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Performing Arts

Concert finale Telluride may be a toy town, but it casts a long shadow. Turn around too quickly and you will bump into Telluride no matter where in the world you are. Like yesterday. All day. The point takes on an all-caps clarity if I begin at the end.

Part-time Telluride locals Anne and Vincent Mai are co-producers of the Telluride Musicfest (with documentary filmmaker and part-time local Josh Aronson). Among the regular guests and returning for the 9th annual musical event, (June 22 – July 3) is classically trained violist Kathryn Lockwood.

In her ethnic persona, Australian born Kathryn performs with her husband, Lebanese-born Yousif Sheronick as Duo Jalal. On April 27 the couple happened to have a gig at a club in the alphabet soup of Manhattan's lower East Side.

29 April, 2011 /

kicker: shows 6 p.m. nightly April 29 – May 1 Eddie, Betty, and Rosco are a bunch of boring, unimaginative  Telluride kids. They text each other. They play video games. They even watch the microwave.  But all of that changes the day they're visited by...

26 April, 2011 /

by Tracy Shaffer

 

Denver stories Curious Theatre Company’s Denver Stories is an open book. Now in its sixth edition, this annual fundraiser unites local legends with a playwright, director and a troupe of Curious actors to tell their life stories on stage in 15 minutes or less. A big part of the magic is in the mix of selected luminaries: a cultural icon, a politician, a culinary wiz, a do-gooder, and the like. Part tribute, part roast and always a celebration, the house is packed with friends, fans and nail-biting “celebrities” waiting for the artistic interpretation of their lives to unfold before their very eyes… and those of everyone they know. The singular quality in the Denver Story is a sense of community, and as we learn about those who’ve shaped our fair city and how they came to their passions, we feel closer to them and to the institutions they’ve helped to create.

This year’s honorees are Living Blues Reader’s “Best Blues Entertainer”, Otis Taylor; nationally recognized restaurateur, Paul Attardi (Fruition, Aubergine, Mizuna); Denver’s original “Shear Genius” and master coiffeur, Charles Price; and real estate developer/preservationist/”Queen of Lodo”, Dana Crawford.

24 April, 2011 /

By Jon Lovekin

(Editor's note: One of the pleasures in publishing Telluride Inside... and Out is getting to know new  [to us] writers. Susan and I independently ran across Jon Lovekin on Twitter. She took the next step, checked out his writing, liked what she saw and asked if he would be interested in contributing to TIO. Herewith, another article from Jon.)

Chugwater The Powder River Basin is one of America's sacrificial lands for our energy needs. Oil derricks, oil and gas pipelines, industrial roads that seem to go nowhere, and the largest open-pit coal mine in the United States. This vast region occupies an area approximately 120 by 200 miles or 24,000 square miles of open prairie, desert, high mountains, isolated buttes and deep rivers. This was home to the Ab-Sa-Ra-Ka or the Crow Indians and remains remote and unknown to much of America. Camping on Casper Mountain near the North Platte the view north remains crisp of the Big Horn Mountains near Montana hundreds of miles away.

24 April, 2011 /

[click "Play" to hear Steve Gumble's conversation with Susan]

 

 

Front Stage Shot, Blues & Brews He's on the road again –  and headed our way. Turns out Steve Gumble has booked the iconic Willie Nelson, who first appeared at Telluride Bluegrass in 1982 –  as the headliner for his 18th annual Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, September 16 – September 18, 2011. Joining Willie on the Main Stage are The Flaming Lips, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Dweezil Zappa, Mavis Staples, Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band, to name of the few of the acts, which make a lot more sense in context.
 
Steve, now owner and CEO of SBG Productions Inc. opened Telluride Blues & Blues for business in 1994. Like Telluride Film Festival, Mountainfilm in Telluride, and Telluride Bluegrass, Steve's festival evolved into an event with a global reputation, helping to brand Telluride as a cultural mecca.

20 April, 2011 /

New Director Brings Years of Experience and Event Expertise

Bill Kight April 12, 2011 (Telluride, CO.) – The Telluride Blues and Brew Festival team proudly announced the addition of Bill Kight as Director of Marketing and Public Relations this week. Bill brings over 8 years of advertising, sales, event management and production, marketing, and PR experience to the iconic festival’s table.

“The addition of Bill to our team comes at a great time for the festival,” said Steve Gumble, founder of Blues and Brews. “We are really looking forward to working with Bill, and improving the festival’s image and exposure through his marketing and public relations knowledge and capabilities.”

18 April, 2011 /

[click "Play" for Susan's interview with playwright Drew Larimore]

 

 

OUT OF ASKJA Here's another fine example of what happens in Telluride does not stay in Telluride. Which is a good thing.

"Askja" is the name of a volcano in east central Iceland, active in 1961. "Out of Askja" is the name of play which remains very active, thanks to Telluride.

Playwright Drew Larimore workshopped "Out of Askja," in Telluride in 2008 at Jennie Franks' 2nd annual Telluride Playwright Festival. Three years later, "Out of Askja" opens the first week in June at the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, New York City's premiere eco-friendly theatre festival. According to Planet Connections' mission statement:

16 April, 2011 /

But is it Art?
But is it Art?

We love it when a member of the Telluride Inside... and Out family is tributed, especially this member.

Art Goodtimes and I go way back to the beginning days of the Daily Planet, when the man gallantly stepped aside to allow this then wet-behind-the ears journalist to take her place in hot seat as the town's theatre critic, a job he had performed ever so well. Which is the way Art does everything from governing to organizing festivals to weaving baskets to weaving words together to form a poem.   

In late March, Thunder River Theatre Company and its board of directors announced the appointment of Art Goodtimes as the first ever Western Slope Poet Laureate. He serves as Western Slope Poet Laureate through March 2012, when a new poet laureate will be named at the second annual Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival.

12 April, 2011 /
[click "Play" to listen to Paul Machado's rap on TJC 2011]

 

 

Toshiko Akiyoshi
Toshiko Akiyoshi, 2010

The aural elixir that is the Telluride Jazz Celebration announces its lineup for the 35th anniversary year.

Telluride Jazz Celebration impresario Paul Machado is no purist: in the context of Telluride Jazz, "jazz" rhymes with "good." "Very good." The 2011 program features some of the best of the best in classic, mainstream, and progressive jazz, but also blues, cajun, pop, funk, and soul, all performed by artists as wide-ranging as Tower Of Power, Allen Toussaint with Rita Coolidge for the first time ever, and "American Idol" winner (2006),Taylor Hicks.

The 2011 Guest of Honor is Paquito D'Rivera, whose long career is a tribute to his diverse talent: he performs Latin, jazz, classical, funk with equal panache. As Guest of Honor, Paquito gets to jam with other festival artists, among them, Edmar Castaneda. Paquito also plays a special Jazz-After-Dark show with the Alex Brown Quartet.

11 April, 2011 /

Glass Heart CD Year after year, they hit it out of the ballpark. We are talking about key players of the Telluride Musicfest, now entering its 9th season. Recently, Musicfest's artistic director Maria Bachmann and her Trio Solisti colleague, Jon Klibonoff received raves from a Fanfare critic for their premiere performance of Philip Glass's "First Violin Sonata," on their latest CD, Glass Heart.

"Strongly recommended for recorded sound that transmits the subtlety and dynamic range of the performances, for repertoire astutely chosen to illuminate the program’s central work, and for insightful and convincing readings of Schubert’s and Ravel’s sonatas," Fanfare

With the sensuous cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, the Trio Solisti is the heart and soul of Telluride Musicfest, this year, June 22 – July 3.

10 April, 2011 /