Virtuosity In a Tiny Texas Town

W hile it’s located only four hours south of Dallas, the Round Top Festival Institute is a world away. Nestled in the tiny (population: 90) town of Round Top, a few miles off U.S. 290 between Austin and Houston, the Festival Institute has enriched the artistic lives of countless students and visitors since its inception in 1971; this summer season marks its 49th year. The internationally acclaimed concert pianist James Dick is RTFI’s Founder and Artistic Director, and his vision has grown from a 10-day festival for 10 piano students into a sixweek orchestral festival that currently draws around 100 of the world’s crème de la crème music students and nearly 50 renowned instructors and conductors as faculty. Today the Festival Institute boasts 30+ concerts in its June/July summer season, and also hosts an August-to-April Concert Series, the International Guitar Festival, the Theatre Forum, the Poetry Forum, the Herbal Forum, for a total of more than 50 events annually. With an “Old World” atmosphere imparted through its restored historical buildings from La Grange and Hempstead, its lushly curated grounds, and its magnificent, acoustically marvelous 1,000-seat Festival Concert Hall, Round Top Festival Institute is a 210-acre oasis for music and the arts. Only in Texas, there’s nothing else like it anywhere.

Pianist James Dick’s stellar career took off in the 1960s, when, within a single year, he was a top winner in the Tchaikovsky, Busoni, and Leventritt international competitions; he’s been concertizing ever since. But with time on his hands in the summer months he thought he’d like to teach, recalling his own students and festivals that he himself had attended. So in 1971 he launched the dream that became Round Top Festival Institute. While it’s evolved and grown precipitously over its almost five decades, it remains an intimate, nurturing community. “We have a human scale here,” Dick says, “which lets us present new things. We’ve commissioned new repertoire, and performed it, and helped it along. Composers come here in residence too, so we’re doing a lot of valuable reaching out to make things happen—I’m very proud of that.” There’s lots to be proud of. Students who’ve auditioned and been accepted into the summer institute attend tuition-free, thanks to the festival’s tireless fundraising efforts. And there’s the giving back to the community—when the Festival Institute began, local schools had no music programs, but now, thanks in part to RTFI’s efforts and influence, schools offer band, orchestra, and chorus.

One outstanding aspect is that the students work with several different conductors; it’s a real-world preview of a professional career with an orchestra. Dick explains, “That’s one of the good things here—we don’t just have one conductor. Students may have eight conductors during the summer, each with different ideas about interpretation in music, and the repertoire will always be different every week. They have to begin Monday night with new repertoire, and Saturday night they perform.” The shadow of the RTFI is long, with alumni on six continents, playing with the world’s major symphony orchestras—the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and many others. And some alums return to teach.

An example is Jason Thomas Aylward: trumpeter, conductor, composer, and more, he’s a musician for all seasons and a strong advocate for the Festival Institute experience. Aylward attended in 2017 and returns this summer as an assistant conductor. “I had never been to Texas prior to this,” he says, “and I came down to this tiny little town with this huge, grandiose, beautiful, eighth-wonderof-the-world concert hall and I was absolutely blown away. And to be met with such an astounding, world-renowned storied faculty—I was really a little awestruck when I first got there, getting to be a part of this as a student.” This summer he’ll be conducting Lutoslawski’s Double Concerto for Oboe, Harp, Strings and Percussion, Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, and the annual patriotic concert on June 30; that program includes Aylward’s own pastoral composition, On the Shoulders of Running Water. “The patriotic concert is one of the most charming and exciting events of the year,” he enthuses. “I’m really thrilled to be doing that one.”

Never resting on his laurels, James Dick isn’t slowing down, and planning for next year’s repertoire and conductors is already underway. “The summer Festival Institute is the wonderful coming together of nearly 30 events, including master classes, chamber music concerts, orchestra concerts, young person’s concerts, patriotic concerts, all these things melding together in the summer,” Dick says summarily. All that, along with the rest of the year’s events, offers myriad opportunities for growing with the arts, in a truly unique setting. “It’s what life is about, isn’t it?” Dick adds. “We can spend life very quickly by doing not too much—I like to do a lot. I like to make it worthwhile, and of substance too.”

BY STEVE CARTER