Ellen McGehee

Ellen McGehee grew up playing the violin, loving chamber music, and hiking in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Pursuing a violin performance degree at Boston University provided a crash course in Russian discipline and the privilege of becoming a part of the great violinist David Oistrakh's teaching lineage. Still in love with music but disillusioned by conservatory structure, she ended up with a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship by way of a Willamette University Physics degree. She spent her post-graduate fellowship year trying to backpack with a violin while searching for commonalities in the music of mountain cultures in the Andes, the Liangshan of China, the highlands of Papua New Guinea, and Tibet. The commonality she found wasn’t a sonic quality or a rhythmic pattern, but a profound connection between people and place that expressed itself as the very fabric of the music. She realized that while she deeply loved the place she had grown up, she had no idea how to feed herself or build a house from what was there, thereby identifying some rather large holes in her extensive education. Her return to the United States marked the beginning of a fruitful journey down the path of place-based existence, and after landing in Hyampom, CA she has been growing and gathering food and medicine and building things ever since. Along the way she ran a small commercial farm and lived with various combinations of people, becoming proficient in social experiments and creative logistical solutions.

A visit by pianist college friend Ian Scarfe in 2010 to help plaster a straw-bale building serendipitously sparked the creation of the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, now in its 13th year, which has become a cultural fixture in Trinity County and a beloved second home to a quirky cast of musicians. Symbiosis might be the best word from biology to describe the festival’s magic, but reciprocity is the best word from the heart. Watching musicians from the city learn what a cucumber plant looks like and residents from the country sigh in bliss at a community hall concert has been worth every logistical hurdle and shoestring budget. If the music festival were a soccer match, Ellen would be a midfielder - she fills in whatever gaps exist, assists goals, connects dots, and feels that if she does her jobs correctly no one notices she's doing them. Unsurprisingly she loves playing second violin in string quartet - a dynamic position with many hats. She is always amazed at local community members' capacity to appreciate whatever unusual piece of music is played for them, and equally delighted by how willing the musicians are to help weed carrots, butcher a cow, chop firewood, or backpack to high mountain lakes in the Trinity Alps. Other adventures in self-reliance have included buying a 30' sailboat off of Craigslist and learning to sail, somewhere south of California on the way through Mexico and Central America to the Galapagos. Using the wind to travel made for an excellent classroom in patience, awareness, and flexibility, and facilitated the sort of rapid 24/7 growth and capacity stretching that is only realized with "type two" fun.

After watching the fourth large wildfire in fifteen years come close to her home, Ellen came to the conclusion that getting involved in fire management was the only way to stay. She joined the Hyampom Volunteer Fire Department, ended up on a prescribed burn run by the Watershed Research and Training Center, and immediately knew “good fire” was the next step in reciprocity with her ecosystem. Before long it became clear that all her disparate studies in place-based existence, social dynamics, building relationships with plants, and even (or especially) sailing had, as usual, been preparing her admirably for the present moment. She now shares a position with her partner Qwalen as Prescribed Fire Operations Specialist at the Watershed Center in Hayfork. Between prescribed burns and concerts she still tries to grow most of her food.