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Festivals

[click "Play" for Susan's talk with David Russell]

DaveRussell w mic A sound experience –  kirtan – has been added to the schedule of the 2nd annual Telluride Yoga Festival, June 10 – June 12, 2009.

On Friday evening, 7 – 10 p.m., under the stars at the Mountain Village Sunset Stage, just a short walk from Yoga Fest hospitality, attendees and friends are invited to attend two performances of kirtan, one given by Durango's Prema Shakti, a 12-person energetic kirtan group. The second is led by David Russell and friends.

Plato pondered the powers of music and sound in "The Laws"  and other dialogues. Shakespeare also intuitively understood: several of his most poignant scenes dramatized music's soothing effects on troubled souls.
Pre-dating Western scholars, the Yoga tradition has known for centuries that sound is the new aspirin or apple –  only more so. Proof positive lies in the bible of Yoga, "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali," where the great sage explains that the mystic sound "OM" is not just the name Isvara (a God analog), but is Isvara, the actual form of God. Humming"OM" is a summons: the sound brings God to you.

Kirtan is a group practice of singing Sanskrit mantras that are set to simple melodies. These mantras are sound vibrations which roll and vibrate through the seven energy centers (chakras) of the body creating well-being in body, mind, and spirit. It really doesn’t matter what the words mean because the sound vibrations alone are a direct plug-in to the experience of Source, or God Consciousness, or whatever you choose to call Isvara.

07 July, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Dayne Conrad & John Ehlers on Amlavi]

Australia New Zealand April 2007 209 Listen, Telluride: It is no longer just about solar panels, wind turbines and bio-diesel. America's green revolution has infiltrated the world of beauty.

One of the Telluride Yoga Festival sponsors, Amlavi heads an alphabet of new labels representing super effective, eco-friendly cosmetics, bath products and scents, including companies making soy polish remover (Priti), producing make-up brushes fashioned from sustainable wood and brushed recycled aluminum (Ecotools Cosmetic Brushes), making nontoxic nail polish (Sula Paint & Peel), and producing mascara (Organic Wear).

06 July, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Philip Glass]

Portrait2a There is nothing minimalist about Philip Glass when it comes to loving.

Last year, the iconic musical wizard came to town for the Telluride Musicfest just to watch his ladylove, bravura cellist Wendy Sutter, perform. Caught up in the electrifying energy of the world-class chamber music event, he wound up giving an impromptu performance in the Mais' living room at the old Skyline Guest Ranch, home base for the concert series. At the end of the season, Glass asked artistic director, virtuoso violinist Maria Bachmann, if he could return as the 2009 Composer-in-Residence. Who would turn down the man described by renowned New Yorker critic Alex Ross as  "Without a doubt, America's most famous living composer of classical music?"

03 July, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Keith Wicks]

104-0416_IMG_2-1 Telluride has artist Keith Wicks to thank for helping everyone see the light.

Wicks is a founding member of the Sonoma Plein Air Foundation. On a visit to Sonoma County and Napa Valley in Fall 2003, Sheridan Arts Foundation board chair Mark Dalton and his wife Susan happened upon an outdoor show of paintings in the Impressionist tradition in the Sonoma town square. Impressed, as it were, by the quality of the work on display, the couple met with the show’s organizer:Wicks.

Seeing an opportunity for a great addition to Telluride's summer cultural calendar and a new and interesting way to raise funds for SAF’s family programming, Mark Dalton retained Wicks to mount the first local Telluride Plein Air event.

03 July, 2009 /

Plein Air artists in Telluride (see Slide show of their work below)

This week, 30 nationally recognized artists have been painting in and around Telluride for the Sheridan Arts Foundation's 6th annual Telluride Plein Air event.

Bottom line: Impressionist style plein air painting is an old idea updated by new blood.

Eugene Boudin was one of the more adventurous 19th-century painters, known primary for his beach scenes and seascapes of northern France, and luminous skies. When Boudin taught his young student, Claude Monet, the importance of painting a scene directly from nature in the light, in the air, just as it was, painting en plein air was born. In the stroke of Monet’s agitated brush, the dark palette of Realism (and the Barbizon School) gave way to the brighter highlights of painting directly from nature.

02 July, 2009 /

Unknown  Starting Monday, July 29, 30 carefully vetted artists, including locals Wayne McKenzie and Meredith Nemirov, are gathering in and around Telluride to synthesize the light hitting town and mountain scenes into color on canvas. The group is part of the 6th annual Telluride Plein Air event, produced by the Sheridan Arts Foundation to support its year 'round programming.

This year, the general public gets its first peek at the work at two venues in the Mountain Village.

The  Masterpiece Showcase & Sale takes place at Mountain Village Heritage Plaza, June 30 – July 2, where gallery quality works selected by the artists will be on sale. 

30 June, 2009 /

by Dr. Susanna Hoffman

Sunday evening at 7:30 pm, Bluepoint Restaurant: Greece meets Telluride Farmers

Konstantine Jake and Me 028 Some three decades ago as an anthropology doctoral candidate, I decided that the sort of very abstract study that had only been done among remote tribal people could also prove true  among a  people with a long literate tradition. That gave a choice of only China, India, or Europe to conduct my research and, as a woman alone in those days, I chose Europe. That settled, I determined to go to what is considered the font of European civilization, Greece. As for where in Greece, after much reading, I fixed on a site I thought boasted a very long history, clear from Minoan times the island of Santorini. There were supposedly three thousand churches on the 16-mile island. Ah, what depth, what symbolism, I thought. Clearly this was the place for me. 

27 June, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Citizen Cope]

123032810001 Telluride Mountainfilm and Telluride Bluegrass are known far and wide as festivals for folks with a come-to-the-neighborhood feel. On the other hand, the Telluride Wine Festival, this weekend, June 25 – June 28, is perceived to be highbrow, for a sleek, well-heeled fraternity, who are all about Reidel, not KOTO plastic beer cups. It's for "them," not "us." Right?

Wrong. What better proof of the event's parochial bent than beer – yep, brews as well as wine and spirits this year – and another Telluride Wine Fest first: a concert Saturday evening, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m., featuring brooding urban poet and musical mixologist Clarence Greenwood, aka, Citizen Cope, a uncommon performer with a common touch.

27 June, 2009 /
click "Play" to hear Maria Bachman on the Festival and Philip Glass]


Telluride 2009 5 Devotees of the Telluride Musicfest have already gotten their tickets. For Festival virgins, the following is the schedule:

All Concerts at 7:30PM
    •    June 24 CONCERT #1 at Mai Home (at Skyline Ranch)
    •    Featuring Trio Solisti, founding ensemble
    •    Mendelssohn Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op 49
         Schoenfield Cafe Music
         Mendelssohn Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op 66

    •    June 28 CONCERT #2 at Mai Home (at Skyline Ranch)
    •    Artists: David Harding, viola; Wendy Sutter, cello; and Trio Solisti
         Beethoven Duet with Obligato Eyeglasses for viola and cello Woo 32
         Ravel Sonata for violin and cello
         Mendelssohn Sonata in D major for cello and piano
         Brahms Piano Quartet in C minor

27 June, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Deidra Krois on the Festival]

RF09_poster Ridgway, Colorado, is much more than a bedroom community for Telluride.

The town is famous – or infamous – as the location for several movies, including "How the West Was Won," and one of actor John Wayne's late great movies, "True Grit," (1969), in which Wayne stars as Rooster Cogburn. The True Grit Cafe is filled with John Wayne memorabilia, but as far as we know, no drunken, one-eyed federal marshals.

Ridgway boasts an abundance of wildlife: mountain lions, badgers, deer, elk, bears, coyotes, and bald eagles are indigenous to the area. And a river runs through it.

The Uncompaghre is a great source for trout fishing and this weekend, the focus of Ridgway's second annual River Festival. The Mosaic Community Project, a local nonprofit dedicated to sustainable living practices, environmental awareness, and the arts, organized the FREE watershed celebration,11 a.m – 9 p.m., downtown, in and around Rollans Park.

26 June, 2009 /