John Trudeau Remembered

Posted Mar 07, 2009 at 12:42 AM in General, Classical

A memorial celebration for Britt Festivals' Founder and Conductor Emeritus John Trudeau is this Saturday, March 8, at Hoffman Hall at Portland State University, where Trudeau taught for 32 years. The memorial is open to the public.

The memorial program includes performances from the PSU Brass Ensemble, the Portland Brass Society, and the Portland State University Chamber Choir. Many colleagues and friends will share stories, including Britt's Classical Festival Administrator, Angela Warren.

In memory of this great man, here is an excerpt from John Trudeau's book Touches of Sweet Harmony, where Trudeau summarizes the beginning of Britt Festivals.

The Beginning

Take the dream of an individual, add a historic gold-mining town, and a nearly perfect summer climate, and you have the recipe for an outdoor summer music festival. The creation of the internationally-known Britt Music Festival in Jacksonville, Oregon, resulted from the effort and shared interest of two men. I am one of those men, and the other is my long-time friend, Sam McKinney, who first came across the southern Oregon community of Jacksonville and suggested it might be the place to make a dream come alive. Let me tell you the story as I remember it.

In the late summer of 1962, Jacksonville looked much as it had a century earlier, when trail scouts, trappers, and miners pushed their way through the narrow streets. There was the Brunner building, built in 1853, that at one time had a two-foot layer of dirt around the foundation to guard against Indian fire arrows; the Beekman Bank, built in 1863, where miners had deposited the gold they had pulled out of the nearby hills; and the U.S. Hotel where President Rutherford Hayes and other luminaries enjoyed the most luxurious rooms in town when it first opened in 1880. Not much had changed in a hundred years, but it was about to.

The city's goals and our proposal for a music festival became intertwined, making 1962 a memorable year for Sam and me and for the City of Jacksonville as well. More than forty years have passed since our "discovery" in Jacksonville, but the spirit, the excitement, the optimism, and the growth of both town and festival continue.

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