A rare tribute to a rare musician: Cellist Lynn Harrell dies and Carnegie Hall marks his passage

A rare tribute to a rare musician: Cellist Lynn Harrell dies and Carnegie Hall marks his passage

Cellist Lynn Harrell died on April 27.

A rare tribute to a rare musician: Cellist Lynn Harrell dies and Carnegie Hall marks his passage

Cellist Lynn Harrell died on April 27.
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The Colorado connection

In the late 1940s, when Lynn Harrell’s father, Mack, joined the music faculty at Southern Methodist University, the family moved to Dallas. In 1949, Mack Harrell became a founding member and later second director of the Aspen Music Festival and School. Summers were spent in Colorado, and a lifelong connection began that continued when Lynn achieved adulthood and had a family of his own.
His son, Eben, 40, is now a resident of Durango with his wife, Daniella Phillis, DMD.
“When I was growing up, my father was on tour most of the year, but we always came together as a family to Colorado in the summers,” Eben Harrell said in an interview earlier this week. “Dad was a mainstay at the Aspen Festival and later at other festivals in the West. He loved Colorado. He took me on hikes and showed me all the good fishing holes.”
In 2002, after graduation from Princeton, Eben went on for a master’s degree at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, but the pull of the American West persisted.
“When I became interested in journalism, I took an internship at The Aspen Times. I stayed for two years,” he said.
An international career in journalism took hold, and Eben moved to Edinburgh and later London and then Boston to write for Time magazine, The Washington Post, The Economist and other major titles. In 2016, after his marriage to Daniella, the couple chose to return to the West. They now live in Durango.
“Daniella is an orthodontist, and we needed to find a place where we both could live and work. She has her practice, A Smile by Design, and I work online as senior editor of the Harvard Business Review. We love the outdoors, the beautiful scenery, the eco-consciousness – just the opposite of the rat race in Boston.”
Since his father’s death, Eben said he has been listening to many of the recordings.
“They are a reminder that he left an incredible legacy – which I can access anytime.”
Judith Reynolds