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Author: Susan Viebrock

[to hear BBHC's Sam Andrew talking to Susan, click "Play"]

BBHCoriginalnologos Telluride's Sheridan Opera House welcomes Janis Joplin's original band to town. Big Brother & The Holding Company are performing live concert at the historic venue on Friday, July 2. Show time is 8 p.m. Doors and box office, 7:30 p.m. (Stop by the Sheridan Opera House courtyard from 5-8pm just prior to the show for a free Gala Premiere and Silent Auction, featuring paintings created by artists attending Telluride Plein Air’s 7th Annual Celebration of Outdoor Painting.  Complementary wine sampling and snacks provided.)

Janis Joplin brought her big, bad, bluesy voice from the red dirt of Texas to San Francisco, when "The Haight" was the heart of the drugs, sex and rock 'n roll flower child days of the 1960s. Virtually overnight, thanks to a man named Chet Helms, she went from drifter to a superstar universally described as "the greatest white urban blues and soul singer of her generation." That is, thanks to Helms and the band he managed, Big Brother & The Holding Company, which became Joplin's surrogate family.
30 June, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Jim Riley's conversation with Susan]

RWBFINAL Over the Fourth of July weekend, any lines in the sand between "uptown," the Mountain Village and "downtown," the Town of Telluride, dissolve in simple addresses with a single purpose: party large in celebration of our nation's independence.

The fun begins in Telluride with the Sheridan Arts Foundation's annual Telluride Plein Air Celebration starting July 2. The fun continues on Saturday July 3,  when the Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association presents a free concert featuring Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers,  a stand-out example of the jump/swing revival performing blues, swing and bop. The concert takes place in Sunset Plaza at the top of Lift 1 starting at 4 p.m., while family activities start at 2 p.m.
 
30 June, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Katie Singer talk about Touch-a-Truck]

Touch a truck Mountain Munchkins day care, operated by the Town of Mountain Village, hosts the third annual Touch-A-Truck fundraiser to benefit the childcare center’s infant, toddler and preschool programs. The event takes place Saturday, June 26, 2010, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. in the parking lot of the Telluride Middle/High School. 


Touch-A-Truck patrons get to interact with a variety of vehicles: touch, climb on, sit in the driver’s seat, or have a picture taken alongside their favorite service vehicle and/or work equipment. Returning to the annual fundraiser is the trick horse named Comanche, along with trucks, buses and fire engines.
25 June, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Cat Cora]

Cat Cora Iron Chef Cat Cora hits the ground running when she arrives in town this week for the 29th annual Telluride Wine Festival. She is everywhere you want to be, with the spotlight  on her newly released  "Cat Cora Classics with a Twist: Fresh Takes on Favorite Dishes."

Friday, June 25,  9:30 – 11 a.m.,Telluride Farmer's Market, the Iron Chef signs copies of "Cat Cora Classics with a Twist." That same afternoon, 2:30 – 4 p.m., she puts her words to the test at a cooking demonstration in the private home of Chef Chad Scothorn. (Seating is extremely limited, so reserve your ticket now.) Saturday, June 26, Cora goes "uptown" to the Mountain Village, where she is joined by Chef Michael Weist for a luncheon at Allred's inspired by recipes from the cookbook. Telluride Wine Festival co-director, Steve Olson, aka the wine geek, and Ted Diamantis pair Cora's "classics" with Greek wines, tying into roots of this Olympian chef. Both the demonstration and the luncheon should debunk the mythology that all Greek food is straight out of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," heavy and greasy.
24 June, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Michelle Curry Wright talk about her Wine Festival poster]

Web poster image wine fest Michelle Curry Wright is one of the faces regulars see when they visit the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art. She has worked at the gallery for six of the 25 years the must-visit art emporium has been in business. But what you see at the front desk is not all that you get.

Michelle Curry Wright is also a fine artist in the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art's stable and this year, the poster artist for the 29th annual Telluride Wine Festival. The original mixed media painting for the Festival poster is on display throughout the weekend at the Gallery, 130 East Colorado Avenue, open for bids through a silent auction. (Some of the proceeds from the sale go the the Tellluride Wine Fest.) Michelle signs poster, $25 each, during Friday's Toast of Telluride, 4 – 6 p.m.
23 June, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Adam Neiman's conversation with Susan]

Photo 32 The gravitational center of the Telluride Musicfest, June 23 – July 3, is the founding trio, The Trio Solisti: cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, pianist Jon Klibonoff, and the event's artistic director, violinist Maria Bachmann. The group is renowned worldwide for sterling technical chops and no-holds-barred passion and lyricism. They play as one with perfect complicity.

"The most exciting piano trio in America," raved The New Yorker.

Like the Telluride Playwrights Festival, Telluride Musicfest is not a high profile event on Telluride's summer Festival calender: except like the heavies – Mountainfilm in Telluride and Telluride Film Festival – both attract world class talent. Case in point for Musicfest, pianist Adam Neiman. Adam joins Maria and the Trio for the 8th annual four-concert series: "From Russia with Love."
23 June, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Maria Bachmann's conversation with Susan]

TMF2010 final:highres Blame it on the the Russians. Telluride Musicfest's Maria Bachmann came to the States when her parents were forced to flee their homeland in 1956 after the revolution in her home country, Hungary, failed and the Red Menace tightened its grip. Eva and Tibor Bachmann's grit and self-sacrifice in their adopted country paid off. Son Peter became a dean of math and science at a college outside Philadelphia. And Maria grew up to be a world-renowned violinist, hailed recently (May 25) by The Philadelphia Inquirer for her:


"...near boundless expressive freedom...violinist Maria Bachmann projected the music's emotionalism, and dazzlingly attenuated the final movement in a mounting cauldron of rhythm."
22 June, 2010 /
[click "Play" to listen to Chef Omar speak about food and his career]

ILC_0104 Moving on. With the Telluride Bluegrass Festival over, thoughts around town turn from KOTO beer to fine wine. This coming weekend is the 29th annual Telluride Wine Festival, June 24 – June 27.

It's common knowledge among the "Sideways" crowd: There are two fundamental considerations when matching food and wine: find a good match based on similar taste or a match based on contrasts. A look at Chef Omar Collazo's menu for his Telluride Wine Festival dinner suggests he goes on instinct.

Located in the Mountain Village, 9545 at the Inn at Lost Creek is hosting one of a number of special dinners held throughout the long Telluride Wine Festival weekend.

22 June, 2010 /