Lo-Fidelity: They’re baaaaack!

One of my all-time-favorite live bands is back in town. On Monday I saw a young, innocent, highly talented, largely pale and ethnically diverse mob of nearly 50 music students at the Eighth Street bus stop. They presumably just checked into the festival, explored the music tent, and were on their way up to the Bucksbaum Campus and Marolt housing where the bulk of them reside for the next couple of months. Seeing and hearing the music students around town gives me a fulfilling sense of community. I jump at any chance to pick their brains.

My love of the Aspen Music Festival and School is largely a byproduct of musical osmosis; culture like melodic water seeping into the vast, vacant areas of my permeable mind where there was previously an arid void. I grew up obsessed with KISS and classic rock. Thanks to the music school and students, I now have an aural affinity for classical music. I get goosebumps when the conductor fires up the symphony orchestra. If you’re not intrinsically moved by the free 4th of July concert, or epic digestible power-ballads like Beethoven’s 5th, seek professional help.

One summer in the early ’90s I worked on the tent crew at the music tent. I’d sheepishly returned to Aspen as a 23-year-old single father, mending the mangled barbed wire fence of a failed marriage. While scanning the Aspen Times weekly classifieds for work, I noticed a listing for employment at the tent. Seeing as I was a recently retired heavy metal roadie for Def Leppard and Poison, I figured a rude transition back into civilian life as a classical music stagehand would be a Clockwork Orange-esque remedial exercise.

I’d unloaded semis, schlepped road cases, tuned guitars, coiled cables and picked ladies sweaty underwear off microphone stands all over the world during the late ’80s heyday of unhinged arena rock. How hard could working at the music tent in Aspen for classical musicians and their legion of disgustingly well-behaved fans possibly be?

Boy, was I in for a rude awakening. The first day our ragtag, diehard crew re-assembled the tent itself from its winter slumber. And you thought putting up a two-man tent in a hailstorm was challenging. The boss had me up on high-tension rigging wires without a harness and a dubious insurance policy, clipping on the roof panels 60 feet over the old wooden benches below. The pay was $15 an hour, and there was no catering backstage, no well-stocked Prevost tour bus, no groupies waiting behind the tent, or back-lounge party favors in my immediate future. I did get to ride my bike back home after work through Anderson Park and sleep in my own bed at night, though.

That long lost summer I found solace in sobriety and self-discovery through classical music. More importantly, those students here studying the intricacies of sheet music and the illusive mastery of their instruments taught me a valuable lesson. The calluses on their fingertips, the violin hickey marks on their necks, their prowess, dedication, drive and focus on each musical opus forever humbled me. I saw their journeys abroad at such an early age as metaphor. Each person has a calling, and his or her contributions are of marked value — it just takes some of us longer to find out what that special purpose is.

Every summer throughout arrival day, my mom used to host a student welcome barbecue of at our house on North and Eighth streets, just across the field from music tent. As the students trickled in, she’d greet them, feed them, ask them what instruments they played, what school they were attending, where they were from, and who their favorite composer was. I feel compelled to carry on my mom’s ritual of welcoming music students to Aspen.

I’ve been honoring the tradition by hosting a group of music students over to my house for dinner every summer for the past 10 years or so. Anyone can do it, as long as they want to have the most stimulating and intellectually inspiring group of people over to their house for a dinner party, that is. Whenever I mention the concept to likely hosts or hostesses they usually respond, “Oh, and I imagine they bring their instruments and perform for you, that’s lovely …” I usually retort, “Bring their instruments!? Most certainly not. They’re not organ grinder monkeys!”

Here’s how it works. Reach out to the delightful Sylvia Wendrow — Student Dinner coordinator at the Aspen Music Festival and School and let her know the date you’d like to host the dinner and for how many students. She’ll bring you up to speed on all the details from there. She can be reached at 970-704-1904 or via sdw_jds@yahoo.com with “Student Dinner” in the subject line. Two week’s notice is ideal. Six to 10 students is typical. Downvalley hosts can even do an event at the tent, so that’s an option too.

Last summer we hosted a dozen kids and fed them takeout Indian food from Masala and Curry in Glenwood Springs. This summer we’re going to host 15 kids and serve BBQ takeout from Home Team. If you are seeking a soirée unlike any dinner party you’ve ever experienced, I guarantee a student dinner will not disappoint.

I’m dying to tell my new dad-joke to the music students when they come over to our house for dinner …

Q: Where do music students sleep in the wilderness? A: In their “Camper-van Beethoven,” of course.

Contact Lorenzo via suityourself@sopris.net.