News
Head for the Flint Hills
Published in the Kansas City Star on 11/19/06
Written by Paul Horsley
In June the Symphony in the Flint Hills, Inc. drew 6,000 listeners from around the country to the Tallgrass Prairie National Reserve for a concert with the Paul Winter Consort and the Kansas City Symphony.
The concert go so much national attention that it sold out two months in advance. And despite heat, long food lines and dueling “sound boards,” it was a smash success.
The group hoped all along to make the concert an annual even and that hope was clinched in October when Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius awarded it the 2006 Governor’s Tourism Award. The annual award goes to a tourist event that demonstrates “cooperation, sustainability, quality and accountability.”
Last week the group, which is based in Strong City, Kan., announced that the Symphony in the Flint Hills would indeed continue in 2007, with a concert at 6:30 p.m. June 16 to be held on a private ranch in Wabaunsee County near the Native Stone Scenic Byway.
But sit tight: Tickets won’t go on sale until after the first of the year.
“The Flint Hills have many faces and the idea is that we want to celebrate all of them,” event coordinator Emily Hunter said. The group intends to hold the concert at a different area of the Flint Hills each year.
Hunter said sound problems are being worked out, and the walk from the parking lot will be shorter than this year’s mile-long uphill hike.
“It was a great big co-creation, and nature was our partner,” Hunter said. “What we learned was that people were willing to take a risk for magic.”
As with this year’s event, next year’s will feature nature activities that begin in the early afternoon Hunter said.
She said her group hopes to educate attendees about Flint Hills plants, wildlife and “the people who live there and who have been taking care of it while it took care of them.”
Programming for the 90-minute music program is not final but Hunter said that the Symphony’s new assistant conductor, Damon Gupton, would conduct music by Aaron Copland and others.
Tickets will cost $35 ($24 for students, $14 for children 12 and younger), which includes all fees. Only 5,000 tickets will be sold, in addition to patron and sponsorship packages.
Patron packages starting at $1,000 include tickets, reserved seating, access to patron tents ad to a pre-event party and prime parking. Sponsorships are available up to $35,000.
The site is halfway between Topeka and Emporia near the junction of Kansas 99 and Kansas 4, near Eskridge. In case of bad weather, the concert will be performed the next day.
For more details on how to be come a patron, sponsor or volunteer or to receive information on the date tickets will go on sale, go to symphonyinthflinthills.org or call (620) 273-8955.