Maverick Concerts

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The First Season, Up in the woodlands of the Catskills... (read more) • Leon Barzin, Recalls The Early Years... (read more) • The Maverick Horse... (read more) • John Cage and 4’33" at the Maverick... (read more) The First Season Allan Updegraff, a novelist, was one of the earliest of the many writers who settled in Woodstock. His interview of Hervey White during the first summer of concerts appeared in The New York Times on July 30, 1916. Hervey White, once novelist and poet, and now also musical director, architect and high financier, is presiding over the testing out of a musical enterprise that he has been some ten years preparing. There have been three tests of it now, on the last three Sundays; the first was more than satisfactory, and each successive test registered, approximately, a twenty percent improvement on the preceding one. From all the nearby Catskill summering places, and from some at a considerable distance, people are coming to the music chapel that Mr. White has built on his farm in the Woodstock valley to hear the eminent musicians Mr. White has gathered to play chamber music... On the day when Mr. White was interviewed for the purposes of the present story, the owner-builder-director was very busy. It was a Saturday afternoon, and he was washing out his best purple sateen blouse in preparation for his Sunday appearance at the chapel. "What I'm proudest of in connection with this whole matter," he announced, philosophically rubbing yellow soap on a bad spot, "is my development as a high financier. Nearly everybody said I couldn't put this over without money. High finance is a great discovery. We are living in a remarkable age. When I invested in this farm, ten years ago," said Mr. White, dashing a few drops of sweat from his brow and resuming his offensive against the spot in a manner that suggested much tenacity of the soul, "I did it with the idea of gathering some good musicians during the summer months and giving chamber music in a rustic music chapel among tall trees at the foot of a hill. The farm cost $2000 and I happened to have $200 in cash at the time, so turned that over to the owner. I suppose a good high financier would have kept his $200, but I was just beginning, you remember." "Thus I secured a farm, with a proper hill and tall trees, and a farmhouse that would do to live in until I could build something better; but I needed food, a music hall, and musicians. Therefore I explained to a good neighbor who owned a sawmill that I wanted to have some musicians up at my place during the summer so that I could give concerts, and that I needed lumber for the bungalows where the musicians were to live. If the neighbor would supply the lumber and help with the building, I promised to repay him out of the rent the musicians would pay for the bungalows. The neighbor agreed to cooperate. I then explained to a Woodstock storekeeper that I'd have plenty of money as soon as I got my bungalows built, a dozen musicians in them, and the rent collected from the musicians—who would, incidentally, help swell the storekeeper's summer trade. The storekeeper at once granted me unlimited credit.

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