Piano in the Park – An Interview with Hunter Noack

Hunter Noack first visited Banff Centre to participate in a summer 2010 piano residency. Although he came for the purpose of making music, he soon found himself taking long hikes by the Bow River. 

“Banff totally takes my breath away,” he said in an interview. “We can practice inside anytime, but to be able to experience that incredible wild landscape? For most artists, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Today, the Oregon-born musician no longer has to make a distinction between playing piano and exploring the wild. Since 2016—when he participated in another Banff Centre residency, Concert as Theatre—he’s toured IN A LANDSCAPE: Classical Music in the Wild™, an immersive classical music experience, to hundreds of outdoor locations across North America: plains, lakes, ranches, hot springs, deserts. 

Protected by a custom-built flatbed trailer, Noack’s nine-foot Steinway piano travels from landscape to landscape. He plays to audiences wearing wireless headphones, allowing for concert-hall-level audio despite the wildness of the elements. 

In 2024, Noack brought IN A LANDSCAPE to Banff Centre’s mountainous Shaw Amphitheatre. The concert returns on June 28—and the pianist is already thinking about how the environment might enrich the music. 

“There will be pieces that are especially good for watching leaves dance in the wind, or for looking out over great vistas,” said Noack. “My hope is that, with what I say between each piece and the pieces that I choose to perform, the music is a soundtrack to the audience’s experience of that particular place.” 

“Fortunately, I’ve spent some time at Banff Centre, so I know that you can see Mount Rundle, for example. Those vistas will affect the arc of the program.” 

One of Noack’s favourite things about performing among striking landscapes is that it encourages audiences to hear music in new ways—he even encourages listeners to lie down, wander, or sit on the stage below him to feel the piano’s vibrations. 

“If there’s something that’s unexpected about the environment or the circumstance in which we’re experiencing a piece of art, then it can sometimes open us up to absorb the art in a way that we wouldn't otherwise,” said Noack. 

“I think part of the reason IN A LANDSCAPE has been successful is that, for about a third of our audience, this is their first time listening to live classical music—and what we hear so often is that people are surprised they like the genre. A huge part of that is what the landscape brings to the show.” 

“If I were to just go sit in the Shaw Amphitheatre for an hour—with no music, no performance—I would leave feeling better,” he continued. “Then you add some beautiful music with a bunch of people that are all there with the intention of connecting? It only amplifies the beauty.” 

This beauty is part of why Noack plans to follow in the path of his younger self and do some extra exploring around campus. “Before shows, especially, I love to get out and go for a hike,” he said.