Author: Susan Viebrock

[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Mick Dierdorff]


The World Cup in Telluride could be a life-changing event for snowboardcross racer Mick Dierdorff.  Only 18, Mick is racing for the opportunity to become the first homegrown snowboarder from the town of Steamboat, Colorado, to make an Olympic team. Whatever happens today on the snow, Friday, December 18, however, Mick is already a winner.

[click "Play" to hear Susan speak with Suzanne Cheavens]

525_v1 Used to be women who sought membership in this men's club had better be butch. No more. Thanks to Mark Galbo of the Telluride Rock and Roll Academy, the girls in the band are preening, strutting rock stars.


 On Saturday night, December 19, 8 p.m., The 525s – Suzanne Cheavens, Suz Remec, Barbel Hacke, Cindy Carver, and Molly Papier – plan to rock out - wait a minute, in the Program Room at The Wilkinson Public Library. Yep, the Library, the perfect place to make noise.

The Telluride Gallery of Fine Art opens the holiday season with a show of new work by internationally celebrated painter Susan Sales. Sales's canvasses mark the nexus of two major movements in contemporary art history: Abstract Expressionism or muscular "action painting." (Think Jackson...

[click "Play" to hear Jeb Berrier speak about playing Shakespeare]

Jeb_shakes Friday, December 18 – Tuesday, December 22, 8 p.m., Telluride Second Stage presents "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged." at the Sheridan Opera House. The production is directed by Jeb Berrier and stars the unholy trinity of the Telluride stage: Berrier, Ashley Boling and Buff Hooper. Fair warning: Hooper will be wearing tights.

Why do we keep returning to Shakespeare? Short answer: no other writer holds up a truer mirror to human nature. The Bard manages to slice and dice, distill and dramatize emotions that don't date, and without an agenda: rather than trying to save mankind with his pen, Shakespeare cuts to the quick with his poetry, which acts like dime store magnifiers that allow us to see what is actually described in the small print.

Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts knows that it's not just you: kids also experience bah! humbug! moments over the holidays.  One antidote to too much tinsel may well be Ah Haa's Holiday Break Art Camps 5+, Monday – Wednesday, December 21 –...

[click "Play" to listen to Susan Sales speak about her work]

Susan A show of new work by painter Susan Sales goes on display at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art on Thursday, December 17. The opening artist's reception is 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.


Susan Sales built her considerable reputation on color field paintings. Eliminating figure and ground in favor of color and form, she forced a focus on paint, color, surface, texture, and gesture, creating near landscapes that "feature" the viewer in the mirror created by glossy, lacquer-like veneers that both contain and protect the raw emotions she paints on to her canvasses. That was then. This is now.
Light one candle poster In Telluride, around the world, certain songs make-up the soundtrack of December, evoking images of Jack Frost nipping at your nose. The chestnut about the reindeer  named Rudolph with the red nose is on the Telluride Choral Society's  WinterSing program, which also includes "Tambourine Carol," "Go Tell It On the Mountain," Vivaldi's "Laudamus Te" from the "Gloria," and an original composition by singer/songwriter Peter Yarrow, "Light One Candle," the theme of this year's concerts.

"This year marks my 10th WinterSing in Telluride," said longtime Choral Society member Eileen Burns. "I love getting together with close friends to rehearse every Wednesday at Christ Church.  For such a small community, Telluride is loaded with talent and I am thrilled to be a part of the magic."