Lecture and Performing Arts Brochure 2010-2011

LECTURE & Performing ARTS Series

PeRforming Arts series

Lecture Series Sun Valley Center for the Arts 2010/2011

2010 / 2011 SUN VALLEY CENTER for the ARTS

Lecture Series

Dear Friends, Welcome to the Sun Valley Center for the Arts 2010/2011 Performing Arts and Lecture Series! We are sure that you will share our enthusiasm for this exciting offering of entertaining and thought provoking presentations.

Ira Glass Maude Barlow

The Center continues to build on our previous season’s momentum of sold-out audiences and must see events. We don’t want you to miss any of our sterling offerings—and we’ve made it easy and affordable to see it all!

Neil deGrasse Tyson

You can be sure to catch each and every lecture and performance by being a member of The Center and subscribing to the entire series for either the Lecture Series or the Performing Arts Series. Series subscribers receive a discount off the single ticket price, and are assured a ticket to even the most popular presentations.

Ari Fleischer

Your membership and support make what we do at The Center possible.

Membership support helps to provide these amazing opportunities for our community—plus, as a member, you receive the inside scoop on what is happening in the world of music, books and ideas.

Don’t miss a single Center event—be sure to purchase your series tickets NOW to ensure that you’ll have a seat for one of the hottest tickets in town!

Thanks for your continued support. We look forward to seeing you at The Center’s 2010/2011 Performing Arts and Lecture Series.

Sincerely, Bill Ryberg Executive Director

Eric Schlosser

Saturday, September 25, 6:30pm Thursday, November 4, 6:30pm Wednesday, November 17, 6:30pm Thursday, February 24, 6:30pm Thursday, March 10, 6:30pm

The 2010-2011 lecture series is sponsored in part by the Castellano-Wood family.

Ira Glass

Maude Barlow as a part of the multidisciplinary project Water With support from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation

Saturday, September 25, 6:30pm The Community Campus Auditorium, Hailey $25 / $35 nonmembers

Thursday, November 4, 6:30pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum $25 / $35 nonmembers

Ira Glass began his career as an intern at National Public Radio’s Washington, D.C. headquarters in 1978. Today he is the host and producer of This American Life, a program that each week chooses a theme and puts together different kinds of stories on that theme. The show is heard on 500 radio stations and, most weeks, is the most popular podcast in America. Under Glass’s direction, This American Life has won the highest honors of broadcasting and journalistic excellence, including several Peabody and duPont-Columbia awards.

Maude Barlow is an international leader in what she has dubbed the “global water justice movement” and is the founder of the Blue Planet Project, which argues that water is a basic right and not a commodity. In 2008/2009, she served as senior advisor on water to the president of the United Nations General Assembly. Her books include Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water and the recently released Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. She has received honorary doctorates from four Canadian universities for her social justice work and is the recipient of numerous awards including a Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship and the 2005 Right Livelihood Award (known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”).

While Barlow is in the valley she will speak with high school students.

sponsor: Boise State Public Radio

sponsor: ann and philip puchner

Neil deGrasse Tyson as a part of the multidisciplinary project Cosmic

Eric Schlosser

Wednesday, November 17, 6:30pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum $25 / $35 nonmembers

Thursday, February 24, 6:30pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum $25 / $35 nonmembers

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and author of the New York Times bestselling book Death By Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries. He is the host of PBS’s NOVA scienceNOW, co-host of the radio show Star Talk, the most frequent guest on The Colbert Report (as of now, he’s appeared seven times), a regular contributor to Natural History, and recipient of NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal. His groundbreaking work has helped to encourage and popularize scientific discussions and research.

The bestselling author of Fast Food Nation and executive producer of the Oscar nominated Food, Inc. is an investigative journalist committed to exploring subjects ignored by the mainstream media. He has followed the harvest with migrant farm workers in California, spent time with meatpacking workers in Texas, and told the stories of marijuana growers and pornographers. Schlosser has now turned his gaze to the risks faced by every nation that chooses to possess nuclear weapons. His soon to be released book, Command and Control, offers a minute by minute account of an H-bomb accident that nearly caused a nuclear disaster while examining what he believes to be America’s growing susceptibility to a catastrophic event.

Ari Fleischer Thursday, Mar 10, 6:30pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum $25 / $35 nonmembers As the White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer was the primary spokesperson for President George W. Bush and delivered the White House briefings from 2001 to 2003. His years of working with the Bush administration have given him unique insight into the historic events of the time, including the Bush/Gore presidential recount, September 11, two wars and an anthrax attack. His book, Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House, details his experience in the White House and was a New York Times bestseller. Fleischer will speak about what it was like to be the public voice of the White House.

SERIES PRICING

$120 / $170 nonmembers Includes one ticket to each lecture in the series.

Editor’s Series Sponsor ticket $500 Includes: Preferred seating Special Reception before Ira Glass Luncheon for Editor’s Series sponsors on Thursday, March 17 The knowledge that you have helped sustain this exceptional series for the whole community! $250 tax-deductible contribution

sponsor: peter and jennifer roberts

Tickets may be purchased online at www.sunvalleycenter.org, or call or stop by The Center at the corner of 5th and Washington in Ketchum. 208.726.9491.

Tickets go on sale: September 7, 10am Series tickets to members only September 10, 10am Individual tickets to members only September 15, 10am All remaining series and individual tickets to members and nonmembers

Performing Arts Series Sam Lardner & Barcelona Crystal Monee Hall Raul Mid贸n On Ensemble

Friday, October 29, 6:30pm Friday, November 19, 6:30pm Friday, December 3, 6:30pm Friday, January 21, 6:30pm

Sweet Plantain

Friday, March 4, 6:30pm

De Temps Antan

Sunday, March 13, 6:30pm

The 2010-2011 performance series is sponsored in part by Barbara and Tod HamacheK

PeRforming Arts series

2010 / 2011 SUN VALLEY CENTER for the ARTS

Sam Lardner & Barcelona

Crystal Monee Hall

as part of the multidisciplinary project Water

Friday, October 29, 6:30pm NexStage Theatre, Ketchum $20 / $30 nonmembers

Friday, November 19, 6:30pm Sun Valley Opera House, Sun Valley $20 / $30 nonmembers

Sam Lardner’s music represents everything a cross-cultural artistic experience should be: people from different traditions meeting in a place where everyone shines brighter.

A long-time resident of Spain, Lardner has performed with his flamenco fusion band throughout Europe and the United States, where he is a regular at folk and world music festivals. Joining him on this tour are Spanish Top-40 artist Pedro Hermosilla, Spanish keyboard and synthesizer virtuoso Marcel Botella and American world music artist Annie Wenz. Lardner’s latest trips to the United States have included headline performances at the famous Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas as well as International Spotlight Artist performances at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in upstate New York.

Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, Crystal Monee Hall grew up singing in the church choir and watching her mother sing on Sundays. This influenced her to become involved in music, and her starring roles in musical theater in high school led to directing her college’s gospel choir, where she began playing piano and writing music. From there she went on to perform with Disney Entertainment and with the Tony Award winning musical Rent as the soloist on the song “Seasons of Love.” She is a not-to-be-missed new and unique talent.

Residency In conjunction with the multidisciplinary project Water, Sam Lardner will bring his Oceans are Talking project into local schools. Oceans are Talking is a musical call to action to get kids excited about saving our seas. It’s a way to teach kids and their families about the most critical issues facing the world’s oceans. This project is made possible by The Ocean Foundation in Washington, D.C., which will send a CD to every school child who will see the performance. Lardner will visit three local schools while here.

What can I say about Crystal Monee Hall? She smoothly combines the sounds of folk, gospel, jazz and blues. When I first heard [her song] “Stay,” I was moved beyond words.

I could feel her every desire. Crystal is a singer/songwriter to watch out for. Truly gifted and inspiring. —Michael McElroy, Grammy Nominated Musician

Raul Midón

On Ensemble With support from the Western States Arts Federation and the National Endowment for the Arts

Friday, December 3, 6:30pm Sun Valley Opera House, Sun Valley $20 / $30 nonmembers

Friday, January 21, 6:30pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum $20 / $30 nonmembers

New York-based vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Raul Midón has always experienced the world differently than most. Born prematurely in a rural hospital in New Mexico, he and his twin brother, Marco, were accidentally blinded as infants after spending time in an incubator without eye protection. Midón followed a musical path inspired by his father, a professional Argentine folkloric dancer. He studied jazz at the University of Miami and after graduating became a backup singer, working primarily in the Latin-pop world for such artists as Julio and Enrique Iglesias, Shakira, Ricky Martin and Alejandro Sanz. In 2002, Midón walked away from his lucrative work as a back-up singer to pursue a career as a solo artist. Since striking out on his own Midón has produced three solo albums and received accolades for his music’s heady fusion of old-school soul, Latin, jazz and timeless singer/songwriter folk-pop.

On Ensemble (pronounced “Ohn”) takes the ancient instruments of taiko into new realms.

Infusing the powerful rhythms of ensemble Japanese drumming with elements of hip-hop, rock and electronica, On Ensemble’s unique sound has been praised as “completely original and brilliantly conceived.” On Ensemble’s four members—Masato Baba, Kristofer Bergstrom, Shoji Kameda and Kelvin Underwood—are individually recognized as leading artists in their field and sought after as teachers, workshop leaders, composers and performers.

As On Ensemble they combine their study and deep appreciation of tradition with equally formative experiences as DJs, electronic music producers, jazz drummers and rock bassists to create a repertoire of ground-breaking music.

Residency While in the Wood River Valley, On Ensemble will present three interactive demonstrations that lead students through the history of Japanese drums, from the instruments’ ancient origins to modern musical uses. Each presentation explores percussion, Japanese culture and musical concepts, and culminates in students joining the artists to try the large drums. A fourth presentation will be to the entire Wood River High School in conjunction with Footlight Dance, whose director, Hilarie Neely, has choreographed a piece to perform with On Ensemble. The live performance/collaboration between the dancers and musicians promises to be an incredible experience.

Sweet Plantain

De Temps Antan

Friday, March 4, 6:30pm Sun Valley Opera House, Sun Valley $20 / $30 nonmembers

Sunday, March 13, 6:30pm Sun Valley Opera House, Sun Valley $20 / $30 nonmembers

Back for an encore performance in the Wood River Valley, last season’s audience favorite, Sweet Plantain, is a string quartet that specializes in genre-blurring, original compositions and arrangements as well as contemporary works by Latin American composers. Its unique style fuses Latin, classical, jazz and improvisational forms.

Since 2003, Éric Beaudry, André Brunet and Pierre-Luc Dupuis have been exploring and performing time-honored melodies from the stomping grounds of Quebec’s musical past.

Using fiddle, accordion, harmonica, guitar, bouzouki and a number of other instruments, our three virtuosos blend boundless energy with the unmistakable joie de vivre found only in traditional Quebec music. In fact, the only thing missing from this magnificent musical blend is you! So brush up on your French and prepare for an evening fantastique!

The group’s mission is to give voice to a contemporary, urban, Latino sound, and much of the group’s repertoire is rooted in improvisation. Sweet Plantain weaves improvisation into classical music by arranging existing pieces and writing original compositions that contain improvised sections. The group also makes use of extended percussive techniques; some of them original creations, to best achieve and showcase the rhythmic vitality characteristic of Latin music.

Residency Sweet Plantain was not just a hit last year in concert—the group made a profound impact on local students. We’ve never seen so many kids so fired up to discuss music with our visiting performers. This year, Sweet Plantain is sending music to area schools for students to practice before the band members come to work in the classroom. Students will work with the group and then be part of the evening’s live performance, giving our local students the very rare opportunity to perform with professional musicians in a concert setting.

SERIES PRICING

$115 / $175 nonmembers Includes one ticket to each performance in the series.

Critic’s Circle sponsor ticket $500 Includes: Preferred seating Luncheon for Critic’s Circle Series sponsors on Thursday, March 17 The knowledge that you have helped sustain this exceptional series for the whole community! $250 tax-deductible contribution

With help from the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Wood River High School senior John Crotty, will attend Miami International University of Art and Design.

“The Center’s support for John helps with more than just tuition—it helps him realize his dreams. We are fortunate to have such an organization in our community.”

—Robin and Michael Crotty, John’s parents

Nathan Kniffen has a passion for music and performance. A Wood River High School sophomore, he also has undeniable talent, and that’s why the Sun Valley Center for the Arts granted him a scholarship to further his study of guitar.

“Music makes me more focused in school and in all other parts of my life.

Studying and performing give me opportunities to grow that I couldn’t get in any other way.”

—Nathan Kniffen, scholarship recipient

Tickets may be purchased online at www.sunvalleycenter.org, or call or stop by The Center at the corner of 5th and Washington in Ketchum. 208.726.9491.

Tickets go on sale: September 7, 10am Series tickets to members only September 10, 10am Individual tickets to members only September 15, 10am All remaining series and individual tickets to members and nonmembers

When one of the goals as an educator is to make what teachers do in the classroom relevant to their students’ lives, teacher RYAN WATERFIELD turns to The Center’s lecture series.

“The Center’s lecture series is like a shot of adrenaline for my literature classes. To read someone like Michael Chabon or Henry Louis Gates Jr. or David Sedaris and then have the opportunity to take my classes to see these writers speak, to give my students the opportunity to be a part of the conversation with these writers—it’s an educator’s dream.”

—Ryan Waterfield, Community School teacher

Sun Valley Center for the Arts Post Office Box 656 Sun Valley, Idaho 83353

Sun Valley Center for the Arts Ketchum, 191 Fifth Street East Hailey, 314 Second Avenue South 208.726.9491 • www.sunvalleycenter.org

non-profit org. u.s. postage paid Boise, ID permit no. 679