 Everything had to fit perfectly and balanced—150 feet of extension cord daisy chained around my shoulder, like rounds of ammo; Lawn Boy weed eater; trash bags; clippings basket; the big blue shop broom; 2-gallon gas can; cooler of water; extra weed eater line—but the good bright orange stuff that was heavy duty. I was 13, walking down Butte Creek with all of this carefully stacked, a new John Deere self-propelled mower “financed” to me by my father. I pushed the whole mess with my right hand and pulled the nice Toro edger behind me, with a Briggs and Stratton 1.5 horsepower motor—Dad always said he liked Briggs and Stratton. I learned how to clean the air filters, blow out the fuel filters, and use my screwdriver to see if the engine was “getting a spark.” The worst possible delay during a five- or six-yard day was when I pulled either of the pull-start ropes too hard and they broke. Now I had to disassemble the whole business and find the longest part of the rope, reattach around the coil, and maybe retie the handle—only now, the travel was shorter and I really had to give it a yank and hope it cranked. I learned about “Hot Shot”—what a great smell. You could spray this right into the carburetor, and these little engines would explode to a roaring start—literally.
I have been considering lately, how our work can be measured against our purpose and desires. I remember these big lawn days, at one point mowing close to 40, working to pay for school, save for things that I knew I would need, or worse, what I thought I needed, all the while grumbling about how all this was way beneath me and was just temporary. Day dreaming in a circular fashion as I mowed, how I really wanted to be playing my trombone in a big orchestra, and that all this was a chore, holding me back, taking my time, why do I have to do this, I’m hungry, and why can’t dad build us a pool in the back yard like all my other friends. I hated sweeping (this was way before gas blowers). When I was learning to mow and edge, dad would blow all the clippings into the street, I think there was this unspoken contest between him and Mr. Miller across the street. The best lawn club is one that you are initiated into and is hard to leave. The grass clippings seemed to land halfway in the middle of Butte Creek. Sometimes I would save that job until dusk in hopes of dad letting me off the hook. Nope – dad always found me, “finish the job well” he would say, and sent me sweeping. Sweeping under the streetlights, while watching fruit bats dive bomb insects and being fascinated by the big bug sprayer trucks made the job last well past 10PM. I never once considered that perhaps this work was necessary for every part of my development—building character, teaching me stewardship, grit, and that my attitude in this work was the most important thing. Now, many years later, I am still learning those same lessons. The settings change, the responsibilities increase, and the stakes feel higher, but the lesson remains. So, it is not my resourcefulness, discipline, self-perceived creative genius, or devotion to a cause, necessarily, but rather, my attitude in all types of work that transforms me—and continues to reveal where I still have more to learn. While sitting in the pit during a beautiful ballet performance, I have the opportunity, after a very big Fanfare for the Common Man, to hear Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in its entirety. There is ballet on the stage but I cannot see it. I can only hear the pattering of feet. So, I have had the opportunity to sit and listen and take in every nuance of phrasing—from the bassist sitting next to me, the extraordinary solo concertmaster, and exquisite high horn lines that are kissed upon entry. I am reminded that the ability to appreciate, understand the structure, and relate to this music is not self-begotten. It has been formed, shaped, and given over time. I continue to believe that this highly expressive art form, and the delicacy and artistry that requires its assembly is, as Sertillanges states, “the son of the Idea, of the Truth, of the creative World, the Life-giver immanent in creation.” It is something received and stewarded, not manufactured. I am surrounded by AI, and not yet completely annoyed, but cautious. I have used this tool in my daily study, organization, finance, and have constructed agents to help me grasp all the details that creative work demands—thus allowing me to be more focused on actually being creative. It is a tremendous blessing, and a curse, depending on how it is held and what it begins to replace rather than support. There is coming a time when the human element of our condition will become that true son of the Idea of the Creative World. We as a race will demand authenticity, purity, organic beauty from the human soul—not as preference, but as necessity. These elements require a hard pressing on every side, a trial by fire, and in nearly every instance, they require conditions of the human soul, intellectual life, and shared human relationships. Is there a design that exists far above our awareness? I believe science seems to point toward this more clearly every day, even as it cannot fully explain it. This was the feeling I had while listening to Mozart as it is set to ballet, and performed not by curated digitized cloning, but by real people—who sometimes play slightly behind the beat, or maybe on rare occasions, chip a note. Led by a conductor who is serving the dance but remaining true to Mozart, and who also has agency over the inspiration of the moment and makes subtle decisions in tempo because a dancer is perhaps a little more energetic in their choreography notions today. There is life in that. There is risk in that. There is something unrepeatable in that exchange. I read something last night in this new book (to me) that Mary recommended. This seemed profound to me: "Great men seem to us men of great boldness; in reality they are more obedient than others. The sovereign voice speaks to them. It is because they are actuated by an instinct which is a prompting of that sovereign voice that they take, always, with courage and sometimes with great humility, the place that posterity will later give them—venturing on acts and risking inventions often out of harmony with their time and place and even incurring much sarcasm from their fellows. They are not afraid because, however isolated they may appear to be, they feel that they are not alone. They have on their side the power that finally settles everything. They have a premonition of their empire to come. The man who has not the sense of true greatness is easily exultant or easily depressed, sometimes both together. Always conscious of the immensity of the true and of the slenderness of our resources, we shall not undertake anything beyond our power, but we shall go on to the limit of our power. We shall rejoice, then, in what has been given us in our measure." From: The Intellectual Life, Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. By A.G. Sertillanges I see a magnetism and confidence in certain people that comes from this place of knowing. Those who illustrate resilience after a loss, who elect to traffic in gratitude and grace, and those who understand that their life is in service to those things grand. Those who walk with less concern about how they are perceived, but instead work on their perception of others, rejoice in “what has been given us in our measure,” and seem to move with a quiet steadiness. Risking inventions, risking performance, risking rejection or loss makes the very image bearer I desire to know. Moving forward, learning once and for all the first lessons, and yet somehow always relearning them, leaning on the “immensity of the true.” A very dear friend called me last night. I could hear it in his voice… there was a slight tone of resignation, exasperation, and perhaps entitlement. I related to everything he said and I had no answers—only recognition. I thought of the years of encouragement, mentoring, and committed excellence he has modeled in his work and life. He will never know the impact he had on me personally and so many others. I too have had those questioning moments—asking why, after so much devotion, obedience, discipline, did the dream not materialize. Everyone has those unspoken desires that are too fragile to bring into the light, for fear of being ridiculed or exposed, or perhaps never realized. Sit with it. The end of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony depicts this in a way that can only be experienced though music. The last thing he wrote ends in the most subtle release. Loss, disorientation, grief, reflection, acceptance, where grief seems to metabolize into clarity and peace. The chaos that exists in the world and the uncertainty of all things, moving at an exponentially quick rate, has caused us to fill every moment with activity, striving, indulging. Silence has all but vanished, and being together, in a peaceful, transfixed moment—like sitting in Mozart or Mahler and not playing—is the therapy and ministering wholeness I needed. It is a reminder that we are not machines, and that presence itself is formative. The John Deere work, the teaching, the festival, the sitting still and listening, all come from the same well of trusting and knowing. Maybe they lead to grand vision work, or not. Maybe they contribute in ways we can never know. So let us venture out on those inventions that are out of harmony with our time, realizing the slenderness of our resources but walking and rejoicing in confidence that we have, on our side, the Power that settles everything—and that this is enough. Brent Phillips
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 There are moments in life when we are asked to act before we fully understand why. Not because the decision is logical. Not because it is safe. But because something in us recognizes that if we don’t step forward, we risk missing something important. Field of Dreams captures that tension well. Ray hears a voice — “If you build it, he will come.” He doesn’t yet know how a dream can take shape. He doesn’t have proof. He honors his past and hopes to preserve his reputation, but the calling and mission seem too compelling. He takes a risk that threatens his livelihood and his future. And yet, through that risk, something unexpected happens. His relationships deepen. His sense of purpose sharpens. And in the end, what is restored is not just his farm — it is his connection to his father, to his past, and to what matters most. In many ways, Mountain Light Music Festival comes from a similar place. It doesn’t exist because it is easy to produce music. It doesn’t exist because it is efficient or scalable. It is not cheap, nor does it simply entertain. It exists because there is something powerful about gathering people — artists, students, families, and patrons — in one place and asking them to slow down, listen, and engage. What we need is more wilderness, more landscape, more art and more beauty. We need time to stand still, or we may wish to simply be still and know that there is so much more. I have often found that lingering questions can sit perfectly well alongside what I thought to be concrete answers. If you have spent time with Mahler or Bruckner, you learn that distant and seemingly incompatible tonal worlds can coexist, even enrich one another. One tonal center may unfold toward an unexpected cadence that, on first hearing, surprises you—yet in retrospect feels inevitable, as though it could not have resolved in any other way. This is not passive listening; it is a form of active presence. To let a Mozart phrase unfold while the imagination wanders is not disengagement, but an evocative act. To inhabit the architecture of a Beethoven piano trio, or to receive a timeless operatic aria in such a space, is to find the mind quietly reshaped and renewed. When time seems to fall away, when memory stirs, when the sound of great music mingles with the voices of friends, when masterful works are offered through disciplined artistry—all set against the clarity of alpine air—one begins to understand the essence of the festival. A festival, after all, is a celebration: a deliberate and devoted offering of ourselves. It is sitting in a room where sound is not background noise, but something you follow, track, and feel. It is being aware of how a phrase unfolds, how a silence holds tension, how a room breathes together during a performance. And it extends beyond the concert. It’s walking outside after a performance and hearing the same quiet in the trees that you just heard in the final cadence of a string quartet. It’s sharing a meal where the conversation isn’t rushed, where artists and audience are no longer separate roles. It’s spending time in a landscape that reinforces the same things the music is asking of you: patience, attention, and openness. This summer, Mountain Light isn’t just presenting concerts. It is creating environments where these experiences can happen. Through three distinct retreats, we are intentionally shaping different ways for people to enter into that space:
Each of these experiences is different, but they all serve the same purpose:
To create a setting where people can listen more closely, engage more fully, and reconnect with both music and each other. For me, the reason this matters is personal. I think about time spent with my father in the San Juan mountains — fishing, talking very little, but sharing something that didn’t need to be explained. Unlike most any of my musical colleagues, I spent time in the woods, hunting with a bow. This may seem like sacrilege to many, I understand this offends, but if it is truly about conservation, hear me out. For me, it was the stewardship and respect of the ranch land in Texas that belonged to my father and my father before me and my great great grandfathers, that I learned to respect. As the years pass, it becomes less and less about the harvest and so much more about walking through the same paths those men walked. Now, that land is completely lost to me and I am saddened and I am haunted. My first deer, my first trip back to the ranch house on my own, the early morning walk to the stand in complete darkness, and the very close packs of coyotes singing before dawn, all bring me to a presence. The memory, the lessons, and the cultivation of walking meditatively and prayerfully, sorting through painful trials, recalling beautiful memories, and asking deeper questions, this is my concert space. I think about my sons — now adults — and the years we spent climbing together, bivouacking above timberline, experiencing moments that were physically demanding but emotionally grounding. Those experiences didn’t happen because they were convenient. They happened because we made the decision to go, to commit, and to be present. And like everything meaningful, they passed quickly. What Mountain Light aims to do is not recreate those exact moments — that’s not possible. But it does create space for new ones. Moments where a student finds clarity in their playing because they’re hearing differently. Moments where a patron connects with an artist over dinner and begins to see the work from the inside. Moments where families step out of routine and into something shared — something they experience together, not just attend. These moments don’t happen by accident. They happen because the conditions are built intentionally. This is the “field” we are building. Not a physical field, but a space where music, nature, and human connection reinforce one another. And like the story in Field of Dreams, it requires faith that if the conditions are right — if the space is built with care — people will come, engage, and find something meaningful in the process. This summer, we are inviting you to step into that experience. Come to Pagosa Springs. Spend time in an environment where listening matters. Where music is not a product, but an exchange. Where time in nature and time in sound begin to feel connected. Where relationships — between artists, students, patrons, and families — are not incidental, but central. If you choose to come, you are not just attending a festival. You are helping shape what it becomes. You are part of the audience that listens deeply. Part of the conversations that happen at the table. Part of the shared experience that turns performances into something lasting. And over time, that is what builds something enduring. Not just concerts. Not just programming. But a community, a tradition, and a place people return to — because of what they experienced there. Join us.  Music. Adventure. Mentorship. Purpose. Elevated.
Of these words, elevated is often the hardest to name—yet it is the one that quietly shapes everything we do. At Mountain Light Music Festival, elevated has never meant louder, faster, flashier, or more impressive. It has meant deeper. It means raising the depth of care we bring to our craft, our relationships, and our responsibility to one another. It means elevation of integrity, mastery, purpose, and presence—not only on stage, but in rehearsal rooms, shared meals, quiet hikes, and long conversations that shape who an artist becomes. These are lofty ideals impossible to pursue perfectly and likely we have fallen dreadfully short in a few. Remember, it is the pursuit of these ideals, it is the cultivation, the learning from mistakes, and the lifting from fractured back into form. Renewal does not replace hardship or mistake, but instead it informs. What was once tested in our daily lives becomes reforged and finds footing again, along our same path. Elevation, for us, is not about escape. It is about formation. We do this in the practice room, we do this in our relationships, we do this in our business and ultimately purpose is reclaimed. This is the mountain light. This is the festival of life, which is to be celebrated alone, and with others. These forming moments occur sitting around the fire at night, after a day of rehearsals, or standing under Fourmile Falls after a long hike up the trail and laying on a rock at the Mountain Light Lodge gazing up at the Milky Way. Artists, faculty, students, friends, patrons – all of us come together for this transcendent week and come away, better stewards, and better people, with shared experiences that could never be purchased but instead granted. Elevation Through Place There is a reason this work happens in the mountains. Elevation changes the body. Breath shortens. Attention sharpens. Distraction falls away. Beauty and grandeur place our ambitions in proper proportion. Solitude creates space—not emptiness, but room. Yes, the work may have begun in the practice room of a major city, or a small rehearsal space between academic classes but ultimately, the meaning is refined in the elevated space of wilderness and mountains. The quiet gravity of a mountain town like Pagosa Springs lends itself naturally to retreat—not withdrawal from life but a return to what matters. Here, musicians gather not only to prepare performances, but to practice listening again: to one another, to the landscape, and to themselves and to a higher calling and purpose. This is why Mountain Light has always been more than a festival. It is an artist retreat shaped by wilderness, stillness, and intentional community. Elevation Through Craft In recent messages, I’ve reflected on two parallel practices that have shaped my life: painting and fly‑fishing. Both taught me the same quiet truth music eventually reveals: Nothing meaningful rewards haste. In music, rushed preparation reveals itself instantly. The rush to faster tempi, and the temptation towards hurried, shallow, note perfect execution is both inarticulate and painful. There is no story, there is no emotion, and the meaning of each phrase is lost. In nature, haste breaks the spell or it is calamitous. Rushing a summit bid, missing an important decision window, failing to recognize early signs of hypothermia, may result in dire consequences. In mentorship, it erodes trust. Holding others to a higher standard than your own or showing impatience and frustration with students creates a false lesson. Emphasizing the audition over the process and placing total significance on advancing in an audition, develops an insecure and fragile identity. The disciplines that shape an artist—listening, waiting, returning again—cannot be compressed without losing their integrity. Making momentous and damaging mistakes may work together for good, creating a deeply learned and experienced life. This is why the mountains matter. Elevation resists urgency. Wilderness operates on seasons, not deadlines. Rivers carve canyons by consistency, not force, well, sometimes force. Those same forces can be swift and painful in us at times, but they can reveal the ore of our hidden value. They teach us that what lasts is built through faithful attention over time. My grandmother, Luvinia “Beebe” Phillips, returned to painting later in life, bringing to it a discipline refined by patience and devotion. She painted slowly, attentively—sometimes returning to the same image at the same hour each day so the light would remain honest. She never sought display or acclaim. The value of her work was never in recognition, but in the practice itself. Fly‑fishing taught me this same reverence. The delicate and precise cast, the drag‑free drift, the reading of water and light, and constant scanning for a flash under the surface —none of it is instinct. All of it is learned through repetition, humility, failure, and mentorship. It is a craft shaped in quiet places, practiced far from the spotlight. Music demands the same posture. What appears as talent is often devotion disguised. What sounds effortless is earned. Elevation of performance always begins with elevation of process. My students spend hours scrolling through perfectly curated videos of seasoned pros, in hopes of uncovering the nugget of technique that will unlock their potential. They never, never, see the thousands of hours those artists spend, playing one single phrase, or group of sixteenths over and over, again and again, slower, and slower. We don’t have time for it. It is not sexy. It goes against the child prodigy narrative that seems to so easily capture and tempt our desires. Oh, how wonderful to hear a rhapsodic phrase played perfectly by the young artist. This can happen, but that phrase was earned, it was wrought. Maybe ask the young artist’s parents. It did not happen this week. It has been happening since they were six years old. Elevation Through Mentorship Over the past eleven years, Mountain Light has been shaped by an extraordinary lineage of professional faculty and students. Many who once arrived here as young artists now serve in major orchestras, premier Washington, D.C. service bands, and leading university teaching posts. They did not arrive there quickly. They arrived there formed. Mentorship at Mountain Light is not transactional. It is relational. It is not a curriculum to be completed, but a posture shared. Students may arrive with formidable technique. Our hope is that they leave with something harder to name: A clearer identity A deeper sense of purpose And a belonging to a lineage that values patience over speed, stewardship over self‑promotion, and humility alongside excellence. Elevation happens when artists come together not merely to perform, but to seek one another out—to collaborate honestly, to listen carefully, and to leave changed, refined, restored, and renewed. Elevation Through Relationship When musicians look back on their time at Mountain Light, they rarely begin with repertoire. They remember people. They remember the our meals together, the early morning “Phillips Super Scram” the exceptionally good family style dinners our faculty prepare, they remember the bear that visits our lodge at 4AM and rifles through our storage bins, they remember the hail storm on the trail, and they remember how impossibly hard it was to play trombone at 9,400 ft the first day. They will never forget the Chet Russel chipmunk Olympics and his perfectly built fire. They remember the huge laughter, the amazing stillness, and moments when someone believed in them before they fully believed in themselves. This is why we insist that relationships—not performances—are the true legacy of this work. Public concerts matter deeply. But the deeper work happens in the in‑between spaces: the places where students learn not just how to play, but why. Like a river shaping stone, this work happens gradually, through consistency rather than spectacle. Elevation, Remembered The San Juan River begins high—where snowfields dissolve into motion, carrying memory across seasons and decades. Music carries memory the same way: breath to sound, sound to silence, silence to understanding. Mountain Light exists to honor that lineage. Like the slide positions my teacher, David Waters, wrote in my Arbon book. They seemed unnecessary and redundant when I was 17, now they seem treasured. I didn’t come up with those on my own, I was taught, and now, decades later, I understand. The lessons I learned on the trail with Chet Russell, founder and visionary of Voice of Wilderness will never leave me. He is a backcountry guru, scholar, philosopher and to me a spiritual giant. He became my wilderness father and is so many ways, he spoke into every corner of my purpose. I know I have let him down on occasion, but he is always there to encourage, renew, and redeem what could have gone wrong on the trail, or did go wrong along my path. I still want to be like Chet someday! To gather in beauty. To commit to craft. To honor mentors. To walk alongside students. To listen, reflect, and write it down. To seek forgiveness To experience humility and build back true confidence To leave changed—and return again. Elevation, in the end, is not about rising above others. It is about being lifted into clarity, together. That is what we mean by Elevated. Thank you for believing in music, mentorship, wilderness, and the quiet practices that shape them all. We invite you to listen this summer—to the artists, to the mountains, and perhaps to something stirring quietly within yourself. Brent Phillips | Director  Music and painting share a quiet truth: both demand patience, repetition, and an attentiveness to light, time, and place. Neither rewards haste. Both are sustained by devotion and deepened through mentorship—often practiced far from the spotlight. The image featured here is drawn from an original oil on canvas by my grandmother, Luvinia E. “Beebe” Phillips (signed Beebe Phillips, 1965), inspired by the San Juan Mountains. Though she showed artistic talent early, Beebe set painting aside for many years while raising a family. When she returned to the easel later in life—after becoming a grandmother—she did so with renewed discipline and clarity of purpose. Beebe painted slowly and meticulously. Whether working in oil, pencil, ink, or watercolor, she spent hours building realism into each scene: tiny blades of grass, reflections on water, the texture of leaves and stone. She loved wildlife—especially birds—and painted them with the same care. My grandfather once said of a small kingfisher painting, “I wouldn’t take anything for that.” Painting was never about display. She never exhibited her work and gave most of it away to family and friends, despite being warned this would diminish its value. For her, the value was in the practice itself. My grandfather built a small studio onto their Houston home where she painted, sewed her own clothes, kept the household books, and quietly returned each day to her craft. When they traveled, they chose places deliberately: a lake where he could fish and she could paint. Often she worked from photographs, returning to the same image at the same hour each day to capture consistent light. “You have to paint at the same time every day,” she said, “so the lighting will be right.” These were not escapes, but acts of attention—ways of remembering places more fully. That rhythm—of devotion to craft, reverence for wilderness, and growth shaped by patient mentorship—runs deeply through the Mountain Light Music Festival. We gather in the mountains to do more than perform. We come to listen closely, to learn slowly, and to pass down knowledge through example, care, and shared experience. This season, we are offering a limited‑edition fine art print of Beebe Phillips’s San Juan Mountains painting “Mountain Light” as a special thank‑you to donors who support MLMF at a designated level. The original remains in our family; the print allows this legacy of light, discipline, and place to continue forward—supporting young musicians as they find their own voice under the guidance of mentors who value the long view. Thank you for believing in music, art, wilderness, and the quiet practices that shape them all.    At the confluence of waters, and rivers, lies memories, practice, and the culmination of craft. These places braid together and quietly shape a lifetime. The delicate presentation of a fly, offered without drift, is never instinctive; it is practiced, refined in solitude, and carried forward in community by those willing to teach.
Music asks the same of us. It asks the same of us as practicers and listeners. Playing with elegant phrasing and communicating something profound, meaningful, or curious to your audience requires intentionality. What seems like raw talent may actually be a well-developed and practiced skill. A skill of being self-aware, patient, and free. For me, the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs Colorado and with a thoughtfully loaded internal frame pack, Upper Fourmile Lake provides four decades of craft. This has become the place I seek sanctuary and refuge. Stillness in this consecrated water has always brought me clarity. Oh how I wish I had spent more time listening to my heart while fly-fishing this country. Stillness, with only the sound of distant winds on the steep crags and running water must also be practiced. The San Juan River begins in high volcanic country, where snowfields dissolve into motion and silence learns to sing. It wanders from alpine cold into broad, sun‑washed valleys, threading forests, plateaus, and the first whispers of desert. Shaped by fire long gone and water still at work, the river moves with the patience of deep time, carrying memory the way music carries breath. The Upper Fourmile is high alpine emerald green and begs me to arrive quietly, almost apologetically, hoping it might let me hunt along the bank for a while. The river and the lake teach these lessons: presence matters more than force, patience more than power, perfection is not the goal, but rather casting with confidence and forgiveness. I pitch my tent above treeline and assemble my Loomis 5wt, taking with me only my net, cutters, and a few flies. I don't need my entire arsenal because maybe catching isn't the goal. No phone, no people, nothing pressing, and it takes a while to slip into wilderness. Letting pressures fall away but allowing dreams and vision to come naturally. Being present in this landscape is restoring my soul. Gratitude, contentment, peace. It’s here that many of the deepest threads of my life—the music, the wilderness, the mentors, the students—have quietly braided together. The practice room is where I spend time working on technique, musical mastery, conditioning, and creative projects. The stage is where I get to tell my story. The river is where I soak in wilderness, beauty, and pay attention to what is going on with the trout, water, and ultimately, my soul. Reflection, meditation, and prayer help me quiet my mind, worry less, and seek patience. Stillness and quiet with a singular focus, this gives me strength, patience and appreciation for friends and family, some lost to me now. Fly fishing the San Juan is not about the fish. Not really. It’s about learning to read water the way a musician learns to read silence. It’s about attention—how wind bends my loop on my back cast, how light hits a seam, how timing transforms effort into grace. Somewhere between a failed drift and a perfect one, you understand that this skill—like music—is passed down. Someone showed me how to do this. Legacy Is What We Pass Down Every meaningful pursuit begins with a guide, a mentor, a father. In the backcountry, that guide was Chet Russell—a climbing and wilderness mentor who shaped my understanding of what it means to move through wild places with humility. Through Voice of Wilderness, Chet taught me that leadership in the mountains isn’t about elevation gained, or peaks bagged, but awareness sharpened. Backpacking into remote terrain, climbing exposed routes, journaling at the end of long days—those experiences forged a deep respect for risk, restraint, and reverence. Music gave me this same gift. My father showed me how to live and learn, and he was an extraordinary musician and adventurer and craftsman. He taught me to pursue my talent, and allowed me to fail just enough. I think about him nearly every day. As a young trombonist, I was formed profoundly by my time studying with David Waters of the Houston Symphony and the Trombones of the Houston Symphony. David was not simply a great musician; he was a man who understood craft as stewardship. He taught me how to prepare, how to listen, and—most importantly—how to carry myself in a profession built on trust. David and my father have since passed, but their voice remains with me every time I lift the instrument, explore the backcountry or cast my fly-rod. Their lessons echo the same truth the mountains teach: excellence is quiet, earned, and shared. At Mountain Light Music Festival, mentorship is not a curriculum—it’s a posture. Students often arrive with formidable technique. My hope is that they leave with lineage and a truer identity. Music and Wilderness Speak the Same Language Over the past twenty years, I’ve invited dozens of students into the high country—not just to study trombone, but to live inside a rhythm that includes fly fishing, backcountry hiking, camp meals, early mornings, and long conversations. These trips weren’t retreats from music; they were extensions of it. In the wilderness, distractions fall away. There’s nowhere to hide—from weather, from fatigue, from honesty. Music works the same way. In a rehearsal room or on a mountaintop, sound reveals who you are that day: prepared or distracted, generous or guarded. This is the soul of Mountain Light. Mornings begin with mountain air and quiet intention. Afternoons unfold in rehearsals where listening matters more than talking. Evenings often end with chamber music played in intimate spaces—concerts that invite both vulnerability and courage. Chamber music, like fly fishing a living river, rewards attentiveness. You can’t rush it. You must listen—to the ensemble, to the space, to something larger than yourself. This summer, I’m especially grateful to be joined by my wonderful colleagues from the University of Houston—artists I respect deeply, musicians whose generosity and intellect elevate every note they play. Together, we’ll bring elevated chamber music into these wild places—not to impress, but to offer something honest and enduring. So, it is this culmination of everything that matters to me, music, adventure, purpose, all with an elevated presentation. I want to do all of this with a select few friends, meeting new music lovers, teaching fly casting, guiding a few on short day hikes, and spending the evening listening to some of the finest young artists in the country. Our creative Chef, Clay Berry has become a good friend and will be providing wonderful meals during our time together at Elk Lake Interludes. My good friend Steve Wilson, John Whitaker, our MLMF team and families will introduce you to these artists and invite you to join us for pre-concert drinks, and post-concert discussions with our artists. Explore our artists – Zelter String Quartet, Trio Magnoliana, and a night of opera arias with Elizabeth Hanje, Luka Tseveldize and Laura Bleakley will be staying at the Elk Lake Lodge with us. This is a relaxed week of beautiful music, well-crafted food, and your choice of outdoor excursions. The Community Awaits You I’m not selling a trip. I’m asking for your charitable contribution to help Mountain Light Music Festival grow, provide scholarships for students and secure our future. You can make an impact and create permanence. This experience provides meaningful stewardship for you, and we want to recognize your gift. This aligns with your personal values and enhances our vision for an elevated music festival for the future. This opportunity exists for those who believe in the future of this organization. Elk Lake Interludes: A Legacy Donor Retreat – we are inviting six donor groups to join us in our shared vision of securing the Mountain Light Music Festival in Pagosa Springs for years to come. The Journal: Where Craft Becomes Conscious Every serious angler I know keeps notes. Water conditions. Missed opportunities. New waters. The small decisions that mattered, what was on your mind, revelations, wisdom revealed, what became more clear, where should we focus next, and who needed our love. Surrender. Worship. I’ve carried that practice into music and teaching. I encourage students to journal—not to memorialize success, but to notice growth. What shifted today? Where did I listen better? Where did I rush? What surprised me? Drawing the lens in and out from error focused to freedom. At Mountain Light Music Festival, journaling becomes a bridge between experience and intention. It slows learning just enough for understanding to catch up. The San Juan teaches this too. Years later, I don’t remember how many fish I caught. I remember the light, the conversation, the feeling of standing in cold water with time suspended. I remember my friend Scott and I fly-fishing perfect water between rehearsals in Harrisburg. Those moments don’t just pass—they shape you. Gosh, I miss Scott. Relationships Are the Real Catch When students look back on their time at Mountain Light, they rarely talk first about repertoire. They talk about people. They talk about shared meals, early hikes, awkward beginnings, breakthrough rehearsals. They talk about being challenged—and being believed in. Teaching for me has never been about replication. It’s about invitation, about helping students recognize their own voice and giving them the tools—and the courage—to trust it. Like fishing, mentorship requires patience. You don’t force the take. You wait for the moment when readiness meets opportunity, and those opportunities, like fly-fishing, can come unexpectedly. The take may be subtle but the hook set is deliberate. Purpose, Lifted The San Juan doesn’t announce itself. It simply flows—year after year—shaping land and lives through consistency rather than spectacle. That is the model I keep returning to. Mountain Light Music Festival exists to form artists who understand that excellence and humility are not opposites, and that purpose deepens when it’s shared. Music is the medium—but formation is the mission. To step into wilderness. To commit to craft. To honor mentors. To walk alongside students. To write it down. To return changed. That is why we gather—year after year, generation after generation. Because a life well‑crafted—like a well‑played phrase, like a clean cast into a living river—doesn’t just happen. It’s practiced. It’s passed down. It’s shared. And it’s remembered. We invite you to be a part of Elk Lake Interludes this summer. We invite you to a concert in Pagosa this summer. Please say hello, maybe we can fish together. Brent Phillips | Director  Thank you!
This was a landmark season for the Mountain Light Music Festival. Thank you to all who joined us for a beautiful summer of music! At the core of this festival is a spirit of celebration—the inner joyfulness of each person bringing their unique gifts and talents in service to our fellow man. Faculty and young artists are immersed in the creation and behold beauty. Restoration and the quiet majesty of the landscape give us life. This is what charms those who participate and attend the Mountain Light Music Festival. We invite you into a moment to contemplate, rest, be still, and know that the ability to lift one's spirit in festivity and connect with a renewed faith that restores souls helps sustain our purpose. Your Charitable Contribution Makes a Difference A one-time gift to the Mountain Light Music Festival helps us determine programming for next season, secure artist faculty, recruit new young artist, secure venues, and promote the mentoring process. Please consider making a charitable contribution to Mountain Light Music. Make a GiftWhere Music Meets the Outdoors Now in its 10th season, the Mountain Light Music Festival (MLMF) is an exclusive chamber music festival that makes its home in Pagosa Springs, CO. For two weeks in the summer, top musicians from around the country trade in the concert hall for the for the fresh air and breathtaking views of Colorado. The visionary festival was founded in 2015 trombonist Brent Phillips, who is on faculty at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music. As a boy, Phillips visited Pagosa each summer to participate in Voice of the Wilderness (VOW) outdoor adventures led by Chet Russel, backpacking through the glorious San Juan mountains and forests. When the former “President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band trombonist became a professor at Baylor University, Pagosa kept calling him back, and he launched MLMF through VOW in a fruitful, decade-long partnership. Directed by Phillips and faculty Jon Whitaker, MLMF accepts an elite pool of collegiate musicians to participate each summer. The group is frequently joined by professional guest artists from University Texas El Paso, the Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Baylor University and more. The Mission We focus on our outdoor setting, community building in Pagosa, and using the incredible alpine wilderness as the perfect classroom for integrating music and nature. In addition to specialized musical training, we provide instruction in fly-casting, wilderness skills, orienteering, ecology, conservation, day hikes, and star gazing. Our activities and practice inspire creativity, provoke mindfulness, and introduce spiritual precepts to our craft. We believe this unique recipe is exactly what the aspiring young artist needs today. 2025 Artists Faculty Jonathan Whitaker Professor of Trombone, University of Illinois Steve Wilson Professor of Trombone, University of Texas El Paso Brad White Associate Principal Trombone, Houston Symphony Brent Phillips Affiliate Artist, University of Houston Professor of Trombone, Baylor University (retired) Young Artists Kizer Brown University of Arkansas Adam Almeter University of Illinois Jonathan Kirchem University of Illinois Jackson Parker University of Illinois Nolan White University of Illinois Matt Williamson University of Illinois Isiah Vasquez Rice University Gannon Allen Baylor University Matthew Willingham Baylor University Grace Lipscomb Baylor University Tayton Crutsinger Baylor University Santi Amieva Baylor University Wyatt Bond Baylor University Mountain Light Music Festival |
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MissionMusic, Adventure, Mentorship, and Purpose. Each summer, we bring together professional faculty, world‑class artists, and passionate students to create a community devoted to artistic discovery. Through chamber music, orchestral performance, and collaborative creativity, participants explore their truest musical identity while learning from mentors who value curiosity, authenticity, and expressive depth. At Mountain Light Music Festival, we believe the mountains help reveal who we are as artists—and who we can become.
We are proud to make Pagosa Springs our home, where our stage is a meadow, and the backdrop is the San Juan Mountains. Mountain Light Music Festival (check payable) 1302 Waugh Drive PMB 832 Houston TX 77019 |