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Author: Susan Viebrock

[click "Play to hear Susan's conversation with WestCAP's Mary Beth Luedtke ]

 

 

WestCAP office Since getting off the ground in 1994, the Telluride AIDS Benefit has donated over $1 million towards HIV/AIDS education, advocacy and NGOs, from Colorado to Africa. Today, there are a total of six beneficiaries, including Denver Children's Hospital Immunodeficiency Program, Brother Jeff's Community Health Initiative, The Manzini Youth Care Center in Manzini (Swaziland) and the Ethiopian Family Fund. But the mother of them all, TAB's primary beneficiary, is the Western Colorado AIDS Project (WestCAP), a nonprofit that in its infancy helped support a man named Robert Presley in his battle against the virus. Presley was the Telluride AIDS Benefit's muse.

26 February, 2011 /

kicker: Show by artist who celebrated his homosexuality up for Gay Ski Week

Hockney A show of the poster art of David Hockney opens at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art this weekend and runs through Gay Ski Week. The exhibition features about 20 – 25 images, many of which are out of print.

Telluride Gallery of Fine Art opened for business 25 years ago in the tied-dyed era of hippies and miners, just as development of the new ski resort was kicking in. Owner Will Thompson arrived on the scene with years of experience in the art market.

In the early 1970s, Will represented a New York-based company, whose stable included original Hockney lithographs. Another London-based company, Petersburg Press, became the source of the poster art in the show.

25 February, 2011 /


 

Guess who's coming to Telluride?  The answer is the word-famous Harlem Ambassadors.

Now guess why.

Last year, the Telluride-based One to One San Miguel Mentoring Program showed that it has what it takes to ride tough times: a healthy helping of imagination.

The creative non-profit earned its share of the (shrinking) pie by hosting the region's first ever Top Chef event. The community response was over the top: The Peaks Resort & Spa in Mountain Village, the event venue, was packed to the rafters with crowds of people partying hardy for a good cause.

25 February, 2011 /
[click "Play", Ashley Deppen tells Susan what to wear to the Oscars]

 

 

Alice-olivia-neiman-marcus-day-dresses-cabella-tank-dress To honor the Academy Awards in Telluride, Sunday night, February 27, the Telluride Academy hosts "A Very Special Oscar Evening."  The benefit features Bruce Cohen, producer of the 83rd annual glam slam, who joins local Academy guests via a live broadcast from his Producer's Table at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre.
 
The event takes place at Telluride's historic Sheridan Opera House, with a Red Carpet Reception from 5:30-6:30p.m (Call 970-728-5311 for reservations or visit www.tellurideacademy.org)

24 February, 2011 /

 Thursday, February 25, starting 6 p.m., Telluride's one and only KOTO community radio, heads uptown to the Mountain Village Ballroom (formerly the Telluride Conference Center), to host an evening of music to beat the band – featuring bands that can't be beat. "Elephant Revival" is on hand to warm up the crowd. The headliner is "Leftover Salmon."

"Leftover Salmon" was formed by a lucky accident in 1989, arising from the flatirons and granite of the Front Range. A local band, the Salmon Heads, asked members of the Left Hand String Band to fill in some blanks in its lineup for a New Year's Eve show at the Eldorado Cafe in Crested Butte. The end result of the mashup was a quintet that went on to pioneer its own genre: "Polyethnic Cajun Slamgrass," a fluid, loose-limbed blend of bluegrass, Cajun, funk, Southern rock, boogie, Caribbean, Latin and jazz influences that is at once rootsy and daring.

23 February, 2011 /
[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Elephant Revival's Dango, Bonnie and Bridget]

 

 

Elephantrevival_annestavely_2-199x300 The now legendary Leftover Salmon is the main event at Friday's fundraiser for Telluride's KOTO Community Radio. However, Elephant Revival, the opening act, is described by Suzanne Cheavens, KOTO musical director, as very "buzzy."

It is the elephant in the room.

Elephant Revival is a Nederland, Colorado-based neo-acoustic quintet. The band plays a unique blend of an emerging new musical genre which marries –  somewhat improbably –  the core ideas of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman about spiritual transcendence through intuition to original folk tunes, Scottish/Celtic fiddle tunes, traditional ballads, psychedelic country, indie rock, reggae, 40s/50s jazz standards, even hip hop. Friends and fans around Boulder/Ned describe Elephant Revival's sound "Transcendental Folk," shorthand for a rainbow of sonic colors. Peers and critics drop that idea and simply call it good:

22 February, 2011 /

[click "Play", Susan speaks with Devin McCarthy and Charlotte Delpit about the Student Show]

 

 

Charlotte & Devin If she has said it once, Telluride AIDS Benefit board member/teacher Sandy McLaughlin has said it a dozen times: the action on the catwalk is not the primary reason the Benefit produces a Student Fashion Show. Read between the lines– clothing and otherwise.

For the Telluride AIDS Benefit, the big idea behind the clothes, the choreography, and the music is that  the pandemic persists largely unabated. The tenacity of the virus drives the need for  prevention education to keep everyone safe and raising money to support the Telluride AIDS Benefit's beneficiaries – The Western Colorado AIDS Project, Children's Hospital Immunodeficiency Project, Brother Jeff's Health Initiative, Manzini Youth Care Project, and the Ethiopian Family Fund – who in turn support those living with HIV/AIDS and their families.

The co-directors of the 2011 Student Fashion Show, February 24, 6 p.m., The Palm, are Charlotte Delpit and Devin McCarthy, two of Telluride's best and brightest teens. Both are also in TAB's (sold out) adult fashion show, Thursday, March 3, and Saturday, March 5.

21 February, 2011 /

Kinsey Sicks Wednesday, March 2, 7:30 p.m., telluride.arts (Telluride Councils for the Arts & Humanities) presents "The Kinsey Sicks: Americas Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet". The event, in collaboration with Gay Ski Week, takes place at Telluride's historic Sheridan Opera House.

The Kinsey Sicks began in 1993 as a group of friends who attended a Bette Midler concert in San Francisco dressed as the Andrews Sisters. Assuming they'd be among many drag queens, they found themselves to be the only ones – other than Bette, of course. The group were approached that very night to perform at an upcoming event. Their reply, "We don't sing," was quickly debunked when everyone realized they all had musical backgrounds. The group began singing and harmonizing that night, and the seed for the Kinsey Sicks was planted.

21 February, 2011 /
[click "Play", Susan interviews David Hollander]

Copy_of_winter From the get-go, founder/director Aubrey Hackman aimed high, starting with the instructors she has invited to her Telluride Yoga Festival. Though every one had a national, even international reputation, the roster did not include celebrity yogis, brands unto themselves, with book deals, fashion lines, and studio franchises. They were individuals like herself who walked their talk: scholars, not pretzels, deep students and scholars of a transformative tradition with roots dating back nearly 5,000 years.
One of them was David Hollander.

Now David, who returns to the 4th annual Telluride Yoga Festival this summer ( July 14– July 1),  joins Aubrey to help launch the first Telluride Yoga Festival in Winter. The event takes place Thursday, March 10 – Sunday, March 13 at The Peaks Resort and includes six yoga classes, morning meditation and evening kirtan, plus full access to The Peaks Spa and Fitness Center, a 21,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility.

20 February, 2011 /
[click "Play", Susan speaks with James Anaquad-Kleinert and Dr. Susannah Smith]

 

 

kicker: filmmaker James Anaquad-Kleinert in Telluride for the event

Horse-bigger “I adopted a wild horse named Voodoo, who had been rounded up by the Bureau of Land Management and adopted out to a killer buyer. The man like many or most killer buyers, played a cruel game of acquiring horses and betting that he could sell them to slaughter before he has to feed them. But the problem did not begin with the killer buyer. It began with the Bureau of Land Management,” said Willie Nelson, now part of the production team for "Wild Horses & Renegades."

The American mustang crisis makes headlines around the world. On Tuesday, February 22, award-winning filmmaker James Anaquad-Kleinert brings his star-studded environmental documentary, "Wild Horses & Renegades," to Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library. A reception with the filmmaker starts at 5:30 p.m. The screening follows, including a sneak peak of the call-to-action music video, cut to U2's hit song "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses."

20 February, 2011 /