{"id":2458088,"date":"2020-05-06T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/late-cellist-lynn-harrell-found-a-spiritual-home-in-aspen\/"},"modified":"2020-05-06T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T06:01:00","slug":"late-cellist-lynn-harrell-found-a-spiritual-home-in-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/late-cellist-lynn-harrell-found-a-spiritual-home-in-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Late cellist Lynn Harrell found a spiritual home in Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"swift-gallery p402_hide\" readability=\"6.8461538461538\">\n<ul id=\"imageGallery-325313-755\" class=\"gallery list-unstyled gallery-container\">\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-1024x683.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Alex Irvin\/Aspen Music Festival and School | Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Augusta Read Thomas\u2019s Cello Concerto No. 3 \u201cLegend of the Phoenix\u201d with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Christian Arming, on July 25, 2014, inside the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.\" class=\"swift-gallery-slide h-100\" readability=\"1\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"13\">\n<p><strong>Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Augusta Read Thomas\u2019s Cello Concerto No. 3 \u201cLegend of the Phoenix\u201d with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Christian Arming, on July 25, 2014, inside the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.<\/strong><br \/>Alex Irvin\/Aspen Music Festival and School<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-1024x683.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Augusta Read Thomas\u2019s Cello Concerto No. 3 \u201cLegend of the Phoenix\u201d with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Christian Arming, on July 25, 2014, inside the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-1-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-1-1024x683.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Alex Irvin\/Aspen Music Festival and School | Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Augusta Read Thomas\u2019s Cello Concerto No. 3 \u201cLegend of the Phoenix\u201d with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Christian Arming, on July 25, 2014, inside the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.\" class=\"swift-gallery-slide h-100\" readability=\"1\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"13\">\n<p><strong>Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Augusta Read Thomas\u2019s Cello Concerto No. 3 \u201cLegend of the Phoenix\u201d with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Christian Arming, on July 25, 2014, inside the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.<\/strong><br \/>Alex Irvin\/Aspen Music Festival and School<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-1-1024x683.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Augusta Read Thomas\u2019s Cello Concerto No. 3 \u201cLegend of the Phoenix\u201d with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Christian Arming, on July 25, 2014, inside the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-2-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-2-1024x681.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Alex Irvin\/Aspen Music Festival and School | Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Augusta Read Thomas\u2019s Cello Concerto No. 3 \u201cLegend of the Phoenix\u201d with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Christian Arming, on July 25, 2014, inside the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.\" class=\"swift-gallery-slide h-100\" readability=\"1\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"13\">\n<p><strong>Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Augusta Read Thomas\u2019s Cello Concerto No. 3 \u201cLegend of the Phoenix\u201d with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Christian Arming, on July 25, 2014, inside the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.<\/strong><br \/>Alex Irvin\/Aspen Music Festival and School<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-2-1024x681.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Augusta Read Thomas\u2019s Cello Concerto No. 3 \u201cLegend of the Phoenix\u201d with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Christian Arming, on July 25, 2014, inside the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-3-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-3-683x1024.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Christian Steiner\/courtesy photo | Lynn Harrell was a frequent Aspen visitor and one of the most celebrated cellists of his time. Harrell died on April 27 at age 76. (Photo by Christian Steiner)\" class=\"swift-gallery-slide h-100\" readability=\"-1.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"8\">\n<p><strong>Lynn Harrell was a frequent Aspen visitor and one of the most celebrated cellists of his time. Harrell died on April 27 at age 76. (Photo by Christian Steiner)<\/strong><br \/>Christian Steiner\/courtesy photo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-3-683x1024.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"Lynn Harrell was a frequent Aspen visitor and one of the most celebrated cellists of his time. Harrell died on April 27 at age 76. (Photo by Christian Steiner)\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-4-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-4-1024x800.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Charles Abbott\/Aspen Music Festival and School | Cellist Lynn Harrell performs in 1979 inside the former Bayer-Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.\" class=\"swift-gallery-slide h-100\" readability=\"-1.5\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"8\">\n<p><strong>Cellist Lynn Harrell performs in 1979 inside the former Bayer-Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.<\/strong><br \/>Charles Abbott\/Aspen Music Festival and School<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/05\/cello-atd-050620-2-4-1024x800.jpg\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" alt=\"Cellist Lynn Harrell performs in 1979 inside the former Bayer-Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"caption-toggle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/late-cellist-lynn-harrell-found-a-spiritual-home-in-aspen\/#\" class=\"show-captions\">Show Captions<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/late-cellist-lynn-harrell-found-a-spiritual-home-in-aspen\/#\" class=\"hide-captions\">Hide Captions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText DropCap\">Lynn Harrell was often dreaming of his next trip to Aspen. One of the most celebrated cellists of his time, he had traveled the world over to perform but few places had settled into his being like this tiny ski town in the Rocky Mountains.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In fact, the last conversation his son, Eben Harrell, had with his father before his sudden passing had come only two days prior when he was talking about a summer trip back to the Roaring Fork Valley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cHe said, \u2018Eben, we are going to try and plan a trip to Aspen this summer. I want to see it one more time before I die,\u2019\u201d Eben Harrell said. \u201cAspen was where he would go in the summers for his soul to be replenished, in part because it brought him back to his own childhood there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Lynn Harrell died April 27 at his home in Santa Monica, California, at age 76. Aspen was somewhat of a second home for him, going back to when his father, noted concert vocalist Mack Harrell, was among the founding faculty members of what is now the Aspen Music Festival and School. Lynn Harrell returned as a student, faculty member and featured artist over the years, notably from 1970 to 2000.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row at-donation at-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cHe was most at home in Aspen and I think so many of his most formative and joyous experiences were there,\u201d said Ara Guzelimian, currently the dean and provost of The Juilliard School in New York, where Harrell was once a student and teacher. \u201cYou could just see him lighten the minute he arrived in Aspen. He was home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Guzelimian had known Harrell since the 1980s, including the time he was the artistic administrator for the AMFS from 1993 to 1998. By then Harrell was among the most accomplished cello players of his generation and a star among stars in Aspen. Eben Harrell, who grew up in Beverly Hills, said while they were actor Sylvester Stallone\u2019s neighbors at one point, his father was always \u201ctickled\u201d when Hollywood\u2019s elite would recognize him in Aspen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cHe was standing waiting to buy something on a day he was playing a concert, and Kevin Costner came in to buy something and then was starstruck immediately,\u201d recalled Linda Blandford, Lynn Harrell\u2019s first wife and Eben\u2019s mother. Harrell remarried in 2002 to violinist Helen Nightengale. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t get over the fact that Kevin Costner said to him, \u2018I\u2019m looking forward to the concert later.\u2019 That was a high point of that season for Lynn.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">At 6-foot-4, Harrell had quite the presence and could even make a cello look small. Still, Guzelimian said he was mostly \u201ca teddy bear of a man\u201d who had a \u201cchild-like aspect to his personality \u2014 that eyes-wide-open sense of wonder.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Guzelimian said the last time he saw Harrell play was in October during the season kickoff gala at Carnegie Hall; Harrell was born in Manhattan and that is believed to have been his final performance in New York City.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cHe channeled the cello as a singing voice, because his father was a great singer. That sense of really personal utterance that a singer brings, and his father was a particularly honest singer. Lynn internalized that into his own voice as a cellist,\u201d Guzelimian said. \u201cThere was a natural bigness to his playing, a generosity to his playing, and the sense of embrace in his playing \u2014 he was an extremely communicative musician. It was while playing that he spoke truest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Harrell had many close musical partners over the years, highlighted by violinists Itzhak Perlman and Anne-Sophie Mutter, as well as pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy. He won two Grammy Awards in the 1980s alongside Perlman and Ashkenazy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cHe didn\u2019t just master what was there for the cello. He expanded it,\u201d said current AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher. \u201cHe became one of the most important musicians in the world. As a cellist, I would compare him to Yo-Yo Ma or to Alisa Weilerstein as people who just mastered every single thing about the cello, about the cello repertoire, and then transcended it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Harrell traveled the world, living the life of a beloved musician, but it was Aspen that always centered him. Eben Harrell, who also couldn\u2019t resist the pull of the Rockies and now lives in Durango, said the family hopes to make good on Lynn\u2019s summer plans and scatter some of his ashes in Aspen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cHe is coming home,\u201d a choked up Guzelimian said when learning of the family\u2019s desire to bring Lynn back to Aspen. \u201cThe informality of Aspen suited him. The eternal cycle of young musicians who came energized him. And being in nature energized him. And all of that tied to his deep family history made Aspen the place he was most at home and most happy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\"><a href=\"mailto:acolbert@aspentimes.com\">acolbert@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/late-cellist-lynn-harrell-found-a-spiritual-home-in-aspen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Augusta Read Thomas\u2019s Cello Concerto No. 3 \u201cLegend of the Phoenix\u201d with the Aspen Festival Orchestra, led by conductor Christian Arming, on July 25, 2014, inside the Benedict Music Tent in Aspen.Alex Irvin\/Aspen Music Festival and School Cellist Lynn Harrell performs Augusta Read Thomas\u2019s Cello Concerto No. 3 \u201cLegend of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2458088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-17 18:59:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2458088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2458088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2458088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2458088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}