[click "Play", Rhonda Muckerman and Kathy Jepson talk about the event] It's a mash up, Telluride style.Friday, March 18, 7 p.m., the Michael D. Palm Theatre presents a first ever: The Telluride Showcase is an...
Earlier this week, Telluride Inside... and Out provided the meat: the Whos, Whats, Whens, Wheres and Whys of the Telluride Repertory Theatre's upcoming event, plus the non-profit's history. If you missed that post, here's the link for details: /2011/03/telluride-rep-celebrates-20th-anniversary-at-ah-haa-saturday-nite.html.Or simply scroll down our Home Page.
Now it's time for the sizzle.
[click "Play" to hear Susan's rap with Suzan Beraza and Dylan Brooks]
The Telluride Repertory Theatre celebrates its 20+ anniversary in style. The non-profit is throwing with a gala dinner party on Saturday, March 12, 7 – 10 p.m., at the Ah Haa School for the Arts. The event includes a champagne reception, a four-course dinner prepared by Mountain Top Catering and a wine pairing featuring the Durango Wine Experience. The entertainment, "The Best of the REP Musical Revue," includes performances by former REP stars, among them, REP co-founders Suzan Beraza and Angela Watkins.
The history of the Telluride Repertory Theatre Company dates back to when co-founder Suzan Beraza, now of "Bag It" fame, found a brochure about a ski resort in a box canyon with a little theater. The ambitious young actress with a yen to ski sent a resume and an 8 X 10 glossy, waited and heard nothing. Suzan was none too concerned about the dead silence: life is oh so hectic on the boards. It was not until she arrived in town that Suzan discovered the dirty little secret behind Telluride's "theatre": The Nugget was a film house. Bummer. Acting was all Suzan knew how to do.
In Telluride, we save the parades and picnics for the Fourth of July. Locally Mardi Gras, March 8, is all about the music. Music and the traditional baubles and beads. (We love bling.)
The music is thanks to the historic Sheridan Opera House, where local jam band, Joint Point, performs at a special Mardi Gras concert starting at 9 p.m.
The Telluride Student Fashion Show, co-directed by Charlotte Delpit and Devin McCarthy, was a tour de force of directing and choreography, setting the bar pretty darn high for TAB's sold-out gala fashion show on Saturday, March 5. (Get on the waiting list and live in hope.)
Just how high? According to Telluride AIDS Benefit board member Sandy McLaughlin: "We just got our latest totals: we raised $8020 so far from show last night! Highest amount ever!"
Bravo ladies.
Now on to the Main Event.
Any time guitar phenom Charlie Hunter shows up in Telluride, the producers have to shoehorn his fans into the room.
The Telluride Jazz Celebration welcomes Charlie Hunter back to town for two encore concerts, Friday, March 4 and Saturday, March 5, at The Llama, where he performs with his trio: Eric Kalb (Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and John Scofield) on drums and John Ellis on sax, bass clarinet, and Wurlitzer. The concert will be streamed live, part of the Telluride Jazz Celebration's Live from the Llama webcasts to give music lovers from around the world a chance to enjoy concerts emanating from one of Telluride’s premier live music venues.
Don we now our gay apparel. It's Gay Ski Week in Telluride, when the town pulls out all the stops as the week builds toward the Telluride AIDS Benefit art auction and gala fashion show, Friday, March 4, and Saturday, March 5. En route, there's a nonstop line-up of what to do, starting with something really b-a-a-a-d.
And Telluride likes it like that: here, really good is really b-a-a-a-d. We are talking about America's favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet, "The Kinsey Sicks," scheduled for scandal at the historic Sheridan Opera House, Wednesday, March 2, 7:30 p.m. The event is co-production between telluride.arts and Gay Ski Week.
Mike Hess, Director, Marketing and Real Estate Services at The Peaks Resort & Spa in Mountain Village is a man of few words. But he tells it like it is:
“We are really excited to have such a wide variety of entertainment of such high caliber for everyone to enjoy. No question about it: The Peaks is the Place to Be this winter."
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.
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:
