Winds couldn’t dampen concertgoers’ enthusiasm for Flint Hills symphony

FLINT HILLS – Winds howled over the tallgrass prairie Saturday at this year’s Symphony in the Flint Hills, tossing hats and paper plates across the Plains.

“Don’t blow away” was the day’s mantra.

Winds – with gusts pushing 40 mph – caused two tents to be evacuated Saturday afternoon at Rosalia Ranch, the site of this year’s ninth annual Symphony in the Flint Hills.

“Lets us know we’re in Kansas, right?” Byron Ediger of Newton said of the wind.

More than 7,000 people arrived Saturday afternoon at the ranch-turned-concert-venue to hear the Kansas City Symphony.

Symphony in the Flint Hills, a nonprofit organization out of Cottonwood Falls, organizes a concert each summer in an effort to heighten appreciation and knowledge of the tallgrass prairie by bringing people to the hills to experience it first-hand. Saturday’s event was in Butler County, the closest it has ever been to Wichita.

“It was nice being able to sleep in a couple of hours,” said Brenda Knight, a volunteer from Wichita.

Teresa Richardson of Wichita attended last year’s symphony at Fort Riley. She was happy this year’s site was closer to home.

“We would have went anyway, no matter where it was,” Richardson said. “But it definitely makes things a little easier.”

Gov. Sam Brownback opened the evening by welcoming concertgoers to Rosalia Ranch.

“I love this event, because it feeds and fills my soul like nothing else,” Brownback told the crowd.

The symphony featured musical pieces that highlight the land, sky and their relationships with people. At intermission, cattle were driven over the hills by outriders on horses.

“It’s awesome,” Cynthia Schendel of Overland Park said as she stood atop a hay bale. “I’m a lifelong Kansan, so this is my roots. To see the cattle herded with the symphony accompanying it.”

Some audience members worried the wind would make it difficult to hear the symphony, because the stage – holding about 90 musicians – faced the gusts. Carrie Riggs of Cottonwood Falls said she was concerned people might not show up because of the wind.

Jake Worcester of Manhattan said the gusts were a little much but that he and his wife, Hilary, were able to hear from the back row.

“It was hard to hear the speakers,” Hilary Worcester said, “but when the symphony was playing, I could hear exactly what I needed to hear to enjoy it.”

Saturday was Aram Demirjian’s second year as conductor for the concert. Last summer, he conducted the symphony at Fort Riley, so the tallgrass prairie is a new setting for Demirjian.

“I can’t think of a more beautiful setting,” he said. “Inside a concert hall, you don’t have the vista of the prairie.”

Each year, tickets for the concert sell out, usually within days of becoming available. Saturday’s general admission tickets didn’t sell out until Friday night, executive director Christy Davis said.

Most of the symphony’s attendees and patrons are from the Kansas City area, Davis said, which may have contributed to the slower sellout. Yet Davis had been advertising the event in the Wichita area.

“Whether or not they come,” she said, “it’s expanded our audience – even if they’re not ticket-holders.”

Although tickets for the Rosalia Ranch concert didn’t sell out right away, Davis said that sales don’t determine location each summer.

Cindy Renard, a symphony attendee from Wichita, said she would be happy with a location anywhere in the Flint Hills.

“My first experience with the Flint Hills, as a child, was one of those drives on the back country roads right near here,” Renard said. “We came over the ridge, and the whole world opened up.”

It seems that no matter the location, volunteers, patrons and other concertgoers return to the event year after year. Wanda Headrick of Atlanta, Kan., has been volunteering for Symphony in the Flint Hills for eight years – every year except for the first symphony in 2005.

“I just think it’s a beautiful part of the world that has gotten the short end of the stick,” Headrick said. “Growing up in Kansas, for some reason, you were always made to feel like there’s nothing to do in Kansas.

“I love to share my love for the Flint Hills.”

This story was originally published June 14, 2014 at 7:50 PM with the headline "Winds couldn’t dampen concertgoers’ enthusiasm for Flint Hills symphony."