Music in the Grotto

The Moab Music Festival sponsors a five day rafting trip down the Colorado River from Moab to Lake Powell. River guides, musicians, and an adoring audience, all strapped in to J-Rig rafts and inflatable kayaks, float down, run some rapids, set up camp on shore, and stage a concert, day after day.

The first afternoon, just inside the national park boundary, we clambered into a grotto on the side of the river. A natural amphitheatre. Perfect for a bit of music.

Here is Sandra Wong playing the Swedish nyckleharpa in the grotto. An instrument I've never heard before, in a place where it had never been played.

The next day we drifted further down the river, and put in near an ancient Anasazi granary dug into the side of a ledge. We climbed up the ledge for another concert. Here is Marc Teicholz on guitar.

And we might as well hear what the nyckleharpa really sounds like...

The next day, we had a calm patch on the river. This provided a great opportunity for a concert. Here is a bit of Granados, and some folk pipes. You need to use your imagination a bit to hear through the recording, which was done (like all the photos and video on my blog) with a Panasonic DMC-FX01, which weighs in at smaller than a pack of cigarettes, and tends to pick up the sound of the wind a bit much...

Of course, it wasn't all concerti and piping. At times, the river reached up, and we had to put the instruments away, and put on the life vests. We bumped our way through Cataract Canyon, and eventually hit Lake Powell.

And through the whole trip, the camera never once fell in to the river.