The Lively Arts (redux)

photos by David Spira Music is for people and auditoriums are sacred temples where music and magic happen and time is dismissed, according to Nacho Arimany, percussionist with the Americano Trio. The audience on a snowy night, March 11th, in Beaver Creek, Colorado was treated to an evening of Americana by a very Spanish trio:…

Gates Hall, on Wednesday night March 6th, was filled with tongue trilling, drumming, and strumming from a buzuq (a long -necked fretted lute), an oud (lutelike with a bent neck) and a qanun (a string instrument like a zither). Two old world music groups collaborated for a theatrical presentation that celebrated the tradition of music…

Gilpin Street House Concerts presented an intimate musical conversation with David Amram who was in Denver for the annual Neal Cassaday Birthday Bash at the Mercury Cafe after a January 28th conducting date at Carnegie Hall.  He was Bernstein’s choice for the first composer in residence with the New York Philharmonic, is a preeminent French…

Bring your sweet tooth to the historic Baur’s building, 1512 Curtis Street, on February 17th at 6:00 pm. The Colorado Symphony presents CSO concertmaster Yumi Hwang-Williams and pianist Sara Parkinson with a promise of musical BonBons on Dazzle’s “Chandelier Stage.” The first set will feature American composers David Amram and John Novacek. Yumi finds playing…

Elio Villafranca Tune into the Grammys on February 10th. Elio Villafranca’s monumental album Cinqué is nominated for the Best Latin Jazz album. Cinqué, per Villafranca, “showcases the cultural diversity of the five  Caribbean islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic  and Jamaica.” It weaves African traditions “into the fabric of each of these…

On Tuesday night at Gates Hall at the Newman Center for Performing Arts there was a double sighting.  Robert Schumann at the keyboard and Robert Schumann singing the poetry of Heinrich Heine. Internationally known pianist Paul Lewis and the acclaimed tenor Mark Padmore presented an evening of art song for the Friends of Chamber Music…

From Neel to Casteel, a Visual Rhyme Elizabeth Sweeney Born in Denver five years after the painter Alice Neel’s death in 1984, Jordan Casteel follows Neel’s tradition of painting real people to show “what the world has done to them and their retaliation.” (Alice Neel)  Casteel’s solo exhibition, Returning the Gaze, opened on February 2,…