{"id":3054,"date":"2010-12-07T15:42:33","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T21:42:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=3054"},"modified":"2010-12-07T15:42:33","modified_gmt":"2010-12-07T21:42:33","slug":"peak-profile-jo-garner-boatright-57","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2010\/12\/peak-profile-jo-garner-boatright-57\/","title":{"rendered":"Peak Profile: Jo Garner Boatright \u201957"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jo
\n<\/a>Jo Garner Boatright \u201957<\/strong> is a petite woman who has been called a \u201clioness of the keyboard.\u201d When she sits down at one of the three grand pianos in her Buena Vista, Colo., home, it\u2019s easy to see why. Her hands are blurs as she unleashes her power and sends sound soaring.<\/p>\n

It all started in Sterling, Colo., where her parents listened to classical music and her mother taught her the piano. Jo soon surpassed her mother, so they sought out Max Lanner, head of the Colorado College music department.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe taught in Denver every other week, so my mother drove me 240 miles, round-trip, every other week all the\u00a0way through high school so I could have lessons with him. Of course, she arranged the scholarships so I could go to Colorado College,\u201d Boatright recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the music department, every single person was really outstanding. They didn\u2019t have any \u2018weak sisters,\u2019 so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boatright married soon after earning her bachelor\u2019s in music in 1957, then she and husband Harvey \u201953<\/strong>, a flutist, left for Boston so she could pursue her master\u2019s at the New England Conservatory. There, she realized how rigorous CC\u2019s curriculum had been.<\/p>\n

In 1960, the Boatrights moved to Dallas, where Harvey joined the symphony and Jo began teaching at local universities. They raised a daughter, Camilla, now a cellist in Denver who often performs with her parents.<\/p>\n

Boatright won accolades throughout the world and co-founded the Walden Chamber Music Society, but one of her career highlights was working with renowned Hungarian pianist Lili Kraus.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething was wrong with my playing. Everyone else thought it was \u2018great, wonderful, blah, blah,\u2019 but I knew deep inside that something was lacking. This woman \u2014 I had listened to her since I was a child. I thought, \u2018She knows something I don\u2019t.\u2019 I had a full-time teaching job and\u00a0was performing all over the place, but I humbled myself.\u00a0She was a real mentor of mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boatright pays that forward, using her skill and passion to encourage young musicians.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not kept up our music education in the public school system. We\u2019re now past the second generation of no music. So I\u2019m on a little bit of a mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Boatrights built their dream home in Buena Vista, overlooking the Arkansas River, and moved in 2003. They designed it for performing \u2014 the living room holds 80 people \u2014 and host a piano retreat every summer. They also help fund CC\u2019s Harvey E. Boatright Scholarship, named for Harvey\u2019s father, a 1907 graduate.<\/p>\n

Most of the Walden musicians have second homes in the area, so the society is now based there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been in the schools and do what I call drive-by concerts,\u201d Boatright said, laughing.<\/p>\n

This dynamo started hiking at age 50. So far, she\u2019s summited 46 Fourteeners, which she compares to performing music. \u201cAnd then, when you get to the top of the mountain, it\u2019s like finishing the piece as best you can for the moment. It\u2019s a wonderful feeling, giving a performance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jo Garner Boatright \u201957 is a petite woman who has been called a \u201clioness of the keyboard.\u201d When she sits down at one of the three grand pianos in her Buena Vista, Colo., home, it\u2019s easy to see why. Her hands are blurs as she unleashes her power and sends sound soaring. It all started…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-3054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-november-2010","tag-alumni-profiles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}