Events

[click to listen to Sally Strand on her art]

Strand_Awake200808_CC_LG Sally Strand is one of a number of high profile pastel artists in the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art's stable, which also includes Bruce Gomez, Doug Dawson, Carole Katchen, Deborah Bays, Albert Handell, and Ramon Kelly.


Brandishing her colored sticks, Strand teases the magic out of everyday objects and ordinary places/situations – train stations, restaurants, pears, a bowl of flowers, eggs, an unmade bed. The quotidian then becomes a placeholder for Strand's real subject: catching the light as it changes from moment to moment. Although her work is representational, Strand is anything but a strict realist. Look closely at her color choices: her palette is there to create a mood rather than depict what is actually in front of our eyes. In a very real sense, Strand helps her viewer see rather than simply look. Strand once told Telluride Inside...and Out: "Success to me is when you can take an ordinary head of lettuce and cause someone to give it a second glance.”
Photo_all7 For two years running, the man who is arguably America's greatest living composer of classical music was artist-in-residence for the Telluride Musicfest. During that time Philip Glass was pretty busy doing what he does. He performed all over the world, wrote two new operas and several more film scores. One of the classical pieces Glass agreed to write at the time was commissioned through the Meet the Composer program by Martin Murray as a special birthday gift for his wife, Lucy Miller Murray. Mrs. Murray was celebrating her 70th birthday and 27 years as the founding director of Market Square Concerts. Glass's "Sonata for Violin and Piano," premiered in Harrisburg, PA, in February and got raves. Maria Bachmann of the Trio Solisti, artistic director of the Telluride Musicfest, was the violinist.

The devil is definitely in the details. Monday, December 7, 6 p.m., The Telluride Advocacy Coalition in collaboration with The Wilkinson Public LIbrary presents an epic documentary by filmmaker James Kleinert: "Horses of Disappointment Valley." Join Kleinert to explore the plight of America’s wild...


Follow the Yellow Brick Road to the historic Sheridan Opera House, where the Sheridan Arts Foundation's Young People's Theater presents "The Wizard of Oz," this weekend, December 4 – December 6, 6 p.m. nightly.

Director Jen Julia's Telluride production is based on the classic MGM musical "The Wizard of Oz," and features 33 locals, grades 6 – 8.


Everything old is new again. Turns out the Telluride Artisans Guild (TAG) is right in step with the times. According to The New York Times, (Home section, 11/26): "The human touch rules this year."  TAG, under the auspices of the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, hosts its annual holiday bazaar featuring homegrown work by popular regional artists. Over 30 booths are set up for irritainment-free shopping in the Telluride High School cafeteria. The event takes place Friday, December 4, 5 –8 p.m., Saturday, December 5, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., and Sunday, December 6,11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

The TAG bazaar, now close to 40 years old, offers one of the best places around to find gifts more from the heart than from the wallet. Clint's iMovie offers a sneak peak at the wide variety of items for sale.

The following is a list of participating artists and craftspeople.

You may have seen them last Fall on Letterman, but if you missed the show at Telluride's Sheridan Opera House on December 2 with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, you missed one hell of a show. And right there in the front...

Wiz of Oz Telluride's Sheridan Arts Foundation's Young People's Theater begins its 11th season with director Jen Julia's adaptation of the MGM classic (1939) "The Wizard of Oz," one of the most popular musicals of all time.

"Everyone can identify with Dorothy, the bewildered yet brave farm girl, on her journey through Oz," explained Jen.  "What's more, the songs are catchy, and the lyrics, almost tongue twisters, are extremely clever."

The production, performed by 33 students, grades 6, 7, and 8, includes all the usual suspects: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," "If I Only Had a Brain," "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead," "We’re  Off to See the Wizard." But in keeping with the YPT tradition Julia established, the show has some non-traditional elements, including a few songs from the musical, "The Wiz," to spice up the action.

2__#$!@%!#__unknown The Telluride AIDS Benefit starts selling tickets for its Gala Fashion Show Noel Night, tomorrow, December 2, 232 West Colorado Avenue, (TREC Offices), 5 – 8 p.m., just one day after World AIDS Day and 26 years after the the "virus" was announced in France.  Swine Flu may be the cause celebre du jour, but sadly, HIV/AIDS is still with us, even if the plague is no longer grabbing headlines. (The most recent AIDS-related headlines were around a new vaccine that proved to be a bust.)

World AIDS Day, which opened for business in December 1988, is about raising money, increasing awareness, fighting prejudice, and improving education, which is more or less the mission of the Telluride AIDS Benefit, which specifically states their goal is "to fight HIV/AIDS by heightening global and local awareness, as well as generating financial support for educational programs and client care, particularly in Western Colorado."



[click "Play" to hear Alex Ebert's conversation with Susan]   

Noel Nite in Telluride, December 2,  is the official launch of the holiday season in town. The idea: Shop til you drop, but put some in storage. Following the feeding frenzy, guaranteed you'll be shaking what your mommy and daddy gave you and then some, when Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros performs at the historic Sheridan Opera House.

(Telluride Inside... and Out restating the point about Telluride being at the epicenter of the world map because the examples are so robust.)

Christo & Jean-Claude In May 2007, the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art held a show of the work of the world's first wrapper, the artist Christo, and his wife and partner-in-crime Jean-Claude, just two years after the couple famously created the Central Park installation known as ''The Gates." That project  involving thousands of saffron drapes was credited with injecting about $254 million into New York's economy. (Christo, how would you feel about wrapping Ajax today?)

Sadly, Jean-Claude died Wednesday, November 18, from complications of a brain aneurysm. For details, go to www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/11/19/us/AP-US-Obit-Jeanne-Claude.html.