Just in time for this year's Rushmore Music Festival, the BeethoVAN gets a little lift. And it’s all part of this year’s festival expansion.
The BeethoVAN is a self-contained, mobile concert hall that brings free and accessible musical performances to the Black Hills region.
Born out of a need to provide cultural experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rushmore Music Festival representatives said the BeethoVAN allowed them to more than double their audiences and reach community members who otherwise wouldn’t have access to classical music concerts.
And now, the two senior design teams from SD Mines who engineered it have added another feature that brings an even richer experience to the community—a piano lift that helps the musicians travel safely with a grand piano.
Ismar Gomes is the Rushmore Music Festival's artistic director.
“This is a big deal because it’s a pretty big engineering feat to be able to do this. And we were glad to be able to make it an educational opportunity for the students at SDSMT," said Gomes. "This is, in a way, our big kick-off, inaugural...the last version of it and this is how we want to live with it.”
Gomes said before the lift, they worked around the challenges of classical music without a piano. “We did a lot of strings only concerts because the vast majority of our festival with the students are string players," Gomes said.
"This summer I think we’ll have maybe six or seven pianists. But of the remaining 50-plus students, they’re all string players. So, we have plenty of repertoire to do with them. We’ve certainly gotten by with strings-only programs and then using a keyboard when we needed to" said Gomez. "But this will be great, because now, we can use the full complement of our players with no reservations.”
They’ve got big plans, too, thanks to a Rapid City Arts Council grant. They’ll perform around a dozen concerts this summer with more events planned throughout the year.
The festival’s cadre of musicians perform from the BeethoVAN July , at the Black Hills Farmer’s Market in Rapid City.
See the Rushmore Music Festival's full line-up at the organization's website.