[click "Play", Ashley talks with Susan about micro flare jeans] Everything old is new again. This week's installment of Telluride Inside...
The Telluride Chamber Music Festival opens this week for the 38th year in a row, joining Telluride Bluegrass and the Telluride Film Festival on the list of oldies but goodies on our town's summer cultural calendar.
The fun begins Thursday night, August 11, 5 p.m. with a FREE concert n Town Park. (Bring your own picnic.) Regular Telluride Chamber Music programming starts Friday, August 12. The two Sunday concerts, August 14 and August 21 are 2:30 matinees. Friday, August 19, is a double bill, including an 11 a.m. FREE concert for kiddos. All evening concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. The series takes place at the historic Sheridan Opera House. Tickets are $25.
It is the ultimate pairing. The Telluride Festival of the Arts is an annual weekend-long celebration of both the visual and culinary arts. The unique event, produced by the Cherry Creek Arts Festival and sponsored by The Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association, welcomes over 5,000 locals visitors to Mountain Village Friday, August 12 (starts a noon) – Sunday, August 14, 2011 (ends at 3 p.m)
The signature event of The Telluride Festival of the Arts is the Grand Tasting, a wine and food event offering a unique opportunity to taste regional and national culinary delights from 15 different culinary partners and wineries and several breweries. The events, which takes place Saturday, August 13, 5:30 – 8 p.m., fills the plazas of Telluride's Mountain Village.
Telluride's historic Sheridan Opera House welcomes singer/songwriters Eric Brace and Peter Cooper, with Phil Lee and Tom Mason. The concert, billed as Americana/folk sounds, takes place Saturday, August 13, 8 p.m.
What's Americana? A hybrid of country, folk, bluegrass and swing. Who are Eric and Peter? Two of Nashville's hottest musicians, but Telluride virgins. (We promise to be gentle.)
For his band, Last Train Home, and for his duo with Peter Cooper, singer/songwriter Eric Brace is one of the most acclaimed artists in the Americana world. One critic described Eric's warm tenor voice this way:
The annual celebration of visual and culinary arts known as the Telluride Festival of the Arts returns to Mountain Village this coming weekend, Friday, August 12 – Sunday, August 14.
Vetted art shows in the Telluride region take place twice a year in summer. For eight years running, over July 4th weekend, the Sheridan Arts Foundation hosts Telluride Plein Air, a outdoor exhibition featuring the work of about 30 of the top American Impressionist painters. In August, the action moves "uptown" to Mountain Village and the Festival of the Arts. Its juried art show features work in 13 different media categories including ceramics, digital art, drawing, fiber, glass, graphics and printmaking, jewelry, metal works, mixed media, painting, photography, sculpture and wood.
Here's what the Telluride Yoga Center does not offer: hip-hop yoga or yoga for dogs. (Yep, those variations on the theme are out there, along with circus yoga, acrobatic yoga, even Christian yoga, also not on the schedule.) Otherwise, Telluride's original yoga studio, located at 201 West Colorado Avenue, Suite 200, in the historic Nugget Building, offers something for everyone.
And that means you. Even if you are not young and buff. Even if you can't bend like pretzel. Even if you have nagging injuries. Even if you you are a jock who gets plenty of exercise. Maybe especially if you are a jock who gets plenty of exercise, but has no clue how to breath or simply need to chill out. My teacher, Gary Kraftsow, of the American Viniyoga Institute, once defined yoga at the level of asana (postures) as "flossing for the spine." What could be more basic than spine health.
About one month ago, certain very lucky kids in Telluride got to do what other lucky kids have done for 25 silvery years: slide down muddy Coronet Creek into the experience of a lifetime. It's time for the Mudd Butts Mystery Theater Troupe's annual performance. Yes, you read me correctly. The Mudd Butts just turned 25.
Come help the Mudd Butts celebrate by attending this year's production, August 12 – August 14. "A Day When Nothing Was Supposed to Happen" is a Telluride story that begins with the Nothing Festival 2012 and find its way down to the center of earth and back through a prairie dog hole.
The Telluride Gallery of Fine Art is the local representative of the world's most famous wrapper: Christo.
Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude (now deceased) became world famous for hiding familiar objects, buildings and views in plain sight by wrapping whatever struck their fantasies in what amounts to a second skin. The big idea: transform the quotidian into something transcendent, stimulate our imaginations and the joy of discovery, causing us to take a second look at that which we tend to take for granted.
The word "jazz," originally "jass" was slang for love-making, what you did when you went to brothels at the turn of the 20th century. Then it became the kind of music played in brothels to accompany such activities. For Telluride Jazz Celebration impresario Paul Machado, "jazz" means a certain kind of spontaneous interaction on stage and off, when the chemistry created by music, the mountains, the food and wine, and the people kicks in as it inevitably does every year over the Telluride Jazz Celebration weekend. The 35th annual musical happening featuring classical, mainstream, blues Brazilian, African, Latin and more, takes place this year Friday, August 5 – Sunday, August 7.
Fashion Friday is all Telluride's Two Skirts spotting trends and highlighting designers worth noting, then bringing it all down to a local level. This week fashionista Ashley Deppen focuses on Mischa Lampert.
Alright already. I don't want to wish away the summer either, but Lampert's chunky wool hats are special: hand knit wool head gear that act like winter armor, but also have great style. Her Sailor Fur number with its slightly conical shape makes you look like a character out of "Lord of the Rings." And I mean that in the very cute elfin sense. The earflaps on the Nolita model insulate you from the cold – and the world.
