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Travel light is an admonition that would serve anyone bound for another destination in this age of airline charges per bag, weight limits and X-ray machines in search of hidden nail files.
It served me well in years traveling for various journalistic enterprises -- take along enough but not too much clothing, including the right shoes, pens, notebooks, camera and film and a map, along with a sense of where to find hearty, inexpensive meals.
Now, I'm part of a TV crew, riding in a van packed full of video gear, tripods, microphones, lights, extra battery packs and an array of extension cords, reflectors, bounce boards and dimmers.
Oh, and two highly capable video crew members, videographer Steve Riggs and student grip Cooper Christensen.
We're off for points north and east. Watch for our reports in upcoming Arizona Week episodes.
July 11th 2011 at 13:45 —
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Ninety percent of Arizona's population is concentrated in cities, and most of that in the two big metro areas, Phoenix and Tucson.
But there's a lot going on among that other 10 percent and in the dozens of far-flung communities across the state. A crew from Arizona Week is heading out there this week to gather information for upcoming programs.
We hope to be surprised with what we find, but we also have some ideas that we'll try to bring home. Here's a short list of the ideas:
-- In the White Mountains, we will talk with businesspeople and the heads of business organizations about how the economy is doing in the aftermath of the Wallow Fire. How did the fire affect the summer tourism season? And how will the fire's after effects, which could linger for years, change the business landscape?
-- In northeastern Arizona, we hope to talk with officials of the Navajo Nation, as they build on economic enterprises, with casino gaming under way and plans to expand it. The nation also has formed a chamber of commerce to represent businesses and is looking at energy resource expansion, all aimed at lowering the high unemployment rate on the nation.
-- Along the Interstate 40/Route 66 corridor, we will talk with business officials about summer tourism and how the economy and gasoline prices have affected it. Is traffic down? Are people staying closer to home? How is the hospitality industry doing?
-- In Flagstaff, we will interview Mayor Sara Presler about the city budget, the economy and business in and around Flagstaff and other matters. How is the summer visitor season? What has Flagstaff done to keep up city services in the face of lower revenues? How are cuts at Northern Arizona University affecting the community?
There's more, but those are the key targets for now. Look for one of these topics to bubble to the surface in time for Friday's broadcast of Arizona Week.
July 11th 2011 at 9:00 —
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posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel
Composer, biographer and music essayist Jan Swafford, with whom I worked a little on a couple of his past visits to Tucson, has concocted a wonderful little guide to white he identifies as the three most prominent streams in contemporary art music: spectralism (a commonly used term), aesthetic brutalism (which he borrows from an aging architectural movement) and new niceness (which sounds and is rather condescending, but aptly describes the sort of music most people are going to want to hear, and with good reason). Here's the full article.
Classical Music,
July 11th 2011 at 6:46 —
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The only attempt to get an initiative on this fall's Tucson ballot has apparently failed.
City Clerk Roger Randolph said he turned away the group "Sensible Tucson" this morning when they attempted to file the signatures needed to get an initiative on the ballot. The group's initiative aimed to reduce penalties for marijuana possession and drug paraphernalia charges.
When representatives of the group showed up at the clerk's office with boxes of petitions, Randolph said he refused to accept them, because the initiative sought to change penalties defined in state law, instead of the city code. Only statewide initiatives can attempt to change state law. City initiatives must apply to city code. The penalties for marijuana possession in Tucson are the penalties set in state law, Randolph said.
When the group showed up to turn in the petitions, Randolph handed them a letter explaining why he turned them away.
"The measure set forth in the Petition seeks to amend the Arizona Revised Statutes, which cannot be accomplished through a municipal initiative petition," Randolph said in the letter. "I will not accept or take custody of City of Tucson Initiative Petition 2011-I003, because it does not address legislation that is subject to the local initiative process."
Tucson
election,
July 7th 2011 at 15:58 —
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The monsoon rains of the last few days didn't come soon enough to keep nearly 1 million acres of forest and grassland, along with dozens of homes and businesses, from burning in Arizona.
Now comes the No. 1 question: Can we stop it from happening again?
Friday's Arizona Week will explore the issue, featuring interviews with two state politicians and a forest ranger to sort out some of the rhetoric over conflicting business and environmental interests.
State Rep. Brenda Barton, R-Safford, in whose district the Wallow Fire burned for more than a month to become the state's largest wildfire ever, held a hearing this week in Phoenix to bring various interest groups together.
Barton, in an interview for Arizona Week, said she wants business interests to take a role, specifically timbering and cattle ranching.
"We had almost a million acres burned within the last couple of months. In my opinion, that's really unacceptable. If you're not going to allow it to be harvested but you allow it to be burned, I don't understand that methodology," Barton said.
She said private timbering businesses should be allowed in to help with thinning, the incentive for them being they keep and market what they cull.
Cattle grazing also ought to be allowed on federal forest lands, Barton said, because it can be done scientifically, not like in the 19th century when cattle denuded the grasslands.
More of her interview on Friday's program, plus the counterpoint from Arizona Rep. Bruce Wheeler, D-Tucson, and a conversation with a ranger from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, site of the W538,000-acre Wallow Fire.
July 7th 2011 at 15:15 —
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posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel
This quarter, KUAT-FM is broadcasting concerts from the Spoleto Festival on Thursday nights. If that's not enough first-rate chamber music for you, I suggest you spend a week or two this summer attending the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. It opens Sunday, July 17 and continues with multiple concerts each week through August 21. You can peruse the full schedule here. Fortunately, the organizers have abandoned their ill-considered efforts to present jazz and bluegrass concerts as part of the festival; I have nothing against those music forms, but their inclusion wasn't relevant to the festival's core mission of presenting classical chamber music. It was cheap tokenism that didn't draw any crossover audience, and hardly served the interests of bluegrass and jazz, which can be heard in their own festivals (in fact, there's a short bluegrass festival in Santa Fe every August).
Back in my print journalism days, I'd go to Santa Fe during the first week of August, because that's when I could cover all five works presented by Santa Fe Opera in a concentrated period, and squeeze in two or three chamber concerts, too. If you're interested, here's the August opera calendar, from which you can navigate to other months. And here for your edification is the press release I just received from the chamber festival:
Opening Week of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s 39th Season
Includes Performances by Artist-in-Residence Dawn Upshaw, the Shanghai Quartet and pianists Kuok-Wai Lio and Inon Barnatan
The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival kicks off its 2011 summer season at St. Francis Auditorium in the New Mexico Museum of Art on Sunday, July 17th.
In the opening week’s first two evening concerts (Sunday, July 17th and Monday, July 18th), the world-renowned Shanghai Quartet perform a work written for them in 2008 in honor of the Quartet’s 25th anniversary and the 75th anniversary of its composer, Kryzstof Penderecki. Well-known to film buffs for his mood-setting, hair-raising compositions (Penderecki’s works have been adapted for soundtracks including The Shining, The Exorcist, David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, and more), String Quartet No. 3, “Leaves from an Unwritten Diary” begins with what cellist Nicholas Tzavaras described in a program note for the 2009 American premiere as “an almost grave introduction with a dark and screaming melody by the viola.” The Quartet also performs Dvorak’s expressive masterwork Piano Quintet in A, Op. 81 with pianist Kuok-Wai Lio.
Mr. Lio, a popular artist with Festival audiences over the last few years, performs Janacek’s In the Mists, a collection of four works for solo piano with a sensitive, introspective air as part of his noon solo recital on Tuesday, July 19th. Additional early afternoon concerts during the opening week include a Youth Concert featuring the Shanghai Quartet on Sunday, July 17th at 1:30 pm, and a noon concert on Thursday, July 21st that includes Schumann’s moving Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 63 played by violinist Harvey de Souza, cellist Ronald Thomas, and Mr. Lio.
Mid-week, the Festival presents the first of three concerts in its Albuquerque Series at the Albuquerque Academy’s Simms Auditorium (Wednesday, July 20th). The program, which repeats in Santa Fe on Thursday, July 21st, includes Schubert’s Piano Sonata, D. 958 performed by internationally acclaimed pianist Inon Barnatan, Poulenc’s sparkling Trio for Oboe, Bassoon & Piano performed by oboist Allan Vogel, bassoonist Stefanie Przyblska and Mr. Barnatan, and Spohr’s wonderful Double Quartet in D Minor, Op. 65 performed by violinists Jennifer Gilbert and Harvey de Souza, violist CarlaMaria Rodrigues, cellist Ronald Thomas and the Shanghai Quartet.
The week concludes Saturday, July 23rd, with an all-Bach concert featuring the first of five festival performances by World-famous soprano Dawn Upshaw, the Festival’s 2011 Artist-in-Residence. The celebrated soprano will sing Cantata No. 199, “Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut” (“My Heart Swims in Blood”), BWV 199, with oboist Allen Vogel, violinists L.P. How and Kathleen Brauer, violist CarlaMaria Rodrigues, cellist Ronald Thomas, bass player Marji Danilow, and harpsichordist Kathleen McIntosh. Also on the concert is British violinist Daniel Hope in Bach’s beautiful Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, BWV 1041.
The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival continues its role as a noteworthy contributor to the contemporary chamber music repertoire with the addition of three new co-commissions this season by internationally acclaimed composers Christopher Rouse (String Quartet No. 3, July 28th & 29th), Marc-Andre Dalbavie (Piano Quartet, August 10th, 11th & 12th) and Sean Shepherd (Quartet for Oboe & Strings, August 11th & 12th; world premiere). In conjunction with the performances, the Festival presents pre-concert talks with all three composers open to the public. Through its American Composer Residency program, this summer the Festival also offers private master classes with Mr. Rouse and Mr. Shepherd to area conservatory/college music students. The American Composer Residency program is made possible with a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts’ American Masterpieces: Chamber Music initiative.
For more information on the Festival concerts and to purchase tickets, please call 505-982-1890 or visit the website at www.SantaFeChamberMusic.com. To purchase tickets in-person, the Festival Ticket Office is located in the lobby of the New Mexico Museum of Art at 107 West Palace Avenue and is open daily from 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM.
Classical Music,
July 6th 2011 at 8:51 —
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