The MoUNTain Music Institute was one of the three projects unique to the UNT College of Music mentioned in the Rolling Stones' 2005 publication
“Schools That Rock!”

HISTORY AND GENESIS OF THE MOUNTAIN MUSIC INSTITUTE

The MoUNTain Music Institute began in 1998 as a summer opportunity for University of North Texas students to study and perform in casual indoor and outdoor settings. Since then, students and faculty from the world-renowned College of Music have enjoyed a variety of educational and artistic experiences ranging from full symphonic works to chamber music, from opera to new music to early music and beyond. As they have performed throughout Crested Butte, Mount Crested Butte and Gunnison, students have had an invaluable opportunity to practice their craft in a real-world summer laboratory, while at the same time exposing an appreciative arts community to the diversity of music making that is the core of the College of Music.

In creating the MoUNTain Music Institute, Anshel Brusilow, director of UNT Symphony Orchestra, his Addison neighbor, Merle Volding, and then UNT Chancellor Al Hurley and College of Music Dean Dave Shrader together imagined the value and excitement of sending UNT music students to perform in the summer in Merle's second hometown, Crested Butte, Colorado. The MoUNTain Music Institute began in the summer of 1998 as the outgrowth of this idea. A tourist destination already known for its wild flowers, mountain biking, spectacular scenery, and winter ski resort, Crested Butte also has a thriving arts community, with a very active center for the arts, an annual outdoor art fair, and a four-week professional music festival. In 1998 and 1999, the Institute spanned three weeks, involving over 100 UNT students and several music faculty. Funding for the institute was helped in large part by a gift-in-kind of lodging for students and faculty from the institute's first sponsor, Crested Butte Mountain Resort. The local public school has been and continues to be generous in allowing use of classroom and auditorium space in its modern facilities.