Many people don’t consider a violin and a keyboard to be essential hiking gear, but many people aren’t like Anastasia Allison and Rose Freeman. Violinist Allison, based near Arlington, and pianist Freeman, who lives in Bothell, perform unannounced concerts in the wilderness as The Musical Mountaineers. For these performances, Allison and Freeman wake before dawn, drive to a trailhead and start hiking.
Once at their final destination, the pair change into evening gowns and play a few pieces. Most of the time, the two film these performances and post them on their social media accounts when they return home. Other times, the concerts are just for themselves.
In keeping with “Leave No Trace” principles, which help minimize human impact on the outdoors, and for logistical reasons such as the difficulty of coordinating hiking schedules for groups, Allison and Freeman don’t announce these sunrise, and sometimes sunset, concerts ahead of time. “Then Anastasia and I can stay true to our creating music — not necessarily as a performance, when we’re in the mountains — but oftentimes just something that we create, and then return back to listening to the birds, the rivers and the rustling of the wind,” Freeman said. Fans of The Musical Mountaineers will get to see them perform in person when the pair play their “Sunset Serenades” concert at Adopt a Stream Foundation’s Northwest Stream Center in Everett on June 15 in support of the $1.
5 million campaign for the .