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Moab • The label of chamber music comes from the notion that smaller classical music ensembles would be able to fit inside of a chamber, or small room.

But what happens when you take the room out of the equation?

That's the idea behind the Grotto Concerts held during the 19th annual Moab Music Festival, which began Sept. 1 and continues through Sept. 12 in this small, lively Grand County town.

This year's three Grotto Concerts serve as signature events of the festival that celebrates the mystical tandem of music and landscape: each is elevated by the other.

Chamber music is the focus of the festival, but during the past two decades the offerings and venues have been expanded. This year, for example, the progressive bluegrass group The Punch Brothers (led by former Nickel Creek mandolin player Chris Thile) headline a concert at Red Cliffs Lodge, while the Latin Jazz All-Stars will showcase Venezuelan bebop on Sept. 10 at the Sorrel River Ranch Resort & Spa.

But it's the series of Grotto concerts that encapsulate the vision of festival co-founders and husband-and-wife team Michael Barrett and Leslie Tomkins, who play classical piano and viola, respectively. Two decades ago, as they began planning the festival, a river guide told them about a spot about 10 or so miles up the adjacent Colorado River that could provide a unique place for a concert. The pair were skeptical but intrigued.

They took a jetboat up the muddy river, navigating their way through rocks jutting out of the water and sandbars littering the waterway, to the Grotto — a stunning natural amphitheater that has been referred to as "nature's concert hall."

Because of a small grove of trees, the amphitheater doesn't look like much from the sandbar. But after a short hike of about 100 feet, visitors find themselves in the wind and water-eroded alcove. The sandstone has been carved into an elongated "U" by millennia of runoff. On three sides, sheer walls and massive red sandstone spires reach up in the sky like cathedrals, with a shaded valley floor of red sand and thickets of tamarisk.

"The landscape is breathtaking, and even musical," said Tanya Tomkins, a cellist who is Leslie Tomkins' sister and has performed in the Grotto more than a dozen times. "It's a symphony of rocks."

An orchestra would have trouble fitting inside of the Grotto, but the setting is perfect for about six musicians and 100 canvas chairs for listeners. A handful of more adventurous concertgoers eschew the chairs and instead climb up to elevated ledges that jut out of the sedimentary strata.

The boat ride to the Grotto itself has a magical, almost mythical quality, with the guests being removed literally and figuratively from the dissonance of society into a wilderness where the organic and synthetic fuse together seamlessly.

If transporting the guests sounds like an adventure — and it is — imagine moving a piano and classical instruments up the river at about 5 a.m. the day of the concert. Tanya Tomkins said the value of instruments is at least $1 million, so heaven forbid it rains.

On Thursday, the skies were clear for the day's program, which included a Bach suite for solo cello, a Dvorak composition for violin, viola, cello and piano, and piano sonatas by Scarlatti, Cowell and Feldman.

The latter sonata was performed by New York City-based pianist Pedja Muzijevic, the artistic administrator of the Baryshnikov Arts Center (and who was later snapping iPhone pictures of Dead Horse Point and Balancing Rock on the boat ride back). Muzijevic introduced the avant-garde Feldman piece by saying the acoustically pure setting was perfect for playing "Intermission," a series of notes interrupted by periods of silence.

Silence was a motif throughout the afternoon. Barrett was the master of ceremonies, and before Tanya Tompkins launched into the Bach suite, Barrett asked the musicians and concertgoers to sit quietly for a minute. Except for a breeze that created a bustle in the hedgerow, there was a stillness rarely experienced in contemporary life.

Then the cellist began playing the lyrical Bach piece "Partita No. 1 in B minor" on her baroque cello. "The wonderful part is the music coming out of the silence, a profound silence," Tompkins said.

As she neared the end of the piece, a flock of Canada geese could be heard honking in the distance. In another setting, in another room, their song would be distracting.

But then it strikes you.

You are in a room, Utah's living room.

And it's perfect.

dburger@sltrib.com Facebook.com/sltribmusic; sltribremix Twitter: @davidburger —

Moab Music Festival

P The 2011 Moab Music Festival continues through Sept. 12 at locations in and around Moab.

Grotto Concerts • Sept. 8 and 12. Tickets are $300, with $175 of that considered tax-deductible. Other concert tickets and packages are available at http://www.moabmusicfest.org or by calling 435-259-7003.

More • For the festival schedule and more about this year's composer-in-residence, David Amram, visit http://bit.ly/nmDu9U.