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Wyoming Homes and Living Magazine December 2003
Story by Vanessa Hastings
Photos by Bruce Nichols

WSO helps raise funds and awareness

On a hot August afternoon, Indian Paintbrush Festival attendees venture out from the protective shade of multicolored umbrellas on a hillside at Canyon Ranch near Big Horn. They gaze toward a golden knoll, where the Wyoming state flag and the U.S. flag wave slowly against the velvet backdrop of the Big Horn Mountains.

Down the hill, baton in hand, conductor Jonathan Shames sways back and forth, eliciting a dramatic rendition of the Star Spangled Banner from the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra and an emotion-filled silence from his audience.

At the close of the revered piece, the maestro introduces his next selection, Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, op. 92. He gestures at the picturesque land and says, "Every work of Beethoven's is inevitable, inevitable in the way nature is inevitable."

The moment epitomizes one of the major purposes of the annual fundraiser. "It's wonderful to have the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra at our festival because it's a way to bring a cultural event of good caliber to a rural community," says festival coordinator Rebecca Colnar. "A lot of times children—even adults—have not ever had the opportunity to hear a symphony orchestra. Because e Wyoming Symphony comes and plays at our event, they are able to hear this wonderful music in a spectacular setting."

A dream realized

Sandra Wallop, Indian Paintbrush Festival founder and board president, attributes part of her endeavor's almost immediate success—the vent has raised more than $100,000 for various Sheridan-area charities since it started in summer 1999—to her husband, Paul Wallop, and her father-in-law, former U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop.

"One day when my husband and I were walking down on the creek, I told him about this idea that I had," Sandra says, "that I wanted a symphony outdoors, and I wanted to make it a fundraising event so it could support different charities in the community. He didn't laugh at my idea. He encouraged me to pursue it."

She approached Malcolm about using the fourth-generation family ranch as the venue for the gathering. "His generosity is kind of boggling," she says. "It's kind of like I went to him and said, ‘Oh, do you mind if I have a party and invite 1,500 of my friends that I don't know?' and he said, ‘Sure.' I'm not sure I would have said yes, but he did."

Malcolm, who traditionally emcees the festival, downplays Sandra's praise. "It doesn't feel like generosity somehow," he says. "Sandra's been wise enough to find needy charities, and the community's been generous enough to support it, and it just seemed only logical that the two of us would put the ranch as the site for it and make it possible for people to have a truly unusual experience."

Paul and Malcolm helped Sandra round up several volunteers, and the group set to work creating a family-oriented event that quickly gained popularity. Today guests ride horse-drawn wagons to the festival site, where local horsewoman Mary Johns and other riders known as the Saddlebags add Western flair and serve as kid patrol. Vendors provide treats for people to nibble on as they listen to live music.

"It's been so well received by the community," Sandra says. "My original intent was to do this once."

The symphony's role

In the beginning, Sandra sought the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra (WSO) as the headlining act for the day-long music festival. "They weren't ready to do something like this, so we went to the Billings Symphony, and they performed a couple of really great concerts for us," she says. "But we really wanted to get back to Wyoming... Last year was our first year with the WSO, our first year with Jonathon. We were just so impressed, and all of our listeners were very impressed too."

Local listeners continue to appreciate the WSO's presence at the Indian Paintbrush Festival, especially Fabian Wyatt, executive director of the WYO Theater, which has benefited from the fundraiser for the past two years. While Fabian values the financial assistance the orchestra helps provide, she admires the group on an even deeper level.

"I heard that you woke up on the morning of your 40th birthday and loved classical music," she says. "Mine—I think it woke up a little earlier than that, and I think having events like this wakes it up earlier for other people."

Even dedicated symphony fans from Casper like Nancy Andrew make the two-hour drive to listen to the WSO perform at the festival. "I think it's a magnificent backdrop for a performance," she says, "and I like to be supportive of the symphony wherever they play, because I think they provide an artistic dimension that enriches our community and our state."

The symphony's conductor enjoys the chance to develop an audience outside Casper. "We've always been asked by the festival's organizers not to come with a pops or a popular kind of a program, but to bring a really challenging symphony orchestra concert," Jonathan says. "Very often, places that aren't on the main circuit - and Wyoming isn't New York or Paris or London - often downgrade what they do culturally, and I just think that's a big mistake. So when they ask us to play a real symphony orchestra concert, that's great because that means in Wyoming there's an orchestra that's valued for doing that."

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