Page 38 - Flathead Beacon // 8.24.16

EVENTS 40 MOVIE REVIEWS 41 SIDE DISH 44 PAWS & CLAWS 46 Arts&Entertainment
Crown of the Continent Guitar Festival. BEACON FILE PHOTO
STRINGS ATTACHED
Seventh annual Crown of the Continent Guitar Workshop and Festival runs Aug. 28-Sept. 4 in Bigfork
write more music and do some performing as well. I just kind of grew up with it and it’s become a passion.”
Now, Rivers works as a professional musician who has just released an album and played a signi cant roster of Montana events, including the Red Ants Pants Festival in White Sulphur Springs and, more locally, the Huck- leberry Days Arts Festival in White sh.
But starting Aug. 28, Rivers goes back to her musical roots as one of the scholarship recipients at the upcom- ing Crown of the Continent Guitar Workshop and Fes- tival, which runs until Sept. 4.
As a student in the workshops, Rivers will learn from some of the best guitar players in the world, including
Voted
one of the very musicians who used to ll her childhood home with music.
“I’m really excited to meet Jim Messina because I grew up listening to Loggins and Messina,” Rivers said. “My dad was de nitely in uenced by his guitar playing.”
The seventh annual Crown festival and workshop is a global event, attracting international talents who want to experience the nature and pace of Northwest Mon- tana, and who want to share their talents with students and audiences alike.
It has become a staple of summer, a sort of bookend marking the valley’s beautiful transition into fall. The concerts, which take place every evening of the week- long event, are on stage at the Flathead Lake Lodge in Bigfork, near the lakeshore.
“This is going to be another incredible week of music,” said David Fe er, Crown of the Continent Gui- tar Foundation chairman and founding director. “The weather at this point looks like it’s going to be great early fall, late summer.”
Performances this year are guaranteed to impress audiences, Fe er said, given the lineup of musicians and the culture that has started around these concerts. Musicians this year include: Jim Messina; Josh Turner; Julian Lage; Chris Eldridge; gypsy jazz master Gonzalo Bergara; Brent Mason; classical musicians Soloduo; country singer-songwriter Liz Longley; Lee Ritenour; Dweezil Zappa; Shane Theriot; and Andy Aledort.
Each musician takes the stage on a certain night, and supergroups tend to form on stage.
“All the performers, their performance, it’s not like you would get on stage anywhere else, just because of the Montana vibe,” Fe er said. “They feel di erently because of the response of local people – they’re not treated like rock stars, they’re in Montana.”
The students take to the stage on Sept. 2, and that has become one of the most popular evenings of music during the week, Fe er said. Many of the students are accomplished musicians already, and come to the work- shop to strengthen their skills with some of the best tal- ent in the world.
“People last year got it, when you had literally more than 700 people from the community lling the tent (on student performance night),” Fe er said. “I was blown away, frankly.”
In previous years, the festival hosted Ritenour’s Six String Theory Competition, a guitar contest, but it was held elsewhere this year. However, Fe er said Ritenour
WBY MOLLY PRIDDY OF THE BEACON
HEN MICHELLE RIVERS WAS A LITTLE girl, her dad lled her life with melodies that he strummed on his guitar to the tunes of the
time, typically rock duo Loggins and Messina.
It was enough of an in uence on Rivers that she began writing songs as a young child, and then continued as she learned more about music and various instruments. But it wasn’t until she was almost an adult that she
picked up the instrument her father so favored.
“I started playing guitar at 17,” Rivers said in an inter- view last week. “That served as an inspiration for me to
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