What is the American sound? How the Moab Music Festival explores identity through nature

MOAB — Nestled in a curve of the Colorado River, in the upper northeast corner of Canyonlands National Park, is a small grotto carved from ancient red rock. Its walls have been carved by millions of years of water and wind. Every September, it becomes a concert venue.

I normally spend my Thursday mornings in the office. On Sept. 3, however, my workday began on a riverboat with a handful of world-renowned musicians.

This was the second day of the Moab Music Festival, which has made "music in concert with the landscape" every year since 1992. Since 1993, that has included transporting an entire grand piano down the Colorado.

A crew brought the piano and other equipment into the grotto earlier that morning. They helped us off the boat and onto boards that served as temporary walkways through the shifting sand. We wound through a narrow path surrounded by willows until the grotto opened before us.

Looking up at the canyon walls, I couldn't help but think of Ariel's treasure cave in "The Little Mermaid." As it turns out, I wasn't far off; a park ranger told me the top layer of rock here is marine limestone, and the strata are embedded with fossilized shark teeth. The whole thing was under the ocean millions of years ago.

The musicians performed their sound check — Mark Dover on clarinet, Inon Barnatan and Peter Dugan on piano, Charles Overton on harp, Tessa Lark and Geneva Lewis on violin, Beth Guterman Chu on viola, and Jay Campbell on cello. The sound cuts through the air there, so you can clearly hear the music no matter where in the grotto you stand.

I asked Lewis what I could expect from the event.

"I find a lot of the experiences listening to music here to be more spiritual than a lot of other settings," she told me. "It just makes you feel really connected with the world around you, I think, to experience things here."

After warmup, one musician called for everyone to hush. Dover played a note on his clarinet, sweet and high. A few seconds later, the sound repeated faintly high off the canyon walls, like the rocks were singing back.

Access to this grotto changes every year. One year, a crew member said, they had to construct a ramp from the boat to the grotto because the beach had mostly washed away. This year, drought has lowered the Colorado River so much that they worried boats couldn't make it down. But recent flash floods, which caused destruction in other areas of the state, added a few precious inches back to the river.

The "Grotto I: Fantasy" program began with messages from two park rangers, who explained the geology and history of the land and invited us to preserve it. Tessa Lark, a violinist and the festival's artistic director, shared some thoughts on the program.

The theme of the 2026 Moab Music Festival is "This Land," in honor of the 250th anniversary of American independence. The concerts explore American identity through music — American composers, genres born in America, international music that influenced American artists. The Grotto I program, for instance, featured pieces from both Europe and the Americas and spanned the 1700s to the 2010s.

Lewis, who was born in New Zealand but immigrated to the U.S. as a child, said our country's music is as diverse as its people. There is no singular American sound, but our land ties it all together.

"I think one of the most spectacular things about America is the landscapes," Lewis said. "Being able to share any kind of music in these spaces with all these people is sort of the American experience."

The canyon seemed to welcome the music. At one point, a hummingbird flew over the crowd and suspended in the air near the piano before flitting off. A dragonfly spun in loops above the audience.

Nature was silent as the artists played Schubert's "Fantasy," but the wind picked up as Lark began her own composition, "Appalachian Fantasy," the rustling trees joining in like a background chorus.

A harp string broke during the final performance. While Overton replaced it, Dugan and Campbell broke into an impromptu rendition of Saint-Saëns' "The Swan." Although the bird is not native to this area, it was easy to imagine one had joined us in the grotto.

How do you move a piano down the Colorado River?

The work is not done once the musicians pack up; it's just the halfway point for the festival crew, who are dedicated to leaving the grotto as untouched as they found it. They leave nothing behind, not even footprints — the last crew member to leave swept them away with a broom.

If you've ever moved a piano, you know it's stressful and difficult in even the best of situations. Now imagine you're maneuvering it not through hallways and down stairs but through overgrown shrubbery on loose red dirt, over a narrow ramp and onto a tiny riverboat.

Jack Hanley, the festival's operations manager, said the crew is incredibly mindful of the grotto and environment.

"Our goal here is to create an experience where people feel like they're integrated into the landscape," he said. "That's what sets us apart from other music festivals. ... Putting on something like a Grotto event, we have a really astute awareness of our surroundings."

Hanley said the festival is in regular communication with the National Park Service, which stewards the area. The crew works with park rangers to ensure both safety and preservation.

This is Hanley's first year working with the festival, but he's lived in Moab for a decade. The river has changed in those years, he said, and it presents concerns for the future of the festival.

"None of us would be able to live here without the river, let alone make this incredible experience for people without a healthy river," he said. "It's extremely essential — for our events, but also just for our well-being as creatures that depend on the Colorado River — that it's healthy and flowing."

Kevin Fitzgerald has been part of the festival crew since its inaugural year. He said it's a priceless experience because of the music and the environment, even though the Colorado's changing nature represents challenges.

"It's a living river," he said.

The Moab Music Festival, which runs from Sept. 2-18 this year, includes several Grotto concerts as well as performances in other indoor and outdoor venues. In all his years working for the festival, Fitzgerald said he only remembers one instance when the grotto was unreachable — the concert was moved to a ranch upriver instead.

Fitzgerald said his favorite part of the Grotto concerts is the 20-minute boat ride.

"The water is just beautiful, the reflections off the rock and the sun, and it's the most spectacular ride," he said. "On the way home, I'll turn to everybody and say, 'This is why we do this' ... we were able to bring 120 people down here and give them the trip of a lifetime."

Read the entire story at Deseret.com.

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