Smith Rock Treated Once Again to In a Landscape: Classical Music in the Wild™
September 10, 2022
banner image by Amy Sue Matthews
The 9-foot Steinway grand piano hidden in a flatbed trailer pulls into a wide open space punctuated by sage and rabbitbrush at Smith Rock State Park. Slowly the set-up crew raises the platform and reveals the instrument that has traveled for 6 years all over the west, as part of IN A LANDSCAPE: Classical Music in the Wild™, an outdoor concert series where America’s most stunning landscapes replace the traditional concert hall.
N A LANDSCAPE™ sets up at Smith Rock State Park
The concerts were born at the intersection of Artistic Director Hunter Noack’s passion for the outdoors and classical music. Classically trained at Interlochen Arts Academy and the San Franciso Conservatory, Hunter earned his B.M. at the University of Southern California and went on to get his masters in London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The recipient of national and international awards, Hunter has premiered works for the BBC, toured internationally with Pink Martini, and has been featured by TEDxPortland, regional to the national press, including CBS This Morning.
Performing in National Parks, urban greenspaces, working ranches, farms, and historical sites, IN A LANDSCAPE’s classical music concerts connect people with each landscape, meeting the acoustical challenges of performing in the wild with music transmitted to concert-goers via wireless headphones. Attendees are then free to roam around the landscape of the venue, exploring nature while soaking in the music between their ears through high-quality sound delivery.
Hunter Noack of IN A LANDSCAPE™ performs with a backdrop of a smoky sky at Smith Rock State Park
image courtesy of Amy Sue Matthews
Hunter Noack, Artistic Director, IN A LANDSCAPE™ addresses the audience at Smith Rock State Park
image courtesy of Amy Sue Matthews
“We need beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
This is IN A LANDSCAPE’s 6th year entertaining sold-out audiences at Smith Rock State Park. Even looming smoke on the horizon for Tuesday night’s performance didn’t deter his avid followers, who were grateful it stayed high in the sky for the evening. For the first time, the audience was treated to an opener for the half-hour prior to the IN A LANDSCAPE™ concert by Ned Roberts, a folk singer, and guitarist from the U.K, and a long-time friend of Hunter.
The 2022 program included works by Frederic Chopin, Claude Debussy, Enrique Granados, Franz Liszt, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, Fredric Rzewski, Erik Satie, Fazil Say, Franz Schubert, and Robert Schumann.
Ned Roberts, a folk singer, and guitarist from the U.K opens for IN A LANDSCAPE™
image courtesy of Amy Sue Matthews
Hunter Noack, Artistic Director for IN A LANDSCAPE performs at Smith Rock State Park
image courtesy of Amy Sue Matthews
SmithRock.com’s trail ambassador, “Summit Trail Amy,” now a regular at IN A LANDSCAPE’s Smith Rock venue, attended Tuesday’s performance with two first-timers who were blown away by the experience. She noted this year that more people were wandering around soaking in the concert, some even with their chairs facing the rocks. One of the fun serendipitous moments she noted was the Canadian geese flock that chimed in twice with loud honking during the show. Hunter laughed it off, noting his “new horn section.”
Lastly, she and a friend were grateful to get a spot under the piano on the platform to “feel the music” when Hunter called for the audience to join him, as he does at each of his concerts. Enjoy a short clip of that, minus the vibrations felt on the platform.
Concert-goers at Smith Rock State Park “feel the music” when Artistic Director Hunter Noack signals the time to do so, as he does at each of his concerts for IN A LANDSCAPE™. Video courtesy of Rick Retzman.
Missed out on catching IN A LANDSCAPE at Smith Rock State Park? Fear not, there are several performances not sold out as of the date of this article for the season, one in Maupin, Oregon one in Jackson, Wyoming, and two in San Francisco. Get tickets here.
IN A LANDSCAPE: Classical Music in the Wild™ 2022 Tour Map
And if you can’t get there in person or want to relive your experience of the music, grab IN A LANDSCAPE — HUNTER NOACK the CD. This debut album features Hunter performing select favorites from the classical piano canon as well as collaborations with Native American flutist James Edmund Greeley, psychedelic electronics by Dave Friedlander, a spacious concerto with the Salem Orchestra, and an arrangement of Franz Schubert’s most beautiful song with Pink Martini’s China Forbes and Thomas Lauderdale.
Don’t want to miss out on next year’s performances at Smith Rock? Word travels fast, so best to get on the mailing list.