In summer 2019, I spent five weeks touring world-renowned concert halls and attending performances at well-known classical music festivals in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland thanks to the support of the Stanley A. Hamel Traveling Fellowship.

On my first day in Salzburg, the initial leg of the journey, I saw this ominous looking castle atop the most unwelcoming mountain. As the taxi wound its way closer to my lodging, the castle kept appearing through the tree line, closer each time.