Talkeetna

August 30, 2017
Population: 965
Venue: Fairview Inn

It was boozy, rowdy, and everyone seemed to know each other. I was…scared. Not scared to be there - I loved hanging out there - but to play there.

On August 29, we left the Kenai Peninsula, where all the concerts up till then had taken place. We drove 333 miles north from Homer, through Anchorage, and to the small town of Talkeetna. Talkeetna is a popular destination as it is a hub for flightseeing tours to Denali National Park. You may also have heard of Talkeetna for having had a cat as its mayor from 1997-2017. Maybe the biggest disappointment of tour is that I missed meeting Stubbs (the mayor cat) by a mere month before he passed away in July. 

Driving into interior Alaska, there was a significant shift in the landscape. The Kenai Peninsula was wild, but limited in space by definition. The landscape of interior Alaska was vast on a scale I’d never experienced before - the density of trees, the rugged mountains that seemed miniature because they were so far away, the hushed cool air that held the tension of all the wildlife hiding from my gaze. I thought about the fact that Alaska has the highest rate of domestic violence of any state. As breathtaking as the scenery was, I was also seeing just how secluded one could be in this endless land, isolated and trapped in one’s own home. 

My venue was the historic Fairview Inn, a beloved local dive bar that hosts almost daily rock and bluegrass shows. We arrived in Talkeetna the night before my matinee show, and we drank at the bar and listened to open mic night. It was boozy, rowdy, and everyone seemed to know each other. I was…scared. Not scared to be there - I loved hanging out there - but to play there. Out of all of my Alaska tour stops, this one was definitely coolest. Who was going to show up in the middle of the day to listen to some random girl from NYC play classical music? To add to my insecurity, I was left out of the Fairview’s weekly music line-up poster, nor was my name on the events board outside their door. I had reached out to local media to plug the show in the weeks leading up, but hadn’t heard back from anyone.

The morning of the show, I hiked along the Sustina River, then meandered into the historical society’s museum downtown. I chatted with the woman working the counter, and I mentioned why I was there. To my delight, she exclaimed, “Oh, that’s you! I heard about you on our radio station.” Back at Fairview Inn, one of the employees had added my name to the board in a huff - it now read “2pm: Classical piano.”

At 2:05 pm, I started playing my usual opener piece by Bach. There was just a handful of people there, including the open mic night host from the previous night, Chris. I figured this would be an intimate (read: bad-turnout) show, came to terms with it quickly, and focused on my playing. 10-15 minutes in, the room had actually filled out. Parents with children were in the front. Younger folks in mountain-casual clothes flanked the sides and back, sitting on bar stools or standing. Tourists popped their heads in the door, curious to see what was going on, sometimes choosing to come in and stay. Regulars drank at the bar, quietly conversing, at times perking up to glance at the stage. 

This Fairview show was one that broke a psychological barrier for me. I had been touting continuously that “classical music is for everyone - it just has to be presented in the right way,” but deep down, to my embarrassment, I felt like there was a limit for how “low-brow” a setting it could withstand. And this audience, rapt with Beethoven, was showing me otherwise. No matter the setting, an audience consists of humans who want to listen. They are there for multiple reasons: because they are intrigued, they seek beauty, they seek intellectual or emotional stimulation, they want to experience something out of the ordinary, they love music. They wouldn’t be there otherwise. 

I had kept my set short - around 40 minutes - figuring that any longer would be too long for this setting. But as the crowd lingered to mingle and chat after my final bows, my videographer Jarett came over to me. Jarett, who is not a musician but a West Coast surfer boy, told me, “Hey I think people want to hear you play more. Why don’t you play some of that contemporary stuff? I think they’d dig it.” 

Again, to my embarrassment, I had feared that playing edgier music would alienate my audience and thus had stuck to the classics in my set. Jarett had witnessed every minute of my eight performances on tour thus far, and his artistic direction was on point. I announced to the audience that I would continue playing, and then introduced them to my composer friends' works - Paul Kerekes, Charlie Usher, Conrad Winslow, each in wildly different sonic worlds. The audience listened, as closely as they had to Beethoven. 

In retrospect, of course they did.