(Editor's note: Telluride Bluegrass Festival just concluded on Sunday. Sam was everywhere, though sometimes not immediately recognizable, as in this Red...
Michelle Curry Wright is one of the faces regulars see when they visit the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art. She has worked at the gallery for six of the 25 years the must-visit art emporium has been in business. But what you see at the front desk is not all that you get.
by Lauren Metzger
Marketing & Exhibitions Director
Ah Haa School for the Arts
If you are anything like me, you go into every journey gung-ho on documenting the amazing and crazy experiences you will have; the sights, the smells, the people, the food...I last about 3 days of journaling my thoughts and observations in a small book before it becomes boring and confining. So when Laura Kudo, traveler extraordinare, proposed a travel journaling 2-night workshop at the Ah Haa School, I was first in line to sign up.
The gravitational center of the Telluride Musicfest, June 23 – July 3, is the founding trio, The Trio Solisti: cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach, pianist Jon Klibonoff, and the event's artistic director, violinist Maria Bachmann. The group is renowned worldwide for sterling technical chops and no-holds-barred passion and lyricism. They play as one with perfect complicity.
Blame it on the the Russians. Telluride Musicfest's Maria Bachmann came to the States when her parents were forced to flee their homeland in 1956 after the revolution in her home country, Hungary, failed and the Red Menace tightened its grip. Eva and Tibor Bachmann's grit and self-sacrifice in their adopted country paid off. Son Peter became a dean of math and science at a college outside Philadelphia. And Maria grew up to be a world-renowned violinist, hailed recently (May 25) by The Philadelphia Inquirer for her:
Moving on. With the Telluride Bluegrass Festival over, thoughts around town turn from KOTO beer to fine wine. This coming weekend is the 29th annual Telluride Wine Festival, June 24 – June 27.
Telluride Wine Festival: Yes, like looks, names can be deceiving, especially the names of entries on Telluride's summer cultural calendar. Festival names are clues as to what might be going on, but they definitely do not describe the whole ball of wax. For example, Mountainfilm in Telluride is not just about mountain living and adventure or films. The event leans heavily towards environmental and socio-political issues. The line-up for 2010 Telluride Bluegrass included the Drepung Monks, Leftover Salmon and Edward Sharpe. And for the past two years, the Telluride Wine Festival, June 24 – June 27, has beer, spirits, and music on its agenda.
Who'd a-thunk it? Telluride Inside... and Out and Donald Trump have something in common: we both own work by sculptor James Vilona. Only we don't own as much as The Donald, a major collector. (Two of Vilona's metal tables are on display in Trump Towers in New York and Chicago.)
Telluride Bluegrass Festival may be over, but the beat goes on at Telluride's five-star Wilkinson Public Library. Monday, June 21, 6 p.m. Back for an encore performance, Raina Rose. This young vivacious songwriter from Austin will be performing original songs that speak to life, love and the human condition.
Tuesday, June 22, 6 p.m.,The Telluride Music Lover’s Film Festival brings a feature and a short. Rachel Liebling, a student of Ken Burns, created a classic of Americana: “High Lonesome” the Story of Bluegrass (95 minutes). The music is perfectly synced with its images as in Bill Monroe's seamless walk from concert stage to his old front porch. Ralph Stanley singing "Man of Constant Sorrow". A young Alison Krauss at about the time she won the national fiddling contest. The film is not a complete compendium, a chronological survey, or a definitive look at Bill Monroe, or any of the individual artists, but it is an impassioned portrait of a true American musical art form.
Some traditions take on a life of their own: the Telluride Bluegrass Festival's run for position on the festival grounds known as the Tarp Run, is one of these. Daily, people line up hours ahead of time to get an early...
