Interlochen Is Keen on Its Summer Arts Festival

How about an evening with Woody Herman and the Young Thundering Herd? Or maybe you’d rather start with Sarah Vaughan, the Canadian Brass, the Paul Whiteman Concert or the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

The choice is always a delightful dilemma, especially so this summer when a range of more than 40 concerts, recitals, dance and drama productions and art shows will be offered each week from June 22 through Aug. 18.

Between events of the summer festival you can stroll around 1,200 wooded acres and two lakes, then walk down Eugene Normandy Avenue and wave to some of the artists and performers looking out the windows of a building named Brahms.

Year-Round Festival

It’s one of the world’s great festivals of music and the arts, focal point of year-round events that will draw more than 500,000 visitors this year.

Because of troubled conditions in some parts of the world that will curtail foreign travel this summer, the increase of tourism within the United States is expected to help produce a record turnout for the 59th summer festival at Interlochen Center for the Arts in the heartland of the Michigan resort country.

Families from the West Coast are making preparations to visit New York City this summer to see the restored Statue of Liberty in its 100th anniversary year, and to introduce their children to the American heritage trail on the East Coast.

Many are also planning to attend the Interlochen festival along the way. Gifted students from Southern California and the West have long been part of classes and performances at the Interlochen Arts Academy and its summer National Music Camp.

Resort Complex

Interlochen is a dozen miles from Traverse City and the largest resort in the Midwest, the $750-million, 850-acre Grand Traverse resort complex. It includes a 244-room hotel and a $4-million sports complex of swimming pools, health spa, tennis and racquetball courts and two 18-hole golf courses.

One course, designed by Jack Nicklaus, is known as The Bear. After testing our strokes on both, my wife Elfriede and I called one The Bear and the other The Grizzly. We were ready for an interlude of music and the arts.

A combination of Grand Traverse and Interlochen can be a grand break in a cross-country vacation trip, whether you fly or drive. Driving across country, we’ve taken a car ferry from Wisconsin to the Michigan shore of Lake Michigan. We have also rented a car at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to drive north to Traverse City along U.S. 31 and Michigan’s scenic and historic lake shore. A leisurely day’s drive got us to the Grand Traverse Resort Village in time for dinner.

This summer alone, nearly 250,000 visitors are expected at Interlochen. The hotel on campus has limited accommodations at reasonable rates. Directly across the highway, Interlochen State Park, one of the largest in the Midwest, has 552 campsites. There are accommodations in many price ranges all around Traverse City.

Music, Dance and Art

More than 400 students gifted in arts, music and dance attend classes during the school year in grades 9 through 12. They spend half of each day with academic subjects and half with their artistic specialties: intensive training in music, art, drama, dance, creative writing, stage design and production. This summer more than 3,500 students age 8 through college level will attend the National Music Camp for accelerated programs in the same range of artistic disciplines.

Throughout the year, students give performances and participate in art exhibitions as part of their learning experience. The full-time students who earn a high school diploma here go on to major universities and often to distinguished careers.

Pianist Van Cliburn graduated from the center. So did TV newscaster Mike Wallace. Students also take college-level courses here. There are about 1,000 faculty and staff members. The 65,000 Interlochen alumni are among the leaders in almost every art form in the United States and a score of other countries, as well as in business and the professions.

Famed entertainers who come here during the summer serve as role models for the students and often give classes. Jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald and composer Alan Hovhaness are among many who have given performances and served as master teachers.

Several Concert Sites

For an evening performance, the theatrical setting is on a scale you’d expect to find in any world center of the arts. The Concert Hall seats 12,304, Interlochen Bowl seats 5,000, Kresge Auditorium 4,000. The Music Library contains 39,000 titles, including 10,000 orchestra and 16,000 band titles.

The National Music Camp was founded in 1928 by the late Joseph E. Maddy, a noted educator and teacher of the arts who at age 17 was a clarinetist with the Minneapolis Symphony and went on to a vaudeville career before he settled into teaching. For that first summer he found room and board for about 115 students at $2 a day at a hunting and fishing resort.

He established the Interlochen Arts Academy in 1962. Donations come from many individuals and corporations. One insurance executive and philanthropist has contributed more than $11 million. Full-time students pay about $9,000 a year for tuition, board and room.

To help plan an Interlochen visit this summer, get details about various series ticket packages from the Concert Office, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Interlochen, Mich. 49643, phone (616) 276-9221

Accommodations at Grand Traverse Resort Village will start at $98 for a couple this summer, and children are free if they share the same room or suite. Phone (616) 938-2100.