By Jack Reaney ASSOCIATE EDITOR
The music began with a playful rhyme from John Zirkle, executive director of the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center.
“Let’s get ready, let’s bring ‘em out to the stage,” Zirkle told a near-capacity crowd, pausing with a smile for dramatic effect. “It’s säje. Enjoy!”
On Saturday, March 2, WMPAC hosted säje for a highly anticipated concert—Zirkle told the crowd that he was trying to bring the vocal supergroup to Big Sky for more than a year, even before their debut album won the 2024 Grammy for “Best Arrangement, Instrument, and Vocals.” As it happened, säje’s show at WMPAC was their first live, post-Grammy concert.
Many remarks were made about the March 2 snowstorm, an afternoon with bursts of heavy snow and swirling winds, but the WMPAC auditorium was nearly full despite challenging road conditions. And despite the slick roads, Zirkle managed to bring the artists with Big Sky Adventures and Tours for a snowy glimpse of Yellowstone National Park before the show, complete with waist-deep post-holing while snowshoeing at Fawn Pass, and a trip to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center.
After two songs, all four singers reached for their water bottles. Singer Sara Gazarek asked a question she knew the answer to.
“Is it dry here?”
Vocalist Johnaye Kendrick joked about standing up slowly due to Big Sky’s altitude.
“Imma need a minute, y’all. ‘Cause I gotta get up,” Kendrick said while crouching for a sip of water.
If singing on a 6,000-foot-high stage left the four-woman quartet short of breath, then we’d love to see säje at sea-level. They performed for more than 90 minutes, including songs from their award-winning debut album and songs and arrangements that will be released on their second album, slated for release later this year. The four singers caught their breath during jazz solos featuring piano and keyboard, upright and electric bass, and drums.
Near the end of the concert, they sang a rendition of “Jolene” by Dolly Parton, whose songwriting and philosophy serve as an inspiration to Gazarek. She interpreted that “Jolene” painted a story about a woman being able to ‘steal’ a man, giving Jolene’s character the deciding power in a relationship.
They finished with an encore, asking the audience to echo the chorus, “you can’t keep the storm from comin’.”
Zirkle was thrilled with the show.
“This is gonna go down as a top-10 for me, out of our 330 productions to date for WMPAC,” he told EBS. It can take years to book artists, but säje came together relatively quickly after Zirkle watched a YouTube video last year. Back then, the group seemed to be flying under the radar, before their debut album and the Grammy to follow.
“On the first listen, I just thought, ‘this is it,’ and then it was really fast,” he said. “… This one was really just like a spark the whole way through.”
On Saturday, Zirkle felt that although the music style was unique, everybody recognized the talent on stage.
“I think for some people, they told me it was the greatest concert of their entire life… My colleague at the school told me his cup is completely full and he was reminded why he’s a music teacher,” Zirkle said.
And even before the eager audience arrived, the singers gave their time to local students in Lone Peak High School’s a cappella group.
In the same day as their Yellowstone tour, sound check and concert, “säje was kind enough… to schedule an hour and come work with the students,” Zirkle said.
The students had practiced a song written by Amanda Taylor—she’s the “A” in säje—and sang it for her. The artists gave a brief lesson on how to compose music.
“Pretty cool to have local kids in Big Sky, Montana, meet the composer of a piece they learned, and they perform it for them and get feedback on it,” Zirkle said.
He thanked the community for taking a chance on new music, especially when the snowstorm gave an easy excuse to skip the sold-out show.
“We sometimes bring well-established artists, and sometimes we like to take a risk and bring new groups,” Zirkle said. “I’m just so grateful that the fine folks of southwest Montana joined us on that adventure.”
Jen Clancey contributed writing to this story.
