Letter from Moab, Utah: Where Colorado River is musical muse

Concertgoers face a small stage at the bow of an open-air boat. Blue-bodied damselflies hover and land on their hats. As the sun begins to set and clarinet notes rise, the surrounding canyon turns from rust to pink to gold. 

“I’m always constantly amazed at how forces of nature form and shape a place, and the Colorado River is absolutely one of them,” says violist Jessica Meyer, who played on the water at the floating Utah concert. Campfire smoke reaches the boat from shrub-lined shores. The campers wave.

The Colorado River is often portrayed as a site of crisis, where heat and humans throttle nature and demand outstrips supply. Yet the Moab Music Festival sees the river and its surrounding landscape as a source of creativity – collaborator and muse. 

The late-August “floating concert” is part of a summer series, the festival’s main annual event held in venues across town. The current water theme will continue and expand next year, organizers say. Commissions of works inspired by the Colorado River will honor and educate about its struggle.

The event hosts a range of site-specific concerts, some involving raft trips and an acoustics-rich grotto. For years, “the Colorado River has been a participant in our music festival,” says Leslie Tomkins, artistic director of the nonprofit. 

It’s hard not to see nature itself as a Moab musician. Grooves in the canyon could trace fingers or a face, with songs pouring forth from the river’s copper tongue.

Colorado River transformation 

Between two national parks, the 5,300-person town of Moab is backdropped by russet cliffs. Inspiration for co-founding the Moab Music Festival in 1992 came when Ms. Tomkins “looked at these rocks and my being just lit up.” 

The Colorado River, the lifeblood of the southwest, has transformed in the years since the festival’s birth. 

Around this time 31 years ago, the river’s major reservoirs – Lake Powell, in Arizona and Utah, and Lake Mead, in Nevada and Utah – had a combined storage of 68% full. Today, despite a wet winter, those savings accounts of water hover around a third full. Water experts say overuse, drought, and the drying effects of climate change have contributed to shortages, along with overestimations of available water. 

Despite the environmental saga, recreationists continue to enjoy the river. Kayakers silently pause to marvel at the music as they pass the floating concert. Photographers, musicians, and other artists document this landscape, too. That included Moab Music Festival’s own Robert Black, a bassist who died this year, who would improvise and record in the great outdoors.

Even scores not sourced from Moab’s surroundings still resonate with nature here.

Timo Andres rises from his seat on the boat to introduce his piece called “House Work.” The composer explains the quintet was commissioned for a family of musicians during the pandemic. 

The performers tilt and sway as they carve out their own melodic paths, careening toward an uneasy finish. The piece is contrapuntal, Mr. Andres says. That can sound like multiple melodies at once.

The voices are “talking over each other, everyone sort of chiming in with their own thoughts,” he adds, “as one might have in a family.”

Colorado River water negotiators, another family of sorts, have also jostled for attention to their cause. Not only are the water interests of seven basin states (including Utah) at stake, but 30 Native American tribes as well as Mexico also have varied entitlements to river use.

River negotiations, historically difficult, are forcing water managers to find new ways to conserve within a century-old legal framework. As the federal government develops plans for short- and long-term operations of the reservoirs, parties have disagreed on who should cut back and on how much.

Some observers see cautious cause for hope over the past year, such as more inclusion of Indigenous stakeholders during negotiations. But more needs to be resolved for the river to remain a viable source of water and hydropower.

“There may not be a secure water future for the next generation,” says John Weisheit, a Moab naturalist who collaborates with the festival. “That puts a huge responsibility on us to start doing new things.”

However, “the water managers are using words that I’ve never heard them use before,” such as “sustainable, resilience, and holistic,” says the longtime river guide. “Maybe they mean it this time.”

At the river concert, all that matters is the music – at least for one night. The boat slows to a stop as percussionist Pius Cheung appears, standing on a sandstone outcrop overhead. 

His drum beats rattle and scatter and swell, the sound bouncing off of rock. Mayflies swarm in to listen as the canyon cups its ears.