BAYFIELD – The Pine River Festival is a lot like going to the grocery, said Molly Orendorff – there’s a good chance of seeing a familiar face.
“This is, like, our hometown festival,” the Bayfield resident said of the second annual event. Hundreds of people sauntered in Eagle Park to the tune of a string bluegrass band, drank beer in tasting samplers filled with brew from 15 breweries and clamored for a taste of charred, slow-roasted seasoned meat cooked on site by local barbecue chefs.
All the proceeds from the Pine River Festival are earmarked to the Be Frank Foundation, a nonprofit that educates and engages youths through music. The money will go to the nonprofit’s scholarship program, funded to help children access an instrument and instruction.
Orendorff was one of more than 100 volunteer festival staff at the Pine River Festival on Saturday. She came last year – encouraged by her children’s participation in a Be Frank Foundation music instruction program. Brooklyn, 9, and Cameron, 13, aren’t in the program anymore, but Orendorff said she saw her children grow, learn and get excited about music – and that made her “super proud,” she said.
She volunteered this year as a way to give back, she said.
Greg Allen, festival founder and co-owner of Bottom Shelf Brewery in Bayfield, said a lot of people offered to help in the week before the daylong event – and everyone wanted to work the early shift.
But by Saturday morning, things were running smoothly, Allen said. The hardest part, he said, was all the coordinating between dozens of people to get a stage – let alone nationally recognized artists to use it – organize a schedule for people to work the event and make sure that, in the end, it was actually fun.
“We spent so much time planning,” Allen said. “A lot of what you see has to do with the quality of the people in this community.”
And that’s why Lech Usinowicz does it, the community. Usinowicz, or Mr. U, is the founder and executive director of the Be Frank Foundation. This year’s festival is special, he said – it includes a performance from young students from the first Creative Music Conservatory program, a weeklong music intensive at Fort Lewis College for people ages 7 to 17 taught by music professionals from all over the country.
The students played a classical concert Friday at Fort Lewis College’s Kroeger Hall, Usinowicz said – their performance at the festival will showcase their skills playing rock ’n’ roll, bluegrass, Celtic and hip-hop music.
“Music education is alive and well in La Plata County,” Usinowicz said.
“We can be happy but never satisfied,” he said. “There’s always room for growth, we can always do more for the kids.”
bhauff@durangoherald.com
