A&E Agenda: Psychedelics, Allison Katz, and Sarah Jarosz
Psychedelic Symposium 2024, Friday and Saturday, Wheeler Opera House
On Friday, May 31, and Saturday, June 1, join Aspen Public Radio, Healing Advocacy Fund, and the Aspen Psychedelic Resource Center for the 2024 Aspen Psychedelic Symposium at the historic Wheeler Opera House in the heart of Aspen. This two-day gathering will showcase expert panels, groundbreaking research, and firsthand insights into the transformative world of psychedelic medicines. Explore tradition, science, and advocacy; connect with scientists, doctors, and luminaries; and delve into the future of psychedelics.
For information and tickets: aspenpublicradio.org
Artist Talk: Allison Katz on ‘In the House of the Trembling Eye,’ 5 p.m. on Saturday, Aspen Art Museum
Artist talk led by London-based artist Allison Katz about “In the House of the Trembling Eye,” a museum-wide exhibition staged by the artist coinciding with the institution’s 45th anniversary.
Organized in collaboration with the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, the show brings to the fore unexpected affinities among over 100 artworks and objects in varied styles from different epochs celebrating the inexhaustible capacity of painting to generate new conversations across time. For “In the House of the Trembling Eye,” she places works from personal art collections in and around Aspen in dialogue with ancient fresco fragments from Pompeii. It is the first exhibition in North America to unite contemporary art with these artifacts.
For over a decade, she has investigated how aesthetic practices link and absorb personal narrative, commodity culture, information systems, and art history. Her talk will explore her multifaceted approach to painting, curation, and the overlaps between the two practices.
This event is free and open to the public; RSVP is encouraged.
Sarah Jarosz, 7 p.m. on Sunday, The Arts Campus at Willits
Four-time GRAMMY winner Sarah Jarosz is touring in support of her new album, “Polaroid Lovers,” released back on Jan. 26 via Rounder Records. The album finds her backed by a decidedly more electric band, with her Texas lilt as clear and evocative as ever.
The seventh album from her finds the highly-decorated songwriter at the apex of change. A Texas native, she’s spent most of her adult life living in New York City; but shortly before writing the album, she left her adopted home to join her soon-to-be husband in Nashville, Tennessee. The geographic shake-up led to a sonic one as well for “Polaroid Lovers.”
For the first time in her career, she opened herself up to collaborators, leading to writing sessions with Daniel Tashian, Ruston Kelly, and Natalie Hemby. The creative re-organization of her writing process evolved to include a much richer and more electric sound in the studio, and being in Nashville meant access to a world of hot-shot players.
She tapped guitarist Rob McNelley (Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood), Tom Bukovac (Tom Petty, Vince Gill) on guitar and organ, her husband bassist Jeff Picker (Nickel Creek), and drummer Fred Eltringham (Sheryl Crow, Lucinda Williams) for the album recording. Tashian took the helm as producer and the whole album was laid down at the legendary Sound Emporium.
For tickets: tacaw.org/calendar/sarah-jarosz
The Heavy Heavy, 8 p.m. on Wednesday, June 5, Belly Up Aspen
The Heavy Heavy create the kind of unfettered rock-and-roll that warps time and place, immediately pulling the audience into a euphoric fugue state with its own sun-soaked atmosphere. Led by lifelong musicians Will Turner and Georgie Fuller, the Brighton, UK-based band began with a shared ambition of “making records that sound like our favorite records ever” and soon arrived at a reverb-drenched collision of psychedelia and blues, acid rock, and sunshine pop. As revealed on their gloriously hazy debut EP “Life and Life Only,” The Heavy Heavy breathe an incandescent new energy into sounds from decades ago, transcending eras with a hypnotic ease.
With their full-length debut due out in the next year, the band recently expanded their lineup to five members, allowing for an even more vast and bombastic sound now touched with heavenly four-part harmonies. A massively prolific outfit who’ve written and recorded hundreds of songs in the last two years alone, the band feels perpetually inspired by the pursuit of making music that provides a rarefied pleasure.
“The driving force behind all our songwriting is to feel good and to make other people feel good, too,” Fuller points out. And thanks to their uncanny grace as sonic alchemists, The Heavy Heavy ultimately perform a certain magic with their music: eliciting a sublime daze that goes far beyond pure escapism.
For tickets: bellyupaspen.com
Roaring Fork Valley ranching advocate talks wolf reintroduction
Reintroduction of wolves adds an extra layer of work for Western Slope ranchers, advocate says.
