The wonderful John & Irene Garran

The Huntington Estate Music Festival has been going for over 20 years in Mudgee. For much of the last decade it has been a collaboration with Musica Viva. It was my fourth Huntington Festival, but my first without my grandpa, Ken Tribe.

Grandpa died in July 2010, at the age of 96. Like many, I lost a mentor and mate.

After the first Huntington Festival I attended, I wrote about my grandpa being a mentor. I was prompted to write it after having several people say that he was their mentor. I got grandchild jealousy. He was my grandpa and therefore my mentor first. However, I then discovered that he’d been a mentor to many of these people for longer than I’d been alive. I felt a need at the time to put in writing some of the business lessons I’d learnt from him, so I had a record of it, more than anything else.

After the second Huntington I attended, I wrote about the feedback cycle that they have in place, because it was great to see a business having an obvious feedback cycle (download as part of our set of articles on the feedback cycle). Regardless of whether they did it the same way this year, or whether I thought the survey they’ve used in the past could be improved, what I still saw is them actively seeking feedback, formally or informally; making improvements and adjustments by putting the ideas in place; then communicating the changes made back to the audience. A full feedback cycle. The audience appreciated it.

There was a public celebration of grandpa’s life at Angel Place – where some of his favourite musicians played some of his favourite pieces, and some of his favourite people spoke about him with the Deaf Society signing (another of his passions). Several concerts have been dedicated to him and segments have been on radio. But… it was at Huntington that I emotionally said good bye to him. He opened my mind to the beauty of a festival of chamber music amongst a small group of people that shared the same passion. When I first went, I didn’t think I would enjoy 5 days of chamber music. After it, I decided that I enjoy festivals more than individual concerts.

At times it was surreal not having him sitting next to me with his wise commentary of the music and the range of people that he’d talk to chatting to us in the breaks. I met great people without him there. Huntington is wonderful like that. Two of those people were John Garran (@JohnOfOz) and his wife Irene [pictured]. John wrote a wonderful blog post about grandpa in July and it was great to meet him in person. I created my own new memories.

In the last 15 years, I spoke to grandpa about almost every concert I attended, whether he was there or not. If he wasn’t there I’d ring afterwards and talk about the concert. What I liked, and didn’t. He’d talk about when he’d heard those pieces of music being played, or surprise if he hadn’t heard them (this was quite a rare occasion).  For the last four months I’ve still had those conversations in my head while listening to live performances. At first I’d think about what I’d tell him when I call after the concert, and then realise that I can’t have that conversation any more. That is when the tears would start. This included hearing the New York Phil play at the Lincoln Centre and Atos Trio play at Angel Place in Sydney.

This Huntington gave me the opportunity to convert those mental conversations to monologues and random ‘wish you were here’ thoughts. I still miss him. I still hear his voice pop into my head. I’ll never forget the impact he has had on my life. More than anything, I hope he can still live through me by the profound impact that he’s had on how I live, the ethics I operate by, the approach I have to business and way I think. I know that others feel the same way.

One of my favourite conversations with him was when I shared a story and then said I haven’t told anyone that. He said, isn’t it funny how you tell a grandparent something you haven’t told your parents. I replied: and grandparent tells his grandchild something that he hasn’t told his children. He replied: touché.

I was so blessed to be able to share so much with him. I saw his faults, but I don’t have a bad memory about him. Almost every interaction had a piece of ‘gold’, that now almost feels tangible – I can hold them and carry them forward.