Author: Susan Viebrock

[click "Play" to listen to Walter Wright talk about community leadership] Now and again, Telluriders play nice, achieving our goals through a sense of common purpose. The 350.org day (Saturday, October 24) is a shining example of mutual efforts succeeding big...

[click "Play" to listen to Susan's interview with Lauren Metzger]

Yaa09 Picasso famously said: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

For eight years, Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts has honored regional – students – Telluride, Ridgway, Ouray, Norwood, Nucla, Naturita and Dolores, public, private and home-schooled ––  for  creativity and interest in the arts through an annual Youth Art Awards program.

[click "Play to hear Susan's conversation with Andrea Benda]

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Andrea Benda (r) with friend and
council colleague, Lulu Hunt

Retiring Telluride councilwoman Andrea Benda spends a great deal of time wandering around a cemetery. She is not maudlin. She has nothing to bury, not even a hatchet, because she long ago she made peace with all her council colleagues. Telluride's Lone Tree Cemetery is simply one of the stops on the town tours her company, Explore Telluride!, offers.


Andrea Benda holds a degree in Library Science from James Madison University. After graduation, she worked in the Chicago suburbs as a media specialist in elementary schools until she and her then husband Terry, now deceased, moved to Telluride and ran the Ore Station Lodge as an inn, handling everything from taking reservations to cleaning toilets. Not being afraid to get her hands dirty was probably good training for the Telluride Town Council.

Up in the air has several meanings for Telluride's "Glider Bob" Saunders, who has gotten lots of practice  just idling his engines. Glider Bob is one of the candidates running for re-election to Telluride's Town Council, so tonight he awaits election results. After...

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Trio Solisti with Ayano Ninomiya, violin; David Harding, viola


In June, the Telluride Musicfest celebrates eight years in town performing chamber music concerts in a private home. The artistic director of the Telluride Musicfest is the bravura violinist Maria Bachmann of the Trio Solisti, who razzle-dazzles with her equally gifted colleagues, cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach and pianist Jon Klibonoff.

“...Trio Solisti was consistently brilliant..dangerous and radical…and compelling, " raved The New York Times.

Michael Barrett, artistic director of the top-tier Caramoor Performing Arts Center probably would not argue the point. He has booked the group for the first in a series of concerts in and around New York and Washington over the coming months.
Grooms, 2009, Dancing, Marlborough Chelsea (1) Telluride Inside... and Out's stories about our very memorable day in Chelsea continue with a recap of our visit to the Marlborough Chelsea Gallery, 545 West 25th Street, to see an exhibit of monumental sculptures by Red Grooms. Why we went has everything to do with jonesing for the child-like wonder of the artist's work, cosmic connections, Telluride, and our dear friend Stephen Wald.

Grooms, 2009, Dancing, Marlborough Chelsea (4) Stephen Wald died that very same Thursday, October 22, after a long battle against Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. I suspect his passing happened close to the time a group of us went to the Marlborough to celebrate our friend, a successful businessman, philanthropist, accomplished athlete, photographer, and art lover/collector, because Clint and I knew Red Grooms held a special place in Stephen's life: specifically by a window in the entry hall of the elegant Aldasoro home he shared with his beloved wife Sheila, also a collector.

Telluride's The New Community Coalition lead the charge locally on the global celebration of climate action, 350.org day, an event which brought together individuals, nonprofits and local businesses to finding local living solutions for worldwide climate change.350.org day was also a perfect time to...