June Travels and Reflections: Returning to Vermont, Engle Reunion and Another Gig on the Trailer
Right after the tremendous 30th birthday celebrations of my last blog, I drove up to Vermont to work a week of the preseason at the Marlboro Music Festival. I attended Marlboro as a participant these past two summers and my life has been rejuvenated by the music, the mountains, the fresh atmosphere and the people- staff and participants alike. During my first few days at the festival, I heard that the staff needed extra workers in the postseason, and despite the higher ups’ discouragement (only one festival participant had ever done this before, and he didn’t last more than a couple of days), I signed up. I needed somewhere to stay between the end of the festival and my departure for a year in Europe anyway. The post-season was manual labor, cleaning rooms and apartments, packing up furniture, etc, but it was refreshing after 7 weeks of intense emotional and mental music work. It was also grounding to clean up after a summer of being treated like a special, musical genius. It felt soul refreshing to clean my colleagues and senior musicians’ rooms, like giving something of myself as gratitude for the amazing experience I had had at the festival. I imagine I would have felt a bit out of balance if I had just had the high without the grounding postseason experience thereafter.
After my second great summer at Marlboro, I was able to work only a couple days of the postseason. It was still a life-giving time of rolling up my sleeves with the staff. The staff of this festival are such beautiful, grounded, generous people, full of life and realism in a way that is often missed by great artists who can’t help but live with their heads in the clouds (I am guilty of this at times as well!).
Though I was not invited to a third summer at Marlboro, I asked if I could come work the pre- and postseasons of the festival, if for nothing else a little extra rent money and a couple of free trips to Vermont. It was different to go back without the shiny mantle of “participant”. 2023 has seen more humbling experiences for me as a musician. People who believe in my artistry ask what I am doing next and I have not had a lot of things to tell them. I am right where I need to be, doing all the things I need to do for this stage of my life and career, but I am acutely aware of how it may look and sound when I don’t have upcoming engagements. I feel insecure, that people will lose their faith in me, that they will think I have given up, that I am not what they thought. But I am battling these feelings with affirmations of the work I have done to be content in this life stage. I am doing plenty to keep singing and stay afloat and, alas, I can’t call myself up and offer me a contract. With all of that in mind, I joined the ranks of the Marlboro staff for a week of unpacking, sweeping, and arranging furniture.
It was an amazing week, getting to know remarkable people, growing pre-established relationships and breathing fresh mountain air. The views are breath-taking, the culture slow and refreshing, the silliness (in the best sense of the word!) of my colleagues soul-filling. I walked through the campus one morning, praying for my friends who would be returning for the summer’s festival and paying attention to the places that hit me with particular emotion. One that surprised me most was the driveway outside of the concert hall, where we would congregate after performances to congratulate our friends on their remarkable accomplishments, which they inevitably were. This is a beautiful tradition, but also a bit anxiety inducing in its disorder as you wait to hug your friends and try to come up with something to say that would be more profound than, “Great job!” “So beautiful!”. Reflecting on that spot, I was filled with wonderful and intense memories of performing amazing music with great musicians, and of my friends’ moving performances.
Returning to work without the designation of participant allowed me also to be more aware of giftings that I have outside of music. Working with the staff, some new and some whom I have known for two years already, I loved getting to know them all, hearing their unique perspectives about life and art, and let me tell you, it was awfully hard to leave after a week. I felt like we had just dug into these bonds and I was tearing away and missing out on 8 weeks of joy. I am a relationship-addict, I have come to find. I love people. I need people and community, and this was such a beautiful experience of that.
On my final night there, we went out to dinner as a full staff and laughed hysterically. We went to get ice cream at my request (I am more of a cake lady, but I can’t go to Vermont without getting a cone of maple ice cream) and came back to campus and ended the evening playing Catchphrase and Telephone in a yet-to-be-unpacked coffee shop. It felt unfair to leave the next morning, but the time had come and I had a family reunion to get to.
The Engle Reunion is going on 50 years of wonderful, bi-annual family weekend congregations at Kenbrook Bible Camp in central PA. I haven’t missed one my entire life, though the last two I have had to squeeze into 24-hour trips because of summer festivals. My life has been so enriched by these family gatherings. As kids, my sisters and I looked forward to Engle Reunions with such delight: boating, swimming, shuffleboard, drink machines, silly family auctions and talent shows, getting paid a quarter by Great Uncle Gene to flick his brothers’ ears. As we became adolescents, my sisters and I took over leading and emceeing the family talent shows. As we became adults and professionals, we passed this onto the next generation but haven’t stopped sharing our talents. Thanks to these reunions and my parents’ commitment to staying in touch with family, I have been able to connect with extended family over the years. I am proud to see my sister’s kids being so free and enjoying these reunions in many of the same ways we did as kids. In my precious 24 hours there, I got to see my nieces and nephews perform silly things for the talent show, show off some of the ridiculous videos that I make (with such pride), perform some classical selections with my sister Grace (who practiced so much for this occasion!) and sit around a table with uncles, aunts, cousins and a bag of oversized marshmallows, tossing (or spiking) them at one another for a whole hour. Engle Reunion in its glory.
Driving to Delaware the next day, I stopped in Intercourse, PA for coffee and writing in my journal. I had been wanting to do this all year, every time I would drive from Grace’s place in Lancaster County to Wilmington for a gig with the opera. A souvenir from Amish Country in Intercourse is GOLD. I love a witty gift and was heading to make recordings at OperaDelaware and staying with my host from last October’s production of Così fan tutte, so I picked up some fun thank you gifts.
I was ready to head home after all those stops and am back in the city temporarily before heading back out to PA this week to help encourage Grace’s baby to come forth into the world (I have thus far been a successful encourager of birth for two of her babies). It was a busy first weekend back, with an impromptu trip out to my New Jersey mom, Joan’s house, an important Zoom business meeting and a raucous afternoon of games with friends. I am so thankful for my communities!
Marie in NYC (and on the road, for good measure)
