The world-class Quartz Mountain Music Festival, just completing the fifth year, is becoming known across the area as a “Southwest Oklahoma treasure.”

At Saturday’s orchestra performance in Quartz Mountain’s Robert M. Kerr Performing Arts Center, David Palmer, QMMF executive/artistic director, thanked the many festival supporters—donors, home-stay hosts for professional musicians and dozens of volunteers.

“Without their support and generosity, this festival would not be possible,” Palmer said. “By my side all year has been Ben Bailey, former B-52 pilot; if you need a wingman, Ben is what you need. Together, along with our board of directors and volunteers, we have been able to navigate this mission.”

Palmer considered 2010 a pivotal year as the festival continued the 2nd Annual Celedonio Romero Guitar Academy in Granite and started new one-week academies in chamber/orchestral music and conducting, all at Western Oklahoma State College in Altus. “We look forward to adding more academies in more communities in future years, so more communities can have an opportunity to become a part of the festival and the festival will become a part of the communities,” Palmer said.

As festival 2010 began, the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education responded to a scholarship request, giving more students opportunities to study at an extremely high performance level. “It was a wonderful affirmation that what’s happening in Southwest Oklahoma is important to all of Oklahoma,” Palmer said. “We’re working also to develop Southwest Oklahoma for tourism, and having the academies in the communities is a huge tourism draw.”

Under the baton of Conductor Michael Palmer, widely recognized as one of the country’s finest conductors, the 51-piece festival orchestra opened the Saturday night concert by playing Beethoven’s “Egmont Overture, op. 84,” with Victor Costanzi of New York as concertmaster. Orchestral Academy students played alongside the professionals.

“It is very important to pass on the tradition of orchestral music performance and standards developed over centuries. The only way it can be done is to sit side-by-side with professionals,” said Michael Palmer, also QMMF Orchestra/Conducting Academy chair. “It has very important meaning for the present but even much more so for the future in terms of fostering this great art of music.”

In the orchestra’s second piece, a fiery Saint-Saens number, the stunning solo performance of Violinist Annie Chalex Boyle, Chamber Music Academy chair, yielded a standing ovation. The Romeros Guitar Quartet then joined the orchestra in “Concierto Andaluz” by Rodrigo. Pepe Romero’s guitar string broke on the last note of the first movement, so he borrowed a guitar from his gracious academy student, Leslie Arendt of Ohio. After three standing ovations, the quartet played two encores, including “Malaguena,” arranged by the late Celedonio Romeros, father and grandfather of the quartet members.

After intermission, Boyle assumed the concertmaster position for Dvorak’s “Symphony no. 8,” a work which reflects the intensity of the composer’s love for Czechoslovakia, his home. The appreciative audience exploded with applause after the fantastic concert finale. The Blossom Shop of Altus provided flowers.

An early week reception at the Blair Catering Hall welcomed the professional musicians and students from across the nation. Citizens of Altus, Mangum, Granite, Frederick, Hobart and Cordell were treated to academy student concerts, leaving them eager to hear more. The 35 academy students (conducting, 3; chamber music/orchestra, 22; guitar, 10) also performed in a Sunday concert at Quartz Mountain and in afternoon master classes, followed by faculty critiques and suggestions for improvement. The conducting students experienced holding the baton at Saturday orchestra rehearsals.

Doug Cole, program manager for KCCU Radio of Lawton, led pre-concert discussions with the professional musicians and John Boyle, writer of the festival’s program notes. Boyle (a composer, performer and teacher of music composition and theory at Michigan’s Interlochen Center for the Arts) elaborated on the composers and the compositions.

Dr. Robert and Beatrice Simpson of Enid learned about the festival through their daughter, Megan Simpson of Cordell, a QMMF board member. Discussing the Thursday night chamber music concert, “Europe Comes to America,” Beatrice Simpson said she loved Antonin Dvorak’s “American String Quartet, No. 12.” “It is so melodic; it’s beautiful, so light and joyful. They’re excellent musicians, just all winners,” she said. “It’s a perfect venue here with the lodge, where we are staying, and the beautiful grounds. It’s our first time, but it certainly won’t be our last.”

The delighted audience responded to Friday’s jazz quartet performance with numerous standing ovations. Academy faculty Brian McWhorter of Oregon on trumpet and Nancy Stagnitta of Traverse City, Mich., on flute played familiar works with two academy students. “It’s really nice to come to a rural place like this and be able to make music with some very sophisticated players in a community that seems very receptive,” said McWhorter, who plays in festivals all over the world.

Completing the chamber music concert, Violinist Annie Chalex Boyle, of Traverse City, Mich.; Cellist (and comedian) Steven Thomas of Gainesville, Fla., and Pianist Amy Cheng of Ann Arbor, Mich., played the vivacious and infectiously enjoyable “Café Music” by Paul Schoenfield, contemporary artist known for combining popular, folk and classical music forms.

After Molly Reid of Altus attended the Romero Guitar Quartet’s festival-kickoff concert at WOSC, she told a physician friend, “If you would play a recording of Pepe Romero’s soothing opening solo in your examination room before taking your patients’ blood pressure, you would have no one with high blood pressure. I thought each piece the Romeros played was the best ever, then they’d play the next one and it was just as wonderful!”

As a festival fundraiser, members of Oklahoma State Reformatory’s Faith and Character Community Program in Granite painted guitars, signed by the Romeros, and violins, signed by Chalex Boyle. Using a photograph, Larry Kastner, inmate artist, also painted a portrait of Celedonio Romero. According to David Palmer, the portrait presentation was an overwhelming experience for both the Romeros and the inmates. To thank the inmates, the Romeros performed at the prison. “They just loved it,” Palmer said, “and one said, ‘It isn’t often that we have a chance to leave prison, but we certainly did today.’”

Linda Morris and Brenda Hickerson co-chaired Granite’s 2nd Annual Oklahoma Outback Art Show during the festival. The crowd enjoyed the Celtic music of the “Texas Stardust” trio and other professional and local entertainment. Randy Haggard of Elk City won Best of the Outback, also Best of Show, “because of his use of recycling to make a beautiful piece that had a lot of energy--a metal sculpture of a violinist, using nuts and washers; it was fantastic,” Morris said.