had the unenviable task of persuading the uninvited guest to seek asylum elsewhere. Armed with flashlight and best wishes from the less adventurous, he carried out a responsibility he never before dreamed of having.

As is so often the case, things that have the potential for disaster do sometimes result in the opposite. The story of “Mozart and the Skunk” found its way into the Associated Press and appeared in a Berlin newspaper the next day, giving us our first international recognition.

If you'd like to read more about Britt's origin, Touches of Sweet Harmony is available at Britt Festivals’ office for $12.

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